You can read the story here on NPR:  http://kmxtnews2012.wordpress.com/2013/11/29/family-hopes-to-save-30-year-homestead/

Tom Malmberg dedicated his life to living in the remote bush of Kodiak Island, Alaska.  In 1983, after he had managed to scrape enough money together, he purchased 10 acres of land on a remote part of Kodiak Island, loaded his small shack atop a raft, and towed it to his land.  There he built on to the house, reclaiming pieces of the property that were being swept away by the wind and tides. He and his wife raised their six children there in a subsistence lifestyle, with no electricity and no running water while Tom commercial fished and worked in a cannery. The family paid taxes on the improvements to the Borough, who also believed that the structures were on the family's own land.  Afognak Native Corporation Shareholders would often stop in for coffee and to chat.

Thirty years later the Afognak Native Corporation discovered that the homestead was on less than a fifth of an acre of land owned by the Corporation - land that would likely have been eaten away by tidal action if the house had not been built.   Although Tom offered to exchange several acres of timbered property for the small amount of land on which  his home sat, the Corporation refused.  The Corporation also refused to sell the land to Tom.   Instead, the Corporation sued  Tom and his wife for the costs of removal and damages.  The costs to remove thirty years of history from such a remote place was too much for the family to afford (over $80,000) and so the Malmberg family sadly settled with the Afognak Native Corporation.  Now the Corporation will dispose of the family homestead and all of their belongings, most likely by burning it down.  It is Tom and his wife's only home. 

https://www.facebook.com/#!/savethemalmberghomestead