Hunting for their future: Alaska's Gwich'in Indians fear that proposed oil drilling on caribou calving grounds could end their ancient culture

National Wildlife, Oct-Nov, 1997 by Ben Gildart

Alaska's Gwich'in Indians fear that proposed oil drilling on caribou calving grounds could end their ancient culture

Standing on a knoll in the foothills of the Brooks Range, 120 miles above the Arctic Circle, Kenneth and Caroline Frank point out the first caribou of the fall season drifting by in groups of two and three. Though Kenneth is a hunter, he restrains himself as the animals pass, some no more than 25 yards away. "We should wait," he explains to my wife and me, friends from another culture. "There will be more in a day or so."

The Franks are Gwich'in Athabascan Indians--members of a tribe that has existed here for thousands of years--and letting the lead caribou move on is an ancient custom; otherwise, the animals might turn tail and alarm the rest of the closely trailing major herd.

Tens of thousands of caribou soon will pass through this treeless terrain above the small community of Arctic Village. The animals have spent the summer on their calving grounds along the Arctic Ocean, and now they are heading for wintering grounds in Canada. For the Gwich'in, the caribou's arrival is a major event that sends hunters scurrying into the hills. Many in this tribe of about 5,000 members--who live in a dozen villages scattered along the herd's migration route in Alaska and Canada--still depend on stores of caribou meat for full stomachs when the temperature drops to 70 degrees below zero and game is not moving. "The caribou are the Gwich'in's bison," says Gwich'in Donna Carroll.

These days, the herd's return is cause for even more celebration than in the past: With lobbying and publicity, the Gwich'in have been working to thwart ongoing attempts by the oil industry and some lawmakers to drill in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (also known as ANWR). Not only does the wildlife-rich plain hold some of the greatest biological diversity in the entire Arctic, it is the main calving ground of the Porcupine caribou herd (named for a river it crosses during migration). Convinced that drilling there would harm the caribou, the Gwich'in see every successful fall migration as evidence their efforts have worked--so far. "If we are to save our culture and prevent social ills," says Gwich'in minister Trimble Gilbert of Arctic Village, "we must preserve the calving grounds."

Few outsiders visit the Gwich'in, and even fewer spend more than a few days here. But my wife Jane and I have lived in this land of bogs and meadows and mountains. Between 1991 and 1993, I taught high school as a generalist in four of Alaska's seven Gwich'in villages, mostly in the summer but once during the long winter months. Since then, we have returned to the Arctic several times, and we have traveled widely through the land of the Gwich'in. The more time we spend here, the more we want to learn about these people whose lives have profoundly moved us.

Land claims: In 1971, the neighboring villages of Arctic Village and Venetie (located 70 miles apart) elected not to participate in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). The act settled most of the state's tangled aboriginal land claims and allowed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline to be built. Under ANCSA, almost all Alaska Natives--including Indians, Aleuts and Eskimos--became members of village and regional corporations that divvied up almost one billion dollars and 44 million acres of land. But not the residents of these two far-north villages.

Instead, these Gwich'in turned down a share of the money and retained their original land claims--more land than they would have received under ANCSA. They still live a subsistence lifestyle that is among the most traditional of any Alaska Natives--or of any Native Americans, for that matter. Though the Gwich'in rely largely on caribou, they also fish and hunt moose, sheep and smaller game. Not so long ago, the residents of Arctic Village and Venetie preferred little contact with the outside world. But then they decided to fight for the Porcupine herd's calving grounds, and tribal chiefs decided in 1988 to create the Gwich'in Steering Committee to publicize the tribe's existence and its reliance on the caribou.

Though they live in log cabins, use wood stoves for heat and sometimes must chop holes through 3 to 5 feet of ice in the East Fork of the Chandalar River to reach water, this group of about 350 is proud to have retained possession of its ancestral hunting lands. And the two communities are joined by most of the inhabitants of the other five Alaska Gwich'in villages in denouncing efforts to open the Arctic Refuge's coastal plain to drilling.

"Our children draw pride from the caribou," says Caroline Frank. "The herd reaffirms our way of life; it tells them they are the descendants of some of America's strongest hunters." Adds Kenneth Frank, her husband, "Our culture is thousands of years old. Is just a few years of oil worth all that? Or will the white man always want to destroy the land and the most beautiful animals on it?" Caroline is one of the first Gwich'in Indians to complete a four-year degree and return home to teach. Kenneth is a substance-abuse prevention worker.