The Great Alaska Debate
Published: August 4, 1991
(Page 5 of 5)
"For too long this has been an issue about environment versus energy, and no one wanted to hear about the Gwich'in," says Sarah James, a native leader who lives in Arctic Village, just south of the refuge. In a statement before the Senate Energy Committee in April, James compared the Gwich'in to the buffalo-hunting Sioux of the Great Plains: "The Gwich'in are caribou people. For thousands of years we have lived with caribou right where we are today. We're talking about an Indian nation that still lives on the land and depends on this herd. In my village, about 75 percent of our protein comes from caribou."
In Arctic Village, heat from the summer sun is used to dry caribou meat. Unlike other native people, the Gwich'ins do not own any mineral rights in the refuge and have not organized into a regional corporation. Caribou is the center of their lives. The Gwich'ins consider themselves part of the natural ecology of the Arctic refuge. "We think of it as a biocultural reserve, not just a wildlife refuge," James says.
The Gwich'ins, who have barely been heard from during the decade-long debate, came together for a meeting in the summer of 1988, the first time all the tribal communties had gathered in one place in more than 100 years. They signed a proclamation, agreeing to "speak as a single voice" against oil development in the refuge.
The other native people near the refuge, Eskimos on the northern border, take the opposite stand. Whale hunters represented by a powerful regional corporation, the Inupiat say oil has changed their lives for the better. They receive millions of dollars in royalties from drilling on the North Slope, and stand to gain additional millions if the refuge is opened. About 6,000 Inupiat live in eight villages inside the Arctic Circle, most of them in the town of Barrow.
"We used to be afraid of what the oil industry would do, but we saw that it has not harmed fish or wildlife," says Warren Matumeak, an Inupiat elder who lives in Barrow. "Things have changed for the better. We have schools, roads, firefigthing equipment. Our houses have kitchens and flush toilets and TV's. It's sad that some people think we should have to go back to the old ways."
Matumeak was with his grandson, fishing for char, a type of Arctic trout, four summers ago, when he suffered a heart attack. "I said, 'Grandson, I'm going to where Jesus is.' " His cholesterol built up, he said, because he was spending too much time in front of the television, dipping caribou fat in whale blubber -- a tasty snack. He survived the heart attack, thanks to a helicopter from Barrow that airlifted him to a hospital -- a search-and-rescue made possible by oil money. Matumeak still remembers when some Eskimos lived in igloos; now his grandchildren wear Los Angeles Raiders caps and the family takes occasional vacations to Disney World.
Some Inupiat are angry that they cannot lease their own land, inside the refuge, to oil companies. "We've lived here thousands of years," says Matumeak. "We should be able to do what we want with our own land. And what we want is to allow drilling. Oil is the best thing that ever happened to us."
Despite such statements, the Eskimos take a somewhat contradictory approach to oil drilling in the far north. While they advocate opening the refuge, which would benefit them economically, they are among the strongest opponents of an Interior Department plan to allow offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean, which poses a potential threat to their whale hunting.
For most Americans, it would be easier if all the remaining oil fields were in West Texas or Oklahoma. But the search for petroleum has now gone to the far edges, near pleasure beaches in Florida and California, off the wilderness coast of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State and inside an Arctic preserve that was supposed to belong to wild animals. These potential drill sites, on or near national treasures, force the question of just how far the nation will go to satisfy its oil habit.
Those who want to open the Arctic to development see a peculiar form of American naivete in the arguments for preservation. The idea of all that oil just sitting there, untapped, while the United States ups its trade imbalance with Middle Eastern countries is ludicrous, they say. But by keeping the refuge inviolate, the counter argument goes, Americans can take the first steps toward independence from a substance that, once pulled from the ground, inevitably spawns trouble -- wars, foul air and dirty water. The debate, in itself, is familiar. What has changed is that we are running out of places over which to have the argument.
Cover photo: A beaver pond near the Huluhula River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Congress must decide whether to open up this majestic land to oil drilling. (Photograph by Art Wolfe) Photos: The coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may contain vast amounts of oil, but many fear that drilling will destroy America's "last frontier." (pg. 21); The spoils of oil-prospecting profits line the main thoroughfare of Kaktovik, the only human community inside the refuge. Chevron's exploratory well was drilled just a few miles from this village of 200 Inupiat Eskimos. (pg. 22); Arctic Village, just south of the refuge, is home to the Gwich'in, an Indian nation that depends on the caribou herd as its primary food source. The Davidson Mountains in the southeastern part of the refuge, one of the largest protected wildlife areas in the nation. (pg. 23)(Photographs by Art Wolfe for The New York Times); The Porcupine caribou herd, named for the Porcupine River, calves on the coastal plain in the refuge. Biologists are uncertain what effects an industrial complex would have on pregnant caribou cows. (Photograph by Hans-Jurgen Burkard/Bilderberg/Saba)(pg. 24); As humans advance into the wilderness, residents like grizzly bears beat a retreat. Musk oxen have thrived in the refuge since their reintroduction 20 years ago. There is concern that gouging streams to build new roads in the refuge would displace them, but the oil companies disagree. Archie Brower in Kaktovik: "Oil is the future." Sarah James in Arctic Village: For too long "no one wanted to hear about the Gwich'in." (pg. 25)(Photographs by Art Wolfe for The New York Times) Map of Alaska showing areas where the Porcupine Caribou Herd and the Central Arctic Caribou Herd Inhabits. (pg. 26)