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In James McGowan's letter to the editor on May 29, 2009, he said he spent 10 summers in Hobart Bay through the mid-'80s, and that a quick flight there would reveal that "it now looks as though a bomb has gone off over it." I'm not sure what Hobart Bay McGowan is referring to, because the Hobart Bay I'm very familiar with is still full of fish and wildlife living in and enjoying the area. The logged over areas are now covered with extremely healthy new growth, with new spruce and hemlock 20 to 30 feet tall. The roads are hidden in this new growth but the views from those roads reveals scenery virtually unmatched anywhere in Southeast.

It is this Hobart Bay that our investment partners saw and appreciated enough to start planning for a development that was projected to exceed $200 million, and which would provide needed jobs for as many as 400 people. When the $50 head tax was approved, the chairman and CEO of one of the cruise lines stated to his board: "Alaska has sent us a message and the message is Alaska doesn't want us." Within a few months the lease was canceled and the development was indefinitely delayed. This, after spending over 2 million on planning and design of what was to be billed as "Wilderness Alaska."

And wilderness it is. On my last trip just last week, we saw wildlife of several types up close and personal. In season, the streams are full of salmon - and bears that feed on them. It is the wild Alaska that most tourists expect to see when they book a cruise to Alaska. What they get instead are days spent in various ports, and nights cruising from one port to the other.

McGowan spent his summers in Hobart Bay "mid-'70s to mid-'80s." That was when the area was being logged, and one can presume he was part of the logging effort, working summers and then off to school in the fall. Now he's a lawyer and presumes to tell Juneau Natives what to do or not do. Admittedly, clear-cut areas are extremely unattractive, but Hobart Bay's regrowth has been nothing short of phenomenal, displaying its own brand of beauty.

Alaska Natives were granted a small fraction of the lands they once owned. From that small fraction, benefits to shareholders were expected. Benefits which could only come from development of those lands, and the only development available at that time was logging. Our aim was to try to provide benefits in the form of jobs and dividends so that our shareholders could do like McGowan did - have a job that would pay for school, so better jobs could be had, to pay for a house and to raise a family.

These are goals that remain at the top of our list. Goals that can yet be attained with development of Hobart Bay as a tourist wilderness destination. Goals that need no assistance from a non-Native environmentalist lawyer from Sitka who has no knowledge about, or connection with, Juneau's Native people.

• Bob Martin is vice president of Goldbelt and a Goldbelt shareholder. He lives in Juneau.