Giyah Boat Company

Native Conservancy was established in 2003 to empower Alaska Native Peoples to permanently protect and preserve endangered habitats on their ancestral homelands. Their vision is to create resilient futures for Indigenous peoples by preserving culture and protecting habitat, restoring, and repatriating ancestral homelands, traditional food sources and subsistence practices to revitalize Native culture, habitat, health and spirituality.  To fulfill this vision, Native Conservancy secures Native lands in conservation trusts to strengthen their inherent rights of sovereignty, subsistence and spirituality. Native Conservancy also restores Alaska Native ecosystems for coastal communities. 

Native Conservancy saw the need to build resilient and affordable boats to sell and/or lease to Tribal kelp farmers that are part of the emerging kelp industry in Alaska.  In response, Native Conservancy created the Giyah Boat Company. Giyah will design and build high speed aluminum Landing Craft Marine (LCM) vessels known for their speed and versatility as well as for multi-purpose uses, allowing the boats to be used through all seasons, whether for kelp or for fish. This business addresses the need for safe, reliable and appropriate vessels for Indigenous mariculture and research in Alaska, and will provide a fleet that Indigenous kelp farmers and fishers can reliably purchase or lease to utilize in their operations. This is a great opportunity for Alaska’s Indigenous kelp farmers and fishers to implement and lead a resilient, self-determined and conservation-minded mariculture industry on their ancestral waters, preserving the old ways.

Since the Giyah Boat Company has come into our waterway, we have been providing power building to remove barriers that would have prevented the company from accessing our lending capital and getting off the ground. The property that they wanted to purchase needed first an appraisal and second a Phase I & II Environmental Site Assessments to protect our future borrowers from potential problems down the road. Also, we will be supporting one of the welders on the team to receive his AutoCAD Certification.  With his AutoCAD Certification, he will train the rest of the team. Future power building may be needed, and as we uncover these opportunities for growth, we will address them.