Inupiat and the Gwich'in
While the core arguments over whether or not to drill for oil in the Refuge have largely remained the same over the past decade or more, the position of the Inupiat residents of the Refuge has changed significantly. In the early 1980s, the Kaktovik Inupiat took the position that "oil exploration would disrupt the environmental balance" of the region. As a result, they demanded in public hearing [such as those associated with the Refuge's Environmental Impact Statement] and in the press that any operation taking place on Kaktovik land would require written permission of the respective parties. Some Inupiat elders even urged that development be explicitly excluded from the core calving area of the Coastal Plain.
Today, this view is seldom espoused except by those older Inupiat most closely linked to the subsistence economy. The younger generation are quite clear in their vision of the future, stating that "We can't live anymore without money. If there is no oil a round here, people will go hungry. But if the oil people come, more houses will be built and more jobs will open up. Then we can stay in Kaktovik rather than having to look for jobs elsewhere." Others voice somewhat different views but with a similar conclusion: "We don't like exploration, but if we oppose it and they impose it anyway, we get nothing."
The petroleum companies actively seek ways to strengthen their ties with the North Slope Inupiat by hiring well educated residents to work in their offices and public relations staffs. They organize seminars in which local leaders from key areas of the region are invited at no cost to come to Anchorage and discuss possible common interests with company representatives. Senior Native leaders have gone to the oil fields of Louisiana where they have been shown just how safe, clean, and efficient this industrial activity can be.
By these and related efforts, most Kaktovik and other North Slope Inupiat have come to envision their future as closely intertwined with that of the petroleum industry. The one significant difference they presently have with the industry is over the latter's plan to drill for offshore oil. Both the Beaufort and Chuckchi seas are perceived by the federal Mineral Management Service and the oil industry as holding significant deposits of oil-bearing structures at substantial depths. When tract leases of these waters were offered for oil exploration and development by the federal government, an Inupiat state legislator from the North Slope submitted a resolution opposing any further offshore industrial activity until there was more conclusive information about the impact on subsistence hunting and fishing; and until the oil industry had demonstrated the ability to safely operate in the arctic environment.
The parallel between the coastal Inupiat's concern for the whale, walrus, and other sea mammals and the Gwich'in Indian's concern for the future of the Caribou is not lost among those whose economic and cultural life remains closely linked to these respective animals. But the Gwich'in do not own any mineral rights in the refuge for which they could seek possible royality payments. Nor are they organized into a Native regional corporation. With little cash income, they rely heavily on the caribou as a major source of sustenance. Up to 75 percent of their protein comes from the caribou - a parallel not unlike that of the Sioux and the buffalo more than a century ago. In the word's of Sarah James, a key Gwich'in leader, "the caribou is not just what we eat; it is who are are. It is in our dances, stories, songs, and the whole way we see the world. Caribou is our boots and mittens. Caribou is how we get from one year to another."
In June of 1988, the chiefs called for all the Gwich'in to meet in Arctic Village and discuss the threat of oil exploration to their future - the first such meeting in 100 hundred years. Following tradition, elders spoke first with stories and that "the very future of our people is in danger." At the conclusion of the gathering, the Gwich'in passed a resolution prohibiting development in the calving and post-calving grounds of the Porcupine herd. Today, that position has not changed and the Gwich'in continue to support permanent protection for the coastal plain.
White House, Congress, and the State of Alaska
The International Dimension: Canada and the United States