Once upon a time, America's Arctic was a vast and desolate expanse of no interest or value to anyone except the people who had always lived there -- my people, the Iñupiat (or Eskimos) of northern Alaska. I was lucky to be born into an Eskimo family that instilled in me a sense of purpose. Hunting and whaling are the centerpiece of my family. But in my seven decades of life, change has come rapidly.
In short order what had been considered vast and desolate became pristine and promising. Everyone wanted two very important things that are at a premium in America -- wilderness and oil. We happen to have both in large supply.
Ours is a communal culture. Sharing has always been a key to our survival. It's a good thing, because now there's a whole lot of sharing going on. Lands that once belonged to us are under siege by two warring tribes -- the environmentalists and the oil companies. Neither group owns any land outright. The federal government controls the 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to the east of Prudhoe Bay and the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA) in the west. Native corporations own smaller areas, primarily around the eight villages that are home to our Iñupiat people.
In an ironic twist, the ANWR contains the best oil prospects while the petroleum reserve has the most productive wildlife habitat in the region and a fair bit of resource potential. This has led to continuous battle by lobbyists and strategists in Washington.
All the drama is taking place there in D.C., and here we are in the most remote corner of America. The stakes are high, so it's not surprising that the voices you don't hear are those of the Iñupiat, the 5,000 Eskimos who will continue to live along the Arctic coast long after the oil is gone and the wilderness is abandoned or forgotten.
We are a practical people. That's how we survived for thousands of years in the Arctic. We have supported oil development in some cases and fought against it in others. We don't have a default position, because the well being of our people depends on both oil and protected land. Our traditional hunting culture is linked to the health of wildlife habitat, while access to decent housing, food and transportation requires us to earn a living. We don't choose between the two -- we try to balance them.
I guess in many ways we're just like folks in Oregon, South Carolina or any other state. They work hard to earn a decent living so they can provide for their families. With their free time they enjoy the majestic landscape of the continental United States. For we Iñupiat, our highest priority is engaging in subsistence. It binds our families, our communities and our region together. We thrive on traditional foods that are incredibly important to our diet. We also work hard to earn cash. Cash allows us to more effectively engage in Arctic subsistence activities.
Most Americans would balk if offered a choice between taking a job or hiking in the wilderness. They expect both. Likewise, modern Eskimos shouldn't be required to choose between subsistence and a job.
So we try to balance participation in the cash economy with cultural needs. In my experience, the oil companies and the environmental groups take the opposite approach. They each build a fortress behind a hard-line position. A win for one is always seen as a loss for the other. I don't think this leads to good decisions. Closing ANWR to any and all development pushed the oil industry out into the ocean, which is a much more environmentally hazardous place to drill.
The same shrill combat plays out onshore. The two sides are currently battling over a proposed development just beyond the western edge of existing North Slope oil infrastructure. It's called Greater Moose's Tooth, or GMT-1. It would be the first drilling project entirely within the National Petroleum Reserve. When I was mayor of the North Slope region, we worked with the Bureau of Land Management to identify lands that are too rich in wildlife value to allow oil development. Roughly half of the petroleum reserve was set aside and exempted from leasing. But it is a petroleum reserve, and it seems as though some development should be allowed. GMT-1 is close to existing infrastructure, which will limit the length of road and amount of pipe required. A majority of residents of the nearby village of Nuiqsut has signed off on the project, partly because the road will also provide them with access to hunting grounds.
There are tradeoffs, to be sure, but I don't see it in the same stark terms as the warring parties do. Environmental groups attack it as one more step toward destruction of the whole region. Oil companies underrate the impacts and can't take their eye off the bottom line.
People around here may land on one side or the other at the end of the day, but to us it's not just a land-use issue. It's a project-by-project analysis that requires balancing. Balancing inherently recognizes multiple legitimate uses. Like any other community, we Iñupiat don't speak with one voice. What matters in this debate is that our views and concerns are taken into account. We need to be heard, because our perspective is fundamentally different from that of the warring parties. We aren't just staking a claim to the Arctic. We're part of it, and we always will be.
Edward S. Itta member U.S. Arctic Research Commission, former mayor, North Slope Borough and Senior Advisor, Pt Capital.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.