A prized piece of land around Portage Lake in Northern Afognak Island recently came available on the private market for $7.4 million.

Native Urban Corporation Natives of Kodiak Inc. (NOK) decided last month to list the nearly 2,000 acre parcel of “trophy” property after not being able to agree to a price in three years of conversations with conservation groups including the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS) Trustee Council, San Francisco-based American Land Conservancy (ALC) and Montana-based Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF).

The conservation groups had hoped to purchase the land for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. In 2006, the AML and RMEF first approached NOK and entered an option sale agreement. The agreement expired Dec. 31 2009, freeing NOK to consider a private sale again.

On Jan. 26, NOK listed the property on Cabela’s Trophy Properties, a listing services operated by the outdoor gear retailer of the same name.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the property did not appear on Cabela’s online listing service. But Associate Broker Art Swisher from Coastal Realty in Homer confirmed the listing and asking price of the property.

The listing does not close the door to conservation for the property.

In a Jan. 26 letter to the EVOS Trustee Council, NOK president and CEO Anthony Drabek said the corporation was reluctant to list the property. He said the corporation would prefer to conserve the land, but had to consider allowing private development as the most profitable choice for the corporation’s 800 shareholders.

“We remain open to the possibility of conservation of this land,” he said.

Earlier conservation deals broke down over inconsistent assessments of the land’s value. Depending on who you ask, the property is worth $3.45 million or $7.49 million.

The initial appraisal requested by the EVOS Trustee Council found the property to be worth $3.45 million. NOK ordered two subsequent appraisals. The first appraisal, by Integrated Realty Resources, valued the property at $4.54 million. A second appraisal, by Greenfield Advisors, returned the $7.49 million figure, even with a calculated discount for the state of the economy.

Drabek outlined some of the reasons for the significantly higher second appraisal value in Nov. 12, 2009, letter to the EVOS Trustee Council.

According to the second NOK appraisal he said, the property is “so unique and special that it commands a national market.”

The parcel’s advantages include good floatplane access, spawning streams for four salmon species and habitat for Kodiak bear and Roosevelt elk. The land also has “well established” archaeological value Drabek said.

The parcel has strategic value because it links access to more than 180,000 acres of public lands, including state park, National Wildlife Refuge and Alaska Department of Natural Resources lands.

Drabek also said the land should be more valuable because it does not have public access restrictions like other Native corporation land EVOS has purchased in the past.

The Portage Lake parcel was directly conveyed to NOK from the 1973 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and not by way of the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

The negotiations for Portage Lake follow a successful July 2009 land deal in Afognak that closed some 4,000 acres to development. The July 2009 transaction also involved the EVOS Trustee Council, ALC, RMEF and Native corporations NOK, Shuyak, Uganik and Afognak Joint Venture.

Habitat restoration has been a major goal of the Exxon Valdez since its establishment. The Trustee Council has allocated more than $300 million to habitat restoration –– some 60 percent of available settlement funds.