In Alaska's debate over drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, few ask its closest neighbors

Al Jazeera America

Listen to the Gwich'in

In Alaska's debate over drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, few ask its closest neighbors

ARCTIC VILLAGE, Alaska — To understand the relationship between the indigenous Gwich’in who live in this village near the edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the massive caribou herd that migrates through their land, you might start in February with a ride on the back of Charlie Swaney’s old snowmobile.Motor past his sled-dog yard and head along a trail that leads out of the village through the powdery snow. After 15 minutes, you’ll reach a wide frozen lake, and he’ll slow down, so as not to scare the animals. There might have been 50 caribou along the distant shoreline on a recent afternoon. This time of year, they dig through the snow with their shovel-shaped hooves, looking for lichen.

Swaney silences the engine, gets off, swings the rifle off his back and examines the line of animal shapes through his scope. Pop! The herd scatters, leaving one female down. Soon Swaney is kneeling next to it with his knife. Head comes off first. Then the skin, beginning with a gentle slit down the white belly. Gwich’in have been hunting caribou in this area for thousands of years. “You got to respect the animal, because that’s how you eat,” Swaney says as he pulls hide from muscle. You don’t take too many, he says. What you don’t eat, you feed to the dogs, he says.

"Respect is the main thing.”

In 20 minutes, the caribou is butchered and on the sled and Swaney is kicking snow over its entrails. He’s so expert at the process, he can do it blind. Swaney, 54, is an orphan, taught to hunt by his grandparents, who raised him. His most important job in the village is one for which he isn’t paid. He’s a provider of meat. People in the village are of modest means, but they are rich in caribou. And that is what keeps the village alive, he says. “The lifestyle out here is different,” Swaney says, raising his chin toward the caribou. “That’s why we depend on what’s out there.”Since the late 1980s, the Gwich’in people, who live in 15 villages that stretch from Alaska into Canada, have been deeply involved in a fight to stop the push for oil development on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Alaska is home to several massive herds of caribou. One of the largest, known as the Porcupine Herd, migrates through Gwich’in land as it heads to the Arctic coast to calve.

Although the Gwich’in have been championed by environmental groups, they say they are not environmentalists but are instead human rights advocates. The health of the caribou is their central concern because village economies depend on it, says Sarah James, an Arctic Village elder who is often tapped to speak to the media. “We always took care of the caribou, this is nothing new,” James says. “The caribou always took care of us.”Oil drilling will impact the herd’s behavior, she says. And there is always a risk of something going wrong.

"We have seen oil spills, big spills, or even small spills,” she says. “There is no way of cleaning up the coastal plain, which is tundra. It is too risky.” (emphasis added)

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