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Alaska's North Slope
MAY 2006
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| Fall of the Wild (continued) |
By Joel K. Bourne, Jr.
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Photographs by Joel Sartore
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At least not anymore. After spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress to open up the 1002 Area of ANWR to drilling, BP and other big oil companies have pulled out of the most vocal lobbying group, known as Arctic Power. Perhaps they believe it's time to move to the sidelines. Or perhaps it's just that the holes they've drilled near the refuge have been disappointing, while the holes drilled toward NPRA, with less political pitfalls, have paid off big-time.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may be the only spot on the entire North Slope where the American public hasn't acted like absentee landlords. The folks of the village of Kaktovik, which sits on the coast just north of the refuge, bristle at this notion, because long before it was deemed "the last great wilderness" by conservationists in the 1950s, it was simply their backyard, where they fished, hunted, and camped. Their ancestors' footprints are all over it, and they named every bend of the river, every mountain, every fishing hole. Wilderness, to Kaktovik, implies no people.
The village of almost 300, however—which owns nearly 100,000 acres (40,000 hectares) of potentially petroleum-rich lands within ANWR—has long supported drilling in the refuge, putting villagers at odds with the Gwich'in south of the Brooks Range, who also depend on the Porcupine caribou herd that summers and calves along the coastal plain. The Inupiat are well aware from where the money, the jobs, the school, the power plant, and, just recently, the flush toilets came. With a rancorous debate in Congress under way, journalists from around the world descended on the tiny village last summer, leaving Mayor Lon Sonsalla feeling besieged.
"We want the same thing everybody else wants," said Sonsalla, a former Wisconsin farmer who came up north in search of work, fell in love, and stayed. "A better life for your kids and their kids. You want to be able to control your destiny somewhat. Officially, the town is still in favor of responsible onshore development. Can we stand up to the beast? They'll have to mind their p's and q's here."
Unofficially, the village seems utterly torn over the issue. Robert Thompson is one of the growing number of residents ardently opposed to oil development in the refuge. A wilderness guide who takes rafters down the shallow, gravelly rivers that tumble from the Brooks Range, Thompson recently circulated a petition against drilling and collected 58 signatures. That's significant, he said, since only 98 people voted in the last election.
"The governor of Alaska says we're doing this for the people of Kaktovik, because he doesn't want us to live like a third-world country," Thompson said from his easy chair, which was surrounded by guns, bows, and assorted outdoor gear. "We didn't get the benefits of oil money until after Anchorage got a hundred-million-dollar performing arts center. Twenty-eight years after oil production began, we just got off honey buckets. Go take a good look at that toilet. That's a million-dollar toilet right there. Most of the North Slope officials advocating for oil development have spent more time in Hawaii than in the refuge."
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