48
Opinion of the Court
Statehood Act, the Master concluded that coastal submerged lands within the Range passed to Alaska upon its admission to the Union. Because real property used for conservation of wildlife, but not set apart as a wildlife refuge or reservation, would have been transferred to Alaska, the Master's approach arguably calls into question federal ownership of uplands as well as submerged lands within the Range. See infra, at 60-61.
Alaska had argued in the alternative that, even if the application was effective to prevent submerged lands within the Range from passing to Alaska at statehood, the boundaries of the Range did not embrace certain submerged lands between the mainland and the barrier islands along Alaska's northeastern coast. The Master's recommendation in Alaska's favor on the effect of the application, if accepted, would have made irrelevant the dispute concerning the boundaries of the Range. The Master nevertheless addressed Alaska's alternative argument and resolved the boundary dispute in the United States' favor. Report 478-495. The Master also considered the effect of Montana and Utah Div. of State Lands on Alaska's ownership of submerged lands within the Range. In supplemental briefing submitted after we decided those cases, Alaska argued that the 1957 application reflected no clear intent to include submerged lands within the Range. Even if the application embraced submerged lands, Alaska asserted, the United States had identified no evidence that Congress intended to defeat Alaska's title to those lands. Relying principally on a statement of justification attached to the 1957 application, the Master found a clear intent to include submerged lands within the Range. That statement of justification described the seacoast as "provid[ing] habitat for polar bears, Arctic foxes, seals, and whales," Alaska Exh. 16 (Memorandum from the Director of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife to the Bureau of Land Management, Nov. 7, 1957, p. 2); the Master reasoned that the drafters of the application "[could] not have thought
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