Inupiat Eskimos
Given the phenomenal national press coverage focused on the Gwich’in Indian ANWR position, the uninformed can only assume they live at ground zero on ANWR’s coastal plain and that their lives and cultures would be destroyed by any development there. To the contrary, the coastal plain is home only to the Inupiat Eskimos of the City of Kaktovik, population 260, who support development.
George Tagarook, Kaktovik’s vice-mayor since October 2001, eloquently explains how this issue has been misrepresented in his article entitled ANWR Reality Lies Far North of Gwich’in. In Kaktovik, a community survey (January 2000) showed78% of residents supported ANWR development. For background, a history of the coastal plain is given in Alaskan Natives Support Development, and Tara MacLean Sweeney explains how the Inupiats’ views have been ignored in the ANWR debate. Ben Nageak, in a presentation to the National Association of Counties, describes the North Slope’s geography, its people, economy, culture, and how the people have interacted with the oil industry.
ANWR REALITY LIES FAR NORTH OF GWICH’IN
by GEORGE TAGAROOK
George Tagarook is vice-mayor of the City of Kaktovik, located on the coastal plain of what is now called the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Here in Kaktovik, home of the only people native to the Arctic coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), we read and listen with horror to the words of opponents about potential oil development here. It is marvelous rhetoric, a stunning incursion of alien perspectives and language into a world never before visited by such seemingly noble sentiments.
The problem with the picture is that reality lies someplace else. One such reality is that real Native people do not intrude into the homelands of other Native people. In the old days it was a matter of life and death. Today that respect remains an honored tradition throughout Alaska. And so when we hear about Native people from someplace else with plans for our homelands, we know we are not hearing real native voices. We know someone else from some other place wrote the language.
When Sarah James, a Gwich’in spokesperson now using that alien language, signed the lease agreement years ago for oil and gas exploration within the Gwich'in homelands, we did not think to question the wisdom of her decision. It was their homelands to do with as they pleased. When they speak of their sacred lands, the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which just happen to be our homelands and far removed from theirs, we know we are hearing alien words spoken for somebody else. For no Gwich'in would ever make that incredible mistake. The Gwich’in do not live in or near the coastal plain or anywhere in the 19.6 million-acre refuge, but many Americans believe otherwise.
The ANWR issue has nothing to do with environmental protection or with caribou. It is about land; it is about imperialism, about taking the lands and waters of someone else and making them your own. Native people don't do that. We are tightly attached to our own land and have no interest in taking land from other people. That is the meaning of being Native, of being so much a part of our homelands that other places are of little interest to us.
For the record, the Porcupine Caribou Herd calved again this year in Canada among the oil rigs Ottawa has set up there in what they like to call a national park. For the record the herd is being devastated by hunters along the Dempster Highway under the watchful eye of the Canadian Wildlife Service. National environmental groups, their Gwich’in allies and members of the media have created a false reality of this issue, and those of us with any real knowledge of the coastal plain are left stunned, confused and defensive. We stand to be hopelessly defeated by ruthless liars.
The invasion of our homelands began when some perhaps well-meaning but surely ill-informed ladies in Fairbanks persuaded Washington to declare our homelands a wildlife range. That was long before the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, before there was any action to resolve the true ownership of these lands. It was while we remained the sole owners of our lands. And we were not even consulted, not even made aware that people from someplace else had moved in, at least on some paper in some distant place.
Then things got worse. Step by insidious step, outsiders pushed us aside, set up rules that made it harder and harder for us to use our lands and waters. The worst thing they have done is to declare part of our homelands wilderness. Not only is that a massive insult to say that places where we are have no people, as if we do not even exist, but also the management rules for such places make it impossible for us to continue to use them. Now they want the entire coastal plain made wilderness. That is code for finally removing us from our homelands. That is code for genocide.
We passionately oppose attempts to expand wilderness designations to our remaining homelands. We suffer not from pollution or harm brought here by the oil and gas industry. It has so far been one of the least disruptive and most positive forces ever to invade Alaska’s Arctic shores. We suffer from the pollution of lies spread far and wide to advance an agenda we do not understand, and from the disrespect shown our positive, progressive people.
City of Kaktovik ANWR Survey
Alaskan Natives Support Development
Archeology
has revealed that man has been an occupant of the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge for at least 11,000 years, but the history of modern man's existence
there, dates to the early 1890's and 1900's. What is now the village of
Kaktovik, the only village within ANWR, located on Barter island on the
northern edge of the Coastal Plain, used to serve as an important stop
for commercial whalers. The island was a key trading point and residents
of the region came to rely on the ability to obtain trade goods there.
In 1923, Tom Gordon established a fur trading post for the H.B. Liebes
Company of San Francisco, which became the permanent settlement, the village
of Kaktovik. Its people, the Inupiats, were a semi-nomadic people, moving
from place to place depending on the availability of fish, fur, game and
marine mammals. With the cessation of whaling for bowheads, in about 1910,
the Inupiat experienced the first in a series of boom and bust cycles.
In the 1890's, semi-domesticated reindeer, the same species as caribou, were brought to western Alaska from Siberia in order to establish an industry that would provide a more stable economy and would insure against food shortages. In the early 1920's, under the auspices of the Alaska Reindeer Service Local superintendent at Barrow, several herds of reindeer were established in the ANWR area. Herders followed their reindeer from the foothills in the winter months to grazing lands near the Beaufort Sea coast during the summer, returning each fall to the foothills. Severe winters during 1936 and 1937 resulted in the loss of most of the deer to starvation. Others were killed by people for food and clothing. A Bureau of Indian Affairs survey taken during the spring of 1936 indicated that local residents were destitute and near starvation. In an effort to re-establish the reindeer herds and insure against further food shortages a herd of 3,000 reindeer was driven from Barrow to the Barter Island area in late 1937. As the herd approached Barter island, it turned back toward its home range in Barrow, taking most of the remaining local reindeer with it. The people were so discouraged that they killed the few animals that remained, ending the era of reindeer herding in ANWR.
Beginning in the 1920's, fur trapping was a good source of cash income, replacing caribou as a trade good. Unfortunately the price of fox fur dropped in the late 1930's, and trading posts along the coast closed one by one. The post at Barter Island closed following Gordon's death in 1938. By 1943 all of the trading posts in the region had been closed and people had to go to Canada to trade. Eventually, several families moved to Canada. Hard times continued in the region until 1945 when the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey began mapping the Beaufort Sea Coastline, bringing some employment to the region.
Although World War II had little effect on the region, the installation of the Distant Early Warning (DEW line) system on the island during the 1940's displaced many local residents. In 1947 the U.S. Air Force constructed a runway and hangar on the historic village site, forcing residents to relocate. In 1951, the entire area around Kaktovik was made a military reserve and some people were required to move again. The village was moved once more in 1964, but this time residents received title to their village site. Jobs resulting from government activities in the region and the subsequent establishment of a school caused the Barter island population to increase from less than 50 people in 1950 to approximately 150 in 1953 when several families returned from Canada.
Today, Kaktovik is home to 210 residents, most of whom are Inupiat Eskimos whose families have lived in the region for centuries. They live a partly subsistence lifestyle combined with the changes to their culture brought on by Western civilization in order to sustain a stable economy in the region.
Inupiat Views Ignored in ANWR Debate
By TARA MacLEAN SWEENEY
Anchorage Times Op-Ed
Now
that the ANWR debate rises to the national forefront again, I say, "Just
drill it." As an Inupiat from the Arctic Slope I think it's time people
understand there is another side to the sensationalized story told by the
Gwich'in Steering Committee and ADN reporter David Whitney.
Mr. Whitney fails miserably to report all the facts when he covers the ANWR issue, especially in his May 24 article titled, "Gwich'in: Shield Plain for Good."
First, he carefully eludes the fact that the Inupiat also rely on the Porcupine caribou for sustenance. Inupiat people are wise in nature and are the best of environmentalists.
Through the local government, the North Slope Borough, Inupiat people have taken a stand against the oil industry to enforce environmental regulations stricter than the EPA. Therefore, it is ludicrous to suggest that the Inupiat people would purposely and willfully harm the food supply that has deep roots in our culture and tradition.
History has shown that industry and wildlife can co-exist. The Central Arctic Caribou Herd in the Prudhoe Bay region has flourished since the pipeline days.
Second, Mr. Whitney asserts that the Inupiat are allied with the oil industry, but fails to point out that the Gwich'in Steering Committee is heavily funded by the environmental community. Unfortunately, the Gwich'in Steering Committee is being used to further the agenda of the environmental community which places less value on basic human rights. After this issue is over, will the environmental community support the lifestyle of the Gwich'in? Possibly not, but the money derived from ANWR will benefit many government programs as well as create over 750,000 jobs.
Third, when did the Gwich'in take such a vested interest in the caribou? I say this because the Gwich'in leased out their lands in the 1980's for oil and gas exploration. To their dismay this exploration was unsuccessful.
However, their lease agreements contained no provisions to protect the now "sacred" Porcupine caribou herd. At least the Inupiat included measures to safeguard the caribou population affected by the development of Prudhoe Bay.
To the Inupiat, the revenue derived from ANWR will enable the Arctic Slope communities to continue living outside of Third World conditions. The revenue will support essential services like local health care and police and fire protection that many people in urban Alaska and the Lower 48 take for granted.
The Inupiat are not alone in their quest to open ANWR. Doyon Ltd., a Native regional corporation with Gwich'in shareholders, supports ANWR development. Further, the Alaska Federation of Natives with a membership of 90,000 Alaska Natives is also in support of this issue.
Finally, I appeal to Mr. Whitney and the ADN to stop sensationalizing and start reporting all the facts. Highlight the views of the Inupiat of Kaktovik and those of the Arctic Slope region. After all, ANWR does sit in Kaktovik's back yard. Tara MacLean Sweeney is a resident of Girdwood.
'Midnight Sun' borough mayor says no harm will befall land from oil drilling
(The following is a speech that North Slope Borough Mayor Ben Nageak delivered recently to the National Association of Counties. NACo represents nearly 1,800 counties in the U.S., providing a collective voice on issues relevant to local governments. The association holds four major conferences each year including the Western Interstate Region (WR) Conference, which focuses on public lands. Nageak was the keynote speaker for the 1998 WR Conference held May 20-23 in Juneau, Alaska.)
My
name is Ben Nageak. I am an Inupiat Eskimo from Alaska's North Slope. This
presentation about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will give you an
overview of one of the most difficult issues we are grappling with in Alaska
today. It is an issue that . in one form or another . is dealt with by
each and every one of you. And that issue is: Who has the right to determine
local land use? How much authority should the federal government have to
tie up valuable economic resources in our states and counties. The issue
is also about whether resource development can occur within safe parameters
that protect the land and the animals on it.
Before I go into any details about ANWR, let me give you a brief introduction to the land my family and I have called home for thousands of years. My Municipality, the North Slope Borough, is the size of Minnesota. It covers almost 90,000 square miles from the Brooks Range of mountains to the south, to the Beaufort Sea to the north. It stretches from the Chukchi Sea on our western coast to the Canadian border on our eastern boundary. It has the sweep and vastness that Texas brags about, but Alaska owns.
Contained within this area are seven Inupiat Eskimo villages and one village of Nunamiut Eskimos. The Inupiat Eskimos are people who depend mostly on the sea for our subsistence needs. We hunt polar bears, seals, walrus and whale as well as caribou and various birds. The Nunamiut people are Inland Eskimos and depend more on caribou and Dahl sheep for their subsistence needs. All our people have traditionally traded and bartered together. The Nunamiut give us sheep meat and we give them seal oil.
The population of the North Slope is about seven thousand permanent residents, not counting Prudhoe Bay, which is not a permanent settlement but an industrial site. Our villages range in size from about 4000 in Barrow, the seat of municipal government, to 250 in our smallest village. There are no roads connecting our villages and no roads connecting the North Slope to the rest of the state except for the Pipeline Haul Road, which is also called the Dalton Highway. To get anywhere on the North Slope, you have to fly on small commuter planes or be willing to drive a skidoo for a long time in very cold weather.
The North Slope is completely above the Arctic Circle so the sun does not rise from the end of November till the end of January. Conversely, it does not set from the beginning of May through the beginning of August. This is why we are called the Land of the Midnight Sun.
Trying to explain the North Slope to the world through the media can sometimes be very trying. Every year when the sun comes back, we inevitably get calls from news people who want to know what strange rite we will be observing to welcome back the sun. To tell you the truth, half the time we don't even see the sun the first day it comes back because it's foggy. And by the time we do see it, we're so busy making plans to go to Hawaii the minute the kids get out of school that we don't notice.
It's the same thing when the sun goes down. Calls come from all over the lower 48 as media try to figure out what trauma we suffer when we see the sun set for the last time that year. Since we don't tear our clothes off and run naked through the snow in a gesture of despair at seeing the sun go down for the last time that winter, I always feel obligated to come up with something to give these poor news people who seem desperate to have something different to say. So I tell them that we cheer when the sun goes down because it means that on New Year's Eve we can have our July 4th fireworks; fireworks we can't have in the summer when the sun is up twenty-four hours a day.
There's another myth I want to dispel now and that is the myth that the North Slope is a barren, wind swept land that makes up some sort of pristine wilderness into which man has never stepped. The Inupiat people have been in the Arctic longer than our collective memory can recall. Our footsteps are all over the North Slope and we are proud of them. Our history is one of people who are good stewards of the land God has given them. We are the first environmentalists. We took only what was needed from our land and seas and we used all that we took to feed, clothe and house our families. Even though there is more money in our economy today than ever before, our subsistence way of life is still critical to our survival as a people.
In fact, one of the greatest challenges facing us today is how to blend the old with the new; how to live in a moneyed economy without losing our roots in the land. When a gallon of car gas costs over $2.50 and a small takeout pizza costs over $10.00, we are forced to face the fact that we need some sort of steady income in our lives. But even the highest paid executive is still an Inupiat at heart and needs to return to his or her roots in our rivers, land and seas.
I remember when oil was first discovered on the North Slope. My people had many concerns about the problems development would bring. Our Elders were fearful that our culture would not survive if the land on which we subsisted was spoiled. They thought the caribou would leave and never come back. They thought the birds would nest somewhere else. They feared they would be the last people to practice the Inupiat subsistence way of life. They did not want their way of life to die.
It's now more than 25 years later, and our worst fears were never realized. The oil industry made a concerted effort to cooperate with the Inupiat people in addressing their concerns. They listened to us. Together, we have refined practices and rules for safe development. Today, the oil industry is no longer seen as an adversary by the Inupiat people. It is now viewed as a partner. And our Inupiat culture is still alive and thriving.
Revenues from oil development have been directly responsible for the revival of our traditions, language and dance. When I went to school at a Bureau of Indian Affairs school, we were forbidden to speak our language. Because there were no schools in our villages past 8th grade, we had to leave our homes and our families and travel thousands of miles away to boarding schools for our high school education. Our families had no money for airline tickets so we only came home for summer vacation. There were no holidays or birthdays spent with our families until we graduated and went home for good.
This absence meant that I missed the opportunity to learn many of my cultural traditions. At a time when the young men in our community should have been by their Elder's side learning how to hunt and fish, how to survive on the land . at a time when I should have been learning how to care for my future family . I was over a thousand miles away immersed in a culture that had very little to offer me once I went home.
Two weeks ago, I spoke at the 8th grade graduation of my son and daughter. They were graduating from our own middle school. This fall they will attend our local high school. Their commute time will be twenty minutes, not two days. They will not leave home for the privilege of a high school diploma.
Having a local School Board means our school year calendar is scheduled to fit our subsistence activities. We start in August and the kids are out by the middle of May so they can whale, hunt, go to fish camp and participate in their traditional activities. But most importantly for those of us who are parents, they will stay at home with us during this crucial time in their development.
Our language, once forbidden in BIA schools, is now taught in our schools. Through other activities such as Kivgiq, our traditional midwinter dancing and bartering festival, we revived customs that had been lost since the turn of the century. Resources provided by our tax base made it possible for our young people to learn our traditions from our Elders.
This was critical to us because our one nonrenewable resource, our Elders, was becoming lost to us through aging. Those Elders with knowledge of Kivgiq and other cultural activities were sought out to perpetuate our traditions for us and our children.
I want to make sure you understand how basic some of our needs are. When I grew up in Kaktovik, the village on the Canadian Border that is closest to ANWR, we melted ice for water and used a honeybucket for a toilet. I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out what a honeybucket is. The property tax generated by the oil industry on the North Slope has helped us get basic amenities in our villages that most Americans take for granted; safe water and sanitary sewage disposal. Most homes in Barrow, our biggest village, now have these services. Our villages are getting them installed even as we speak.
The past few years have seen a lot of angry words expressed in Alaska over the issue of the subsistence use of our fish and wildlife. I don't pretend to have a solution to that dilemma, but I can offer this: No matter what the results or our subsistence debate, there is one thing we all agree upon whether we are from urban, rural or bush areas of this state; and that is that we all want our resources protected. No one wants development to come at the expense of our land, our seas, or our wildlife. Whether we want to shoot them with cameras or harvest them to feed our families, the wildlife of Alaska must be protected from harm.
In this area, the North Slope oil industry has an excellent record. Over the past thirty years, the industry has improved their technology and land use planning. The footprint they leave behind at each development site grows smaller and smaller. That's the good news. The bad news for the North Slope Borough is that every time that footprint shrinks, so does our largest property tax base. Think of the implications for your county, if your biggest property tax payer was continually working to lessen their presence and in doing so was gradually eating away at your main source of municipal revenue.
I want to make it clear to you here, and to those who are opposed to the development of the ANWR Coastal Plain, that ANWR is in the land of the Inupiat and we have a right to do what is best for us. This land and its wildlife are our sacred cultural trust. We will never allow it to be harmed for so long as we have the ability to protect it. But we also believe it was given to us to use to provide for our families and our future. Safe exploration and development is one of those uses.
The development of the Coastal Plain area of ANWR will help both the state and the North Slope Borough fulfill their promises to their residents. The North Slope envisions being able to provide its residents with police and fire protection, flush toilets and clean, safe water. We also see these revenues as a way of providing the education for our children that was never available to us before.
We know the cost of business on the North Slope is high. That's why for over 100 years, the federal government has practiced an institutionalized form of benign neglect towards Alaska natives. The government was not willing to provide our villages with these basic services. What they were willing to do was provide us with the largest source of pollution in the Arctic. Throughout the early years of the cold war, the government's support of the Dew Line Sites and the Naval Arctic Research Lab called for enormous military participation. All materials had to be flown up. But since it was considered too costly to fly that same 50 gallon fuel drum off the Slope once it was empty, the military just left them scattered across our landscape like scabs on a festering wound. Anything brought to the Arctic was left in the Arctic after it's usefulness to the military ended. During my people's thousands of years in the Arctic, we never created a tenth of the pollution that the federal government created in just a few decades.
The North Slope Borough stands firmly committed to the responsible development of the Coastal Plain area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We believe this development can happen without destruction of habitat or wildlife. We have been stewards of this land since time immemorial. We have a greater stake than anyone in seeing that nothing is harmed by oil development. This land and its creatures are our culture. We will not let anyone or anything harm them, not the federal government, not the oil industry - no one. This is the trust we inherited from our parents and the trust we hold for our children.
We are committed to working with industry and we are committed to holding their feet to the fire when it comes to the protection of our renewable resources. We will never allow our land to be degraded.
Over the past 20 years, companies like ARCO, BP, EXXON and CHEVRON have proven themselves good neighbors and partners by their safety records at Prudhoe Bay and other developed sites on the North Slope. They also contribute to activities in our communities. These companies have sponsored youth events like the ARCO/Jesse Owens games and the BP Science Fairs. They have also provided scholarships to our local scholarship funds. Both ARCO and BP have made an effort to provide education and information to our communities to explain the advances that have been made in developing oil fields safely. They've also contributed to a multitude of other worthy North Slope causes.
The North Slope Borough, its residents and most other Alaskans, are ready for ANWR to be developed. In a time when this state is split into an urban versus bush battle, ANWR is an area of common ground we can all embrace. The future of our state is tied directly to the safe development of our North Slope resources. No matter what else divides us, this unites us. We all want to provide our children with a better world. We all want our families to live in decent housing. We want our children to receive a good education. We want our residents to have the chance to work. We want job opportunities and economic growth available for all Alaskans.
We need to let the people in the lower 48 and the U.S. Congress know that we are good stewards of our land. We can be trusted to use it wisely while still preserving it for generations to come.
I hope that someday you will all get an opportunity to visit the North Slope and see the wonderful world of the Arctic. My people have been inspired by its breathtaking beauty for thousands of years. I think you would be too. Thank you. Quyanaqpak.
