 In 1987 the Gwich'in tribal council tried to tax a non-native contractor building a school here, saying the council had the right as the government of tribal land.The case went to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, which ruled in 1996 "that the natives had the right to tax businesses on their land, about the size of Delaware, because it qualified as Indian Country, much like the reservations in the lower 48 states.