Nature Observation in Alaska - Footprints in the Last Wild Place (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine February 2003

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Footprints in the Last Wild Place (Cont.)

AT 9 A.M. ON JULY 23, when Kirk Sweetsir landed his Cessna on the gravel crest of Icy Reef, the day was clear. I flew out with Robert and Subhankar over the 1002. The coastal tundra was dotted by a hundred pairs of tundra swans, and two cow moose with well-grown calves were perhaps a mile apart, throwing big black shadows in the morning light. Across the Aichilik delta, the olive monotones and grassy ponds were indistinguishable from the Kongakut tundra except that as the plane flew west, the coastal plain widened and the mountains receded into the mists. The caribou concentrate in the 1002 because the greater distance from the mountains cuts down predation on new calves by the grizzlies and wolves. Also, the hard winds across the barren spare the tight-pressed herds the worst of the mosquito hordes and biting flies. On the myriad trails that web the odd polygonal tundra surface, a lone caribou plodded inland, head low under its great antlers. As we flew over the Jago River, Kirk spotted musk ox tracks under a bank. The plane crossed the northern 1002, then a broad, open bay, before landing at Robert's village of Kaktovik, on Barter Island (so called because Inupiat bands up and down the coast used to meet here to trade). A traditional fishing place—Kaktovik means "Seining Place"—with a large pond of good fresh water on the high ground, the site has been occupied for thousands of years, said Robert, but it wasn't until a Distant Early Warning site (part of the array of missile-detection sites spread across the top of North America during the Cold War) was built on the high ground behind the village back in the 1950s that the outlying Inupiat were relocated to benefit from new jobs and a new clinic and school. The village is now made up of about 280 people.

Arriving at his small blue house, Robert seemed vaguely astonished by the gear that overflows his yard—heaped fishnets, a kayak, oil cans, boots, an abandoned dogsled, and some long black strips of baleen from the great jaws of a bowhead whale (Kaktovik is allowed a quota of three whales each year).

We were joined at breakfast by his wife, Jane Thompson, born Jane Akootchook and raised here in Kaktovik. "Our people never had no rights from the very start," she said. "Who gave the Russians the right to own Alaska or sell it to the Americans? Sold my people to America right along with it. When the Air Force came here in 1947, all our coast people got moved to Kaktovik. We never had no say about it, even though this coast plain out here is our land, not theirs. And our people were put here to take care of it," she continued, referring to the 92,000 acres of subsurface rights in the 1002 given to the people of Kaktovik as a result of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The Settlement Act led to the establishment of the North Slope Borough, a group of locally elected officials which governs Kaktovik and the seven other settlements on the North Slope. The borough taxes oil companies for land use and allocates the revenues for civic improvements, such as better schools and sewage systems. (The state government in Juneau receives royalties from oil companies, which are then dispersed to Alaskan citizens—last year, almost $2,000 per person.)

The Inupiat supported the Gwich'in against oil development as late as 1979, enjoining the federal government to award permanent protection to the calving area. But the improvements that swept in with oil money changed the mood in Kaktovik, and the majority of the Inupiat now support drilling in the 1002. Yet they still oppose any offshore drilling, since the sea and its creatures are sacred to their life in the way that the caribou are sacred to the Gwich'in. "Our people accepted development because they have always been so poor, and they are unhappy when people say they are just greedy," Robert said. "This is their chance to improve their standard of living, maybe own some of the things they see on the TV—well, you can't blame 'em."

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