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Sitka Tribal Council Chairman Woody Widmark in a letter to Haida Chairman Sidney Edenshaw offered to help find alternate lands closer to Haida Corp.'s homeland, 150 miles south of Sitka.

"It is too late in extended effort," Edenshaw responded by letter on Friday. "And it is too late in financial outlay."

The Hydaburg-based Native corporation first announced in 1996 that it had selected U.S. Forest Service land in a group of islands north of Sitka, and also a tract near Silver Point south of Sitka.

The corporation is allowed to select land under the authority of the Haida Land Exchange Act of 1986. The act was passed by Congress to correct inequalities in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.

The Sitka Tribe of Alaska and the city have objected to the selections, citing their importance to recreation and subsistence, as well as their proximity to important Tlingit cultural sites.

The tribal council on Sept. 13 asked the Haida Corp. to take another look at lands in the Prince of Wales Island area. The council also offered to extend the deadline for making the land selection.

Edenshaw said Haida Corp. had been frustrated repeatedly over a six-year period in its attempts to select land, but was able finally to find land agreeable to the U.S. Forest Service in the Sitka area.

"Our view is that it is simply far too late in the land selection process for anyone seeking legislative changes," Edenshaw wrote in his letter.