Episode 3: Listen to the People, Pt. 1
Episode Length: 33:06
Focus
Changes in sea ice and polar bear behavior around Kaktovik, perspectives on climate change, drilling, the refuge, and threats to Iñupiaq culture
Location
Kaktovik, Alaska
Keywords
Inupiat, oil development, climate change, atauchikun, polar bears
Episode Outline
These outlines are intended to help you locate ideas and topics more easily, but these are narrative episodes with many interlocking themes and ideas, so you may want to share segments that cross multiple points in the outline.
MINUTES: 00:00 - 05:47
If drilling happens on the Refuge it’ll happen on the ancestral lands of the Inupiat, and the language, history, and common values of the Inupiat community here will shape how this story unfolds:
The Inupiat are part of the broader Inuit family of cultures stretching from Russia all the way to Greenland
The word Iñupiaq comes from words meaning ‘real’ and ‘people’
The concept of atauchikun, or togetherness, is a survival skill in the harsh Arctic and is deeply ingrained even as conflict over drilling divides the community
05:47 - 09:17
Story of Kaktovik resident Nora Jane Burns begins:
Nora developed a rebellious streak starting in kindergarten in the 1960s, when she and her classmates were punished for speaking their native language
She built her confidence as a community leader by being out on the land with her family, where her father hunted caribou in the summer and stored the meat in remote ice cellars in winter
Because of climate change, the ice cellar from Nora’s childhood has been swallowed by the sea
09:17 - 13:08
Nora’s personal observations of climate change and how her view on oil drilling have changed over the years:
Snow is falling months later than when she was young, and there’s very little sea ice left nearby
Despite working in Prudhoe Bay when in college, Nora now opposes drilling because of concern for wildlife near the fields and the risk of catastrophic oil spills
13:08 - 18:10
Drilling can be hard to talk about in this part of Alaska because so many jobs and community services are funded by revenue from oil and gas development:
Nora is a shareholder of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, which along with the North Slope Borough is a powerful voice in favor of drilling and supports many community jobs
Speaking out about oil development here can also mean going against your employer and your government
Despite her stance against drilling, Nora says that her community still takes care of each other while holding different opinions, embodying atauchikun
BREAK
19:18 - 24:58
Amy and Nick observe polar bears in the wild in Kaktovik, where climate change has created an influx of bears moving inland, off the melting sea ice.
24:58 - 27:42
So many polar bears within 15 minutes of the town of Kaktovik is a big change from the past and an indicator of how vulnerable polar bears are globally:
The bears have been pushed so close to town as climate change pushes the pack ice they used to live on too far out to sea
This sub-population, the Southern Beaufort Sea Group, is one of the three most vulnerable in the world
27:42 - 33:06
Robert Thompson, the polar bear guide in Kaktovik, is strongly against oil development in the refuge:
He thinks there’s plenty of oil that can benefit the community elsewhere on the North Slope
He thinks oil companies prefer oil in easier places, like new shale oil in Texas
As a Vietnam veteran, the tranquility of the Refuge gives him something he thinks many Americans would appreciate