Season 3: Episode 3

Listen to the People

We continue our reporting from Kaktovik, Alaska—the only town within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—to find out how the conflict over drilling for oil in the refuge feels to the people who live there. The more we listened, the more we realized: the heart of the issue isn’t just over oil extraction and development, wilderness and wildlife. Whatever side people took, their focus is on their community, sovereignty, and survival.

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POLAR BEARS

As climate change decreases sea ice habitat for polar bears, the animals are spending more time on land, near human settlements looking for alternative food supplies. It means there’s been an influx of bears in places like Kaktovik, Alaska—as well as an influx of tourists who frequent the place to see them. 

This means a swathe of new difficulties for conservation and the local community. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service outlines some of these challenges, and some potential solutions, in their 2016 Polar Bear Conservation Management Plan. They also have a Q and A that outlines the plan and its findings as well as a list of guidelines and best practices as part of their polar bear viewing website. 

Climate pressure on polar bears is compounded by oil and gas development in the same habitat where bears den and raise their young, an issue that has come to the forefront in the struggle over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

Polar bear expert Andrew Derocher answers some big-picture questions on what drilling might mean for the bears of ANWR here. He and his colleagues have written extensively on the topic.

The Union of Concerned Scientists have also expressed concern about the polar bears of the refuge, and what the seismic exploration associated with oil development might mean for them long-term.

DRILLING: THEN AND NOW

We talked a lot in this episode about how oil and gas development actually works, and what it does to the landscapes on which it occurs. For a more visual look at what it’s meant in the past, visit the New York Times’ recent story on what remains from the brief period in the 1980s when exploration was allowed in the refuge. 

For details on what it might mean this time around, we recommend going to the final environmental impact statement. There you can find, in detail, some of the projected effects of developing the 1002 area, including the nuances of the 2,000 acre limit. Arctic Today has also written on the projected realities of acreage limitations in these kinds of projects. 

CARIBOU

Caribou touch many lives in and around the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As the Porcupine caribou herd migrates through its range, the animals play a role in ecology, human culture, and subsistence living. Because those they use the 1002 area as their calving ground, they have become one of the key considerations in the unfolding debate over drilling.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

The March 2019 subcommittee hearing featuring Alaska’s U.S. House Representative Don Young can be accessed in full here.

Credits

Listen to the People: Part 1

Transcript

[00:00] INTRODUCTION

NICK: This series was supported by the Pulitzer Center

AMY: Hey, it's Amy, I want to let you know we're doing something a little different this time. We had so much content that felt important to share in this episode that it grew to almost an hour long. And that felt like kind of a lot. So we made this a two-parter. It's one episode, telling one part of the story of the refuge, but divided into two pieces. That’s all- thanks for listening!

KATHY: Well we know who we are right? We're Iñupiaq. You know where that word comes from,  the word inuk. 

AMY: This is Kathy Itta-Ahgeak. I'm talking with her in the Iñupiat Heritage Center in Utqiagvik, Alaska. Kathy was the director of the center when we met. 

KATHY: And the word inuk is a person, it comes from the word inu, to live. So we are living people. But in addition to that we add - piaq which means real. So we are the real people. 

AMY: Welcome to Threshold, I'm Amy Martin, and this is season three of our show. We're exploring the 40-year battle over drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. My conversation with Kathy wasn't about that controversy though. It was about Iñupiaq language and culture. 

KATHY: And our food is niqipiaq. The word niqi, it's food. Niqsaq is to get food. And we add, to our Native food, we call it niqipiaq. Real food. So we are real people eating real food. Maybe once upon a time, there were imaginary things and we had to know what's real. 

AMY: The Iñupiat are part of the Inuit family of cultures. Inuit territory stretches from eastern Russia, across the northern part of Alaska and the enormous Canadian Arctic, and all the way over to Greenland. If drilling moves forward in the refuge, it will be happening on ancestral Iñupiaq lands. Kathy says there's a lot of diversity among all the different Inuit communities, but also many common values and traditions. And one of those values she told me about has been looping in my brain as I've been reporting on drilling in the refuge. It's called atauchikun.

KATHY: Atauchikun is together. And everything has to be in harmony and together, be of the same mind, atauchikun. Comes from the word ataut. Ataut is to be underneath. Like a foundation.

AMY: Oh interesting, so, like the foundation is togetherness.

KATHY: Mmm-hmm.

AMY: No matter where human beings live, we have to try to get along with each other. But here, in one of the harshest environments on the planet, community cohesion isn't just a nice goal – it's a life or death survival skill. In the middle of an Arctic winter, you can't just get angry and leave your community, all by yourself. Or, you can, but you'll probably die. Iñupiaq people have survived here for thousands of years by figuring out how to keep working together, no matter what. Hunting together, sewing together, preserving food together. And Kathy says this ethic of atauchikun is still deeply ingrained in the culture, and reinforced in all kinds of ways – like through one of the signature Iñupiaq games, called the blanket toss. This is where dozens of people hold the edges of a seal skin blanket, and toss a jumper, in the middle, high up into the air. 

KATHY: When we're doing the blanket toss, and we're tossing a jumper, somebody elder will tell us, “Atauchikun! Go together!” You know, we have to go together, we have to throw the blanket together. And even in the hunting, we have to work together. So I think that is probably one of the, um, best characteristics that we have, that we could share, is that, you know, the love and respect for one another and working together. 

AMY: So why has atauchikun been on my mind so much while working on this series about the refuge? Well, I've been producing at a time when the United States as a whole is extremely divided. Drilling in the refuge is just one of many hot-button, family-dinner-ruining, polarizing issues in our country right now. And I've been wondering – how does this kind of stuff play out in an Iñupiaq context? How are people holding on to these values of togetherness and harmony when they disagree? Because people do disagree about drilling in the refuge – not just people who live in far-away places, Iñupiaq people. People who live right next to where the drilling might be.

So what happens when the value of unity and community cohesion comes into conflict with other fundamental values, like caring for land and water and animals? How do any of us work together, and stay strong together, even when we vehemently, passionately disagree? These are some of the defining questions of American life right now, and they're also the questions people are grappling with in the Iñupiaq village of Kaktovik, Alaska.

THRESHOLD THEME MUSIC

“I could be here and see the last polar bear in Alaska”

“We’re melting rapidly along the coast. Weather’s getting weird.”

“Kaktovik is the only community within the boundaries of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We are not an exhibit in a museum.”

“It’s a big opportunity that we’d be able to profit off of.”

“No, I’m not sorry I’m not gonna be quiet anymore. I’m going to start voicing my concerns and my opinions.”

SEGMENT A

AMY: The first time Nora Jane Burns remembers being aware of injustice was when she was in kindergarten in the 1960s. She grew up in Kaktovik, Alaska – a village of close to 300 people located on an island, just north of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – and she remembers being pretty shocked at how her classmates were being treated at school.

NORA JANE: Every time some kid did something they would get whacked and stuff like that. You know, like if they just say an Eskimo word, like if you drop your pencil, oh my pencil, karuq. And then you know, we say the word karuq, the teacher was fast to whack us on our hands or whatever, so that we wouldn't speak our language, and that's the first time I've ever seen anything happen like that.

AMY: Nora Jane's father was a teacher in that same school – in fact, the school is named after him now – and he had told her before she started kindergarten that if she didn't understand something, she should raise her hand and ask about it. So she did.

NORA JANE: I think I over-raised my hand to that poor teacher and she didn't like me at all, 'cause I'd ask, “why we have to do it this way, how come we have to do it that way, isn't there another way to do it, you know?”

AMY: Quick side note: that's Nora Jane's little dog barking in the background. Anyway, she says her teacher got frustrated with her, and her best friend. 

NORA JANE: She told our older sisters that we were both dumb, that we're not gonna learn anything. And then it just went downhill. 

AMY: The teacher just stopped teaching Nora Jane.

NORA JANE: She didn't know World War Three was going to happen after that. So I made it miserable for her rest of the school year. 

AMY: How did you make it miserable for her?

NORA JANE: Just do all kinds of crazy things that a kid would do to disrupt her from teaching the other guys. I say, if you're going to teach those guys and then not me? My kind of thinking anyway.

AMY: So you've had a little bit of a rebellious streak?

NORA JANE: Yeah. I think from day one. (laughter)

AMY: Nora Jane went on to go to college, and later served as the mayor of Kaktovik for many years. And she says she developed the confidence she needed to stand up for herself, and be a community leader, by being out on the land with her family.

NORA JANE: Yes, growing up my father would take us out, you know, after school was out in June, and when we're able to boat, he take us to our family camp at Jago. 

AMY: The Jago is one of the rivers that runs north out of the Brooks Range and across the 1002 area – the part of the refuge where drilling has now been approved. Nora Jane says her dad taught her how to use a small bow and arrow when they were camped over there, even though some of the boys her age said girls couldn't hunt.

NORA JANE: So he had a ice cellar over there and that's where he would put our caribou that we'd harvest during the summer. He'd get enough to last us a whole, all winter cause he was a teacher, and he couldn't go hunting during the week, like the other guys when they're not working and stuff. So he'd have whole bunch of caribous in the ice cellar. And then on weekends when he was off, he would go out, and it would be an all day trip for him, just to go out there and go get the caribous out of the ice cellar. 

AMY: Like he'd take the snowmobile out?

NORA JANE: No, he had dog teams.

AMY: When she was a child, Nora Jane had to walk a ways inland to get to the ice cellar. But lack of sea ice has ramped up the erosion of many parts of the Alaska shoreline, and now, like so many other culturally important sites in coastal Alaska, the family ice cellar has been swallowed by the sea.

AMY: What do you think about climate change? 

NORA JANE: Uh, it's happening. We're melting rapidly along the coast. I know it’s happening. You watch the seasons. The weather's getting weird. 

AMY: The snow used to start falling in August or September, she says. But now sometimes the island is still getting rain in October.

NORA JANE: Even when I fish... I had told my cousin, hey, my hands never get cold when I was checking my fish net in July and August, I said, your fingertips should have been really cold when you're checking your fish net and stuff like that. And I said, my hands didn't get even cold.

AMY: Is the sea ice different?

NORA JANE: Yeah, there's no sea ice. When I, when I was growing up, we'd have ice flows out there that you can go out seal hunting, and last how many years we haven't really seen any. And I just wonder what are, what are happening to the seals out there if there's no ice for them to lay and rest, you know, and it's affecting the polar bears too. So if whatever affects the seal to fix the polar bears and the fish, so, yeah. 

AMY: What do you think's causing climate change?

NORA JANE: I have no idea. It's just happening. 

AMY: You don't necessarily think it's fossil fuels? 

NORA JANE: That could be a factor, and I was hearing the rain forest being chopped off, 'cause they help clean out the atmosphere and stuff like that…so. 

AMY: Nora Jane worked in the Prudhoe Bay oilfield as a summer job when she was in college, picking up trash and doing other odd jobs. And when she first heard about the possibility of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, she was for it.

NORA JANE: When I was young in my early twenties, I, I thought that was good, 'cause it would provide jobs.

AMY: She got married and moved back to Kaktovik in 1988.

NORA JANE: Then I was still for it, but then I became a planning commissioner.

AMY: That position gave her an insider's view of development decisions on the North Slope. And that's when her opinion on drilling in the refuge started to change.

NORA JANE: Just from watching how the oil companies get their permits, they always say they're going to start just in this area. They'll tell, they say they'll start here, but then they'll spider off over here. You know, every other season seems like. And just from watching that. And then just from getting older and wanting healthy animals to eat.

AMY: Nora Jane says she's heard from people in other villages close to oil fields that the fish and the caribou aren't as healthy as they are around Kaktovik. And, she says, people in those places have to travel much farther to hunt to get away from the noise and lights of the oil industry.

NORA JANE: Why would we want to have Prudhoe Bay? You see all the oil rigs and stuff and it's not fancy stuff. 

AMY: She's also very concerned about the possibility of an oil spill. And she's not alone – the fear of a major oil spill in this remote, hard-to-reach area has been raised by many people. Even the very first step in a clean-up would be problematic: the large equipment needed would have to be shipped in, and the refuge is a long way from any major ports. Nora Jane says she's brought things like this up in many meetings, and the pro-oil people try to reassure her by saying that a spill is unlikely and that it would be cleaned up quickly.

NORA JANE: I said, you can assure us A, B, and C, but I said, you guys are not gods! You guys cannot prevent any oil spill on the ground and it takes forever to clean up and to get rid of the contamination. We're in a cycle. They forget that the water comes from the ocean and it comes back around and it's a circle of life.

AMY: If you heard our last episode, when we talked to people in Kaktovik who support oil development, you might be thinking – but what about the money? What about the ways that drilling for oil in the refuge could help people in Kaktovik?

AMY: What about, would you personally benefit from it? 

NORA JANE: Well, I'm a ASRC shareholder for one, so I'll benefit just a little bit, but I'd rather have healthy food, healthy caribou, healthy land. Birds. You have birds that fly in and out, and you don't want 'em to be dying off and stuff like that. And even our ocean water, we have to be careful with that too.

MUSIC

AMY: ASRC stands for the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation – one of the Native corporations we talked about in our last episode. It's become a powerful force on the pro-oil side, along with the North Slope Borough. Boroughs are like counties in Alaska, but the North Slope Borough is so big, it's really more like a state within the state. It's roughly the size of Wyoming but with fewer than 10,000 permanent residents. The Prudhoe Bay oilfield, the National Petroleum Reserve, and a big chunk of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are contained within its borders. Jobs can be hard to come by on the North Slope, and the Borough is a major employer -- in 2015, 48 percent of North Slope residents worked directly for the Borough government or for the North Slope School District. And those jobs, like almost everything on the North Slope, are funded by taxes from oil and gas development.

So, if a North Slope person wants to speak out against oil development, they risk going up against their employer, their government, and the oil and gas industry. This creates a certain kind of atmosphere – one that several people I spoke to in different communities in Alaska described as intimidating. It's hard to speak your mind if you feel like you might lose your job. And it also makes it hard to talk to reporters. People who feel like they've faced retaliation from the Borough because of their opinions have little to gain and a whole lot to lose by sharing their stories. 

Nora Jane says here in the village, everyone pretty much knows where everyone else stands on oil. And she knows some people have been really mad at her for speaking out against it.

AMY: Does it make you uncomfortable in your community to be a little bit of a rebel like this?

NORA JANE: Shoot I’ve been fighting my whole life.

AMY: Ever since you were that kindergartner!

NORA JANE: Yeah, ever since….no. Sometimes it hurts a little bit, but I would just say, well, they're, they have their own mind and I have my own mind, so I'll keep thinking the way I want to think, and they can keep thinking the way they want to think. And, um, if we talk about it, we can get all angry and stuff, but then in the end we're, we're all still family.

AMY: And she says here in the village, even when they have conflicts, people are repeatedly drawn back together through the process of providing for themselves as a community. She told me just shortly before I'd arrived, some hunters had caught some whales, and as they've done for thousands of years, that food was distributed throughout the village.

NORA JANE: So I was able to get some meat and the blubber to make the oil. I was blessed with that. So this community shares. We may look dysfunctional, but we all share. They all take care of, you know, when they see somebody needing, they'll, they’ll, they’ll step up. 

AMY: Yeah, it doesn't matter...it's not like, oh, Nora Jane's against oil, so we're not going to give her any whale.

NORA JANE: No, no it's not like that. Blood runs deep. So you got family members that you're related to, and we may think differently, but in the end we always end up when we have to work together, we all work together. 

AMY: Listening to Nora Jane, I felt like I was hearing about atauchikun in action, and it actually made me long for some similar kind of thing that we could do as a whole country – some hands-on, physical project in the natural world, that we do with and for each other, no matter what our political views. It wouldn't make our disagreements go away, but it might help us remember just how interwoven our fates truly are. At least that seems to be how it works for Nora Jane and other people I talked to in Kaktovik.

NORA JANE: I try to look at it that way, I say just because I think this way, I'm not gonna hate your guts for thinking that way. Cause I know that they want best for themselves. But I just say, well we want to make sure we have something for our future generation to be able to use the land and stuff like that. 

AMY: We'll have more after this short break.

Break

SEGMENT B

AMY: So, just got woken up by the sound of Robert Thompson knocking on the door saying there's bears in town. And ah, how you're feeling? 

NICK: Excited! Most excited I've maybe ever been at 6 a.m.

AMY: Welcome back to Threshold, I'm Amy Martin, and that's producer Nick Mott. This was our very first morning in Kaktovik.

AMY: We're going to go drive around Kaktovik and apparently meet some polar bears. Polar bears in town are actually not a good thing, but it's an interesting thing.

AMY: We throw on our rain shells, hats, gloves and boots – this is August in the Arctic after all – and five minutes later we meet Robert outside. 

SOUND: door slam

ROBERT: I know there's another bear in town, I'm sure I saw one.

AMY: Robert Thompson runs a company that takes people on tours to see polar bears in and around Kaktovik. He'd spotted some bears close to his house on the other side of the village, and drove over to get us, so we could see them too. He drives us slowly along the gravel roads scanning for bears, and then parks on the edge of town facing out toward the ocean. He thinks we have a good chance of seeing a bear here. 

ROBERT: Okay. This, this what we're doing. It might be kind of boring, but it pays off.

AMY: It's not boring to me.

AMY: There's water everywhere in Kaktovik – not just the ocean ringing this little island, but also puddles and pools seeping up from the ground below, and a constant mist falling from the clouds above. 

AMY: It's a cold, grey, drizzly morning...oh, oh, there it is.

ROBERT: Yep, there is a bear.

NICK: Where do you see it?

ROBERT: Over there.

AMY: Straight ahead.

NICK: Oh yeah. Hey buddy!

ROBERT: I'll turn it sideways.

AMY: There's another one. By the fence.

ROBERT:  Yes, there is, yup.

AMY: Two bears are ambling along the edge of the island, clearly led by their noses. They lower their heads to sniff the ground, and then raise them to sniff the air in a sort of slow rhythm as they walk. Robert says as the Arctic warms, more and more bears are coming to the refuge, and to Kaktovik.

ROBERT: In a, in a time when all the ice is gone in the Arctic Ocean, all of the bears are going to have to come ashore. So they could become extinct. 

MUSIC

AMY: Polar bears evolved to spend a lot of time living on sea ice. They sleep on the ice, they hunt seals and other ocean animals from it, they even build their winter dens in it. But lately, sea ice has been receding into the far north in the summers, and it can carry the bears into really deep water where they have a hard time finding food. Robert thinks some polar bears are learning to get off the ice before it melts, and instead, make a go of it on land  – places like the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and barrier islands like this one. This influx of polar bears has been good for Robert's guiding business, but it's also made him keenly aware of what's at stake here.

ROBERT: I could be here and see the last polar bear in Alaska. That would be sad to see, “oh, haven't seen a bear for a few years, oh they must be gone.” It could be. You know, people don't realize that this climate change is quite serious. Is he still walking?

AMY: Yeah, it's actually, it looks like it's almost...the water's, like getting deeper. It's, it's maybe about to start swimming? I don't know. You can see a little black nose moving back and forth.

AMY: This is kind of how it went with Robert. We were taking in this really heavy information about the long-term prospects for these animals while simultaneously getting our minds blown watching them go about their polar bear business. It's just a few degrees above freezing, the wind is whipping and tossing up big waves, and the polar bear we're watching just strolls into the water, as if it's strolling across a park.

AMY: It's just kind of bobbing around out there in the ocean. It's crazy! 

AMY: Now, of course, I know that polar bears are marine animals – I know this is a bear that can swim. But still – there's a bear, swimming! Right in front of me! In freezing cold water! It feels like a party trick. Maybe because all of my other bear encounters have involved large brown animals in forests, I just wasn't prepared for how surprising it would be to see a huge, shaggy creature casually walk into the ocean and swim about with such ease.

AMY: There's something that's, like, playful looking about it because it's getting pushed around by the waves a little bit and – 

ROBERT: He still coming this way?

AMY: Yeah, I think so. Just coming in and out of view. 

NICK: I see him.

AMY: Oh yeah! Shaking its head.

AMY: Eventually the bear swims into the shallows, stands up, and walks out of the waves and onto the beach in front of us, and we can see the water pouring off of its ivory fur. The individual hairs in that fur have evolved to repel water, so it only takes a strong full-body shake, and this bear goes from soaking wet to mostly dry in a few seconds. I'm captivated by its paws.

AMY: Those paws look huge. 

ROBERT: They are.

AMY: How big?

ROBERT: It would probably be about a foot long. 

AMY: So they're almost like flippers in the water. 

ROBERT: They swim with their front legs, they just drag their back feet around.

AMY: Oh, really? Oh, it's running!

ROBERT: They always look so comical when they're running. 

AMY: They do, I was just going to say they've got a really funny run. 

ROBERT: They look clumsy, but they can run about 30 miles an hour for a short distance. I saw one grab a seagull out of the air once. 

AMY: Wow!

ROBERT: Decided to catch it, it ran after, the seagull took off, and he grabbed it. I don't think a person could do that.

AMY: I know I couldn't. 

AMY: One of the surreal things about this scene is that when I glance behind me, I can see the village of Kaktovik, right there. Like, I could walk to the school in less than 15 minutes. And this proximity to bears poses real challenges for people here, and other Arctic villages seeing an increase of bear activity due to climate change. These are huge, potentially dangerous wild animals. Having a lot of them around means you have to be vigilant. You have to think twice before sending your kids outside to play. You need to carry a gun when you go to the dump out on the edge of town. Kaktovik has actually set up a community polar bear patrolling system to alert residents when bears get close, and to try to haze them away from the village. Robert says all of this is a big change from how it used to be. He grew up in interior Alaska, but he moved to Kaktovik more than 30 years ago.

ROBERT: But bears weren't really a problem until recently with climate change. The Arctic Ocean is opening up. When I first came, you could see the pack ice from the shore all summer.

AMY: How far away would that be?

ROBERT: Oh, within sight, like four or five miles. There was ice there all the time. We'd go out there with a boat and sit on the ice and hunt seals or whales. But now, last time I went whaling, we didn't see any ice. We won't see any now. It's all gone. There's probably 200 miles of open water right now. And every year it's more.

AMY: And this is one of the reasons why Robert is strongly opposed to oil development in the refuge. He sees a direct relationship between drilling for oil, and losing polar bears.

MUSIC

AMY: The global population of polar bears is estimated to be around 25,000 animals – but there's a lot of uncertainty around that number, because it's difficult to get an accurate count of an animal that lives in a hard-to-access place, with a habitat that spans five national boundaries. Scientists have divided the global population into 19 subpopulations, and in some of those groups, polar bear numbers are holding steady, or even going up. Some of them are a big question mark – not enough data to say what's really going on. And some aren't doing so well. The bears we're watching are part of the Southern Beaufort Sea group, and a recent study listed this subpopulation as one of the three most vulnerable in the world. Robert says loss of sea ice isn't just a threat to these bears, either. It's also a major threat to Iñupiaq culture. 

ROBERT: I was here before environmental was even discussed or talked about or a concern. We lived here like, this is going to go on forever. We didn't even think that it could change. 

AMY: Yeah. 

ROBERT: You know when we go out hunting, this is what we did, this is what we're gonna do, and now that's in jeopardy, so.

AMY: Robert says drilling for oil in the refuge is like taking a one-two punch at Iñupiaq culture – it contributes to the global warming that's disrupting their ways of life and it undermines their values by putting an emphasis on making money off of the land versus subsisting off of it in traditional ways. He says he asks his neighbors who support oil development – 

ROBERT: What do you want to do, make a lot of money or preserve the culture? They know it's not right to be that way.

AMY: What would you say to people who are like, you know what though, the people of Kaktovik, they live here, they need the money to help their community and, you know, there’s the argument they need the money– 

ROBERT: Well they can go get a job and work for it. I not, I don't have much sympathy with that cause I'm not worried about money. They don't need this money to get ahead in this community. They still got, what, 95% of the North Slope that can be exploited. They don't need to do the refuge to get the money.

AMY: That percentage is pretty accurate – the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of the only places on the North Slope where oil development was expressly prohibited. The vast majority of the region is legally open for drilling, and Robert thinks more than enough money can be made on land outside of the refuge to help people in Kaktovik and other small villages on the Slope get ahead.

ROBERT: So the argument, “we have to do the refuge so we can get money,” it has no merit.

AMY: Robert also thinks the economics of drilling in the refuge just don't really pencil out. The United States already has so much oil waiting to be produced that's far easier and less expensive for companies to bring to market – like the huge amount of shale oil that's been discovered in Texas in recent years. He doubts that the people of Kaktovik will really benefit that much from drilling. He thinks they're being sold an empty dream. 

ROBERT: But that's what people want to hear. So people in Alaska want to to hear, we'll get big dividends and we'll have all this money. We'll be happy. But I don't see it happening.

AMY: Robert has attended international climate change conferences, he's spoken out against oil development at shareholder meetings, and he takes hundreds of tourists on trips to see polar bears – tourists who go home with a newfound appreciation for the specialness of this place. All of this has put him right in the crosshairs of the pro-oil crowd. 

ROBERT: And I've seen in writing, criticism...oh he's speaks out, he does trips, he's making money off it. Well, yes, I am making money by showing people the refuge, and then they go and talk about it. So there's some resentment that there's people here showing the public about it. So. I'm not going to worry about it, they can't shut me up, I fought for the right of freedom of speech! Democracy. And I can say anything I want.

AMY: And when Robert says he fought for that right, he means it very literally. He's a veteran of the Vietnam War. 

ROBERT: My 20th birthday with my first day of duty in Vietnam. They put me on duty and I said, it's my 20th birthday, first day of duty in Vietnam. And then I came up here and started living here and hunting, and I said wait, they're going to put an oil field where I go hunting and I don't want to live in an oil field. So that's why I do what I can to stop that. 

AMY: Do you think your experience in Vietnam shapes how you look at these environmental issues at all?

ROBERT: To some degree, because, you know the peace and tranquility you get from being on the land is, uh, something that we should all look at, you know. Especially after, ah, being in a war, you know, and so on. 

AMY: You really...you could feel how you needed that.

ROBERT: Oh yeah. A lot of people do. 

MUSIC

AMY: When you're trying to maintain a sense of togetherness even during times of conflict, one of the biggest questions you have to answer is who is invited to conversation. This comes up again and again in the national debate over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. If you've never been to the refuge, if you don't live in Alaska, should you have say in determining the fate of this place? Robert Thompson says yes. He says you don't have to live in Kaktovik to find meaning and comfort in knowing the refuge is there, without the roads and lights and noise that fill up so much of the rest of this planet.

ROBERT: Most people won't be out on that refuge. Three hundred twenty-five million people in United States. What percentage will ever get here? But to know that there's places still, uh, I guess you could say for future generations that are pristine and nice to go to. So, those are things that people should look at.

AMY: But many people on the pro-oil side feel differently. Including one of Alaska's most powerful politicians.

DON YOUNG: Listen to the people that live there. That's all I ask you to do. Listen to them. Hear what they say. Not someone who's living in Fairbanks. Not those that are foreigners or living away from the area.

AMY: This is Alaska Congressman Don Young. We'll pick up the story there in part two.

Credits

NICK: Our reporting was funded by the Pulitzer Center, Montana Public Radio, the Park Foundation, the High Stakes Foundation, NewsMatch, the William H and Mary Wattis Harris Foundation, and by our listeners. You can support our work and find out more about all three seasons of Threshold at our website, threshold podcast dot org.

AMY: The team behind Threshold includes Angela Swatek, Brook Artziniega, Caysi Simpson, Eva Kalea, Lynn Lieu, and Nick Mott, with help from Michelle Woods, Frank Allen, Hana Carey, Dan Carreno, Kara Cromwell, Katie deFusco, Caroline Kurtz, Matt Herlihy and Rachel Klein. Our music is by Travis Yost.

Listen to the People: Part 2

Transcript

NICK: This series was supported by the Pulitzer Center

DON YOUNG: I tell you, Mr. Chairman, I want to believe the people. Not the Gwich'in, 'cause they're not the people.

AMY: Welcome to Threshold, I'm Amy Martin, and we're just going to pick right up where we left off – no intro this time. We're listening to Don Young, Alaska's sole representative in the U.S. House, speaking at a Congressional hearing about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This is March of 2019.

DON YOUNG: I'm talking about the Inuits that live there. That's their land. It's always been their land. And to totally ignore them and any mention of their occupancy is wrong in this, this report and including you in your written statement, it's wrong.

AMY: So...what's going on here. Well, the Gwich'in are an Alaska Native tribe who are pretty united against drilling. We're going to hear from Gwich'in people in our next episode. And this hearing was on a bill sponsored by House Democrats aimed at stopping drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The bill was mostly symbolic, it's now dead in the water in the Senate, but this hearing was pretty fascinating. Picture six people, kind of squished together at a table, shoulder to shoulder, preparing to speak. All of them are indigenous, and all of them have flown thousands of miles to be at this hearing. But Don Young's message to his colleagues is not to listen to some of his own constituents.

DON YOUNG: Not the Gwich'in. That's my tribe. My wife was Gwich'in, my daughter's Gwich'in. We have a few Gwich'in that make a living out of this by promoting something that's wrong, by saying we want to take away from their brothers. That's wrong. You've divided two tribes. Two tribes. Listen to the people that live there. If not, you're not a representative at all. That's all I ask you to do. Listen to them. Hear what they say. Not someone who's living in Fairbanks. Not someone that's not killed a caribou in 10 years and probably doesn't have a license. That's wrong. Think about that when you say, “we want to save the culture.” Save the culture of the people, not those that are foreigners or living away from the area. These are not the Natives directly affected. With that, I yield back.

AMY: There's a lot to unpack here. First, Gwich'in leaders released a statement after this hearing, saying Don Young does not represent their people, and asking him to stop claiming he's Gwich'in. Second, when Don Young says that the Gwich'in won't be affected by drilling is to presume that he has the authority to decide for them what affects them. And he doesn't. Many Gwich'in people say they will be impacted by drilling, and again, we're going to hear more from them in our next episode.

And then, there's whole bit about listening to the people. There are just so many layers waiting to get peeled back. There's the irony of Congressman Young shouting at his colleagues to listen to some people while simultaneously telling them not to listen to others. But at the same time, he is pointing to something real here. Some conservation groups and politicians who are opposed to oil development have kind of ignored the Iñupiat, often describing the Gwich'in as “the” indigenous people of the refuge, when in reality, they are one of the indigenous groups of this region. In fact at this very hearing, Democrats had invited eight witnesses to two different panels, and none of them were Iñupiat. But this same game is played from the other side too. Pro-oil groups and politicians try to lift up certain Native voices that back up their position – exhibit A, Don Young's testimony here. Both pro- and anti-oil factions here are probably guilty of promoting select groups of Alaska Native people and ignoring others.

The antidote to all of this is obvious: go to the source. Let indigenous Alaskans speak for themselves. And when you do that – when you go to Kaktovik, and listen to the people who live closest to the drilling area – some of them say things like this:

CARLA: I really believe that there is enough oil fields open already. We've got oil fields all along the coast.

AMY: This is Carla SimsKayotuk [sims-kie-YOU-tuhk], and she lives in Kaktovik. Again, this the only village located inside the 1002 area, where drilling has been approved.

CARLA: The first time I maybe understood what's going on was maybe in high school when they started having the seismic teams come through and I remember not liking it then.

AMY: Why didn't you like it?

CARLA: I just, I just didn't like the possibility of what it meant could happen here. And just having an oil field around here. It just never appealed to me.

AMY: Carla grew up here, and she loves this place – Barter Island, where the village is located and the coastal plain.

CARLA: To me it's very beautiful. It's, it's probably the most beautiful place on Earth, is this area. There's so much life out there. The birds come here, they're from here, they lay their eggs there, they have their babies here, then they fly out for the winter. So this is their home.

AMY: Carla has been on a whaling crew in the past, she says caribou are really important to her. In fact, everything about this part of the world seems to have deep meaning for her.

CARLA: When you go up in the springtime or in the winter and it's all white and everything. It's just, it's beautiful. I mean, like God created all of that. It's just, you can't deny the beauty of it all out there. And he placed us here for a reason.

AMY: Carla says she's been hearing about the possibility of oil development here for a long time, and she never thought it made sense. She felt like it went against Iñupiaq values and traditions. But she says she mostly kept her thoughts to herself. For awhile.

CARLA: I was always quiet about, about my personal views until I heard a radio broadcast with one of the past mayors of the North Slope and they were talking about developing in the Teshekpuk Lake area –

AMY: The top elected office of the North Slope Borough is mayor. Teshekpuk Lake is an area close to where this former mayor was living.

CARLA: And he was like, it's not going to happen in my backyard and, and everything. I was like, wow, wait a minute, let me turn this up and listen to this. And I was just like, wow, it's okay for you guys to push to open up ANWR which is where I live and but yet you don't want it in your backyard. No, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be quiet anymore. I'm going to start voicing my concerns and my opinions and, and, and I haven't stopped since then (laughter).

AMY: Like Nora Jane Burns, one of Carla's biggest concerns is how oil development might sprawl across the coastal plain. The law that authorized drilling says production and support facilities would be limited to 2,000 acres, which sounds like a small portion of the one-and-a-half-million acres of the coastal plain. But Carla says...

CARLA: I don't trust what they say. I just don't believe it. Yeah. They'll find loopholes. They'll find ways to, to get around it.

MUSIC

AMY: And she has reasons to be suspicious. Pro-oil people like to say that 2,000 acres is a smaller footprint than many airports. But that's not a fair comparison, because the 2,000 acres of development on the coastal plain doesn't have to be continuous – it doesn't have to be one chunk of land, with everything else left untouched. Only certain things are counted toward the 2,000 acres. For instance, fence posts, which touch the ground, would be counted, but not the fences themselves connecting the posts. Same with pipelines. The pads for the support structures that hold up the pipeline would be counted, but not the actual pipes, because they don't rest directly on the ground. So this 2,000 acres gets broken down into these little tiny pieces which can be spread out over a huge area – five feet here, ten feet there, maybe two acres over there. Instead of an airport, a more accurate visual might be a toddler's playroom with Legos strewn across the floor. Sure, if you add up how much space each individual Lego is taking up it might sound like a small percentage of the room. But that doesn't really matter, because you can't walk across the floor without stepping on one of those sharp little pieces.

AMY: And to Carla all of these technicalities can obscure the obvious: she says if people want to  know what oil development in the refuge would be like, all they have to do is look around.

CARLA: You just look to our neighbors and family over in Nuiqsut area and they told them it was just going to be just this little spot. There are now almost completely 360 surrounded by oil development and the structures and infrastructure and stuff over there.

AMY: Nuiqsut is an Iñupiaq village on the other side of the Prudhoe Bay oil field. Huge oil and gas deposits have been found near the community, and like Carla said, it's basically surrounded by industry now. Although some people in Nuiqsut support drilling, many others are very concerned about the health impacts on local people and animals. And Carla says that is not the future she wants for Kaktovik.

CARLA: Do I want it in my backyard? No, I don't want it in my backyard, like no one else wants it in their backyard. Um, do I think another oil field needs to be opened? No, I think there's plenty of oil fields opened already. We don't need to be opening any more. Complete what's out there already and, and try and find other sources, um, to power everything.

AMY: Carla is a shareholder in the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation – the biggest Native corporation in this area. And she says she stands up at shareholder meetings and tries to remind people that their most important job is to protect the land, water and animals they depend on.

AMY: So what kind of response do you get when you say that kind of stuff?

CARLA: What do they say? They tell me that they need the revenue to continue to have the things that we have, the running water, school stuff, fire department, the health care, um, that's the way for revenue to keep the Slope going. And I'm like, well, I think our people are smart enough to where they can find other ways to earn that revenue and to keep growing economically. I think. I think we're smart enough to find other ways to, to survive.

AMY: An organization called Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat has been very active in supporting oil development in the refuge. Their website says the purpose of the group is to establish a unified voice for the Iñupiaq people of this region. And at public hearings on oil development, members of this group sometimes hold signs saying “we stand with Kaktovik," which gives the impression that the whole village supports drilling. Carla says this bothers her.

CARLA: They're taking our voice and speaking for us. And so I find it really ironic that they get really angry when they say the Gwich'in are speaking and they shouldn't be speaking. And it's like, hey, you're, you're taking my voice away and trying to say you're speaking for me when I don't think you should be speaking for me.

AMY: This is the dark side of any call for unity – it can be a mask for other intentions, like silencing dissent.

CARLA: You can have conflict but not be mean and everything about it. I think you can voice your concerns and still try to work together to come to an agreement or something. Um, but avoiding saying something just to avoid conflict is, is also not healthy. 

AMY: Yeah and do you think that's a cultural value too?

CARLA: It should be. (laughter) You should always be honest, so, yeah.

AMY: So how do we differentiate between a healthy unity and a coercive one? That's a problem people in every culture struggle with. It's behind the protests that have wracked Hong Kong this fall, it's being hotly debated within the Democratic party in the run-up to the 2020 election. And it's a question we all face as individuals, too. How do we have conflict without breaking up families, or friendships? How can we be real with each other about who we are and what we think, but still have atauchikun – a foundation of togetherness?

MUSIC

AMY: In December, 2017 when um, the tax bill got passed that allowed for drilling in the, in the refuge –

CARLA: That was a sad day.

AMY: Was it?

CARLA: Yes. I thought it was a very sad day.

AMY: Carla said she remembers posting something on Facebook, expressing her sadness, and now, almost two years later, her grief about this decision is still very close to the surface...

CARLA:  I just think it's, it's going to change the whole dynamics of our area. The ambiance, the social structure our places where we can hunt and subsist and probably even camp. It's going to have an impact.

AMY: Some of the land owned by the Kaktovik Iñupiat Corporation, or KIC, is right here on Barter Island, where the village lies.

CARLA: And that's just, that's just like right out here. I mean like not even a mile from, from this house. You're going to see it. I mean, I don't, I don't understand how people think we're not going to be impacted. The pipeline is going to be up on the tundra. So, that's right along the coast. I mean KIC lands are right there on the mainland, right, right close to shore. And that's where we do all our hunting, all our camping during the summertime and springtime. And it's, it's gonna change.

AMY: So it's really personal for you.

CARLA: It is a, that's all where we go camping, where my family goes camping and, and everything. And I use that time to get away from.. I know we're in a small community, but there's a lot that we have to deal with here. And so I use that camping time to, to get out and, and just renew myself and….and so it's going to be hard. I just... I hope that I'm wrong, that we're not going to be impacted the way I think we will be. But we'll see. So I feel for the coming generations that's going to have to deal with it all. I'm going to grab some tissues.

AMY: Carla and I kept talking for quite a while, and eventually I packed up my gear and was about to head out, when she told me this: as much as she is opposed to oil development, what she wants the most is for Iñupiaq land to be in Iñupiaq hands. That's her top priority. Sovereignty. Even more than stopping development, she wants her community to have control over their land.

We'll have more after this short break.

Break

AMY: Wow. This is the closest we've gotten for sure.

AMY: Welcome back to Threshold, I'm Amy Martin, and producer Nick Mott and I are with polar bear guide Robert Thompson again. We've just come upon a mother and cub, out for an afternoon stroll.

AMY: So mom and baby are walking right in front of us and... cuteness explosion.

AMY: Everything around us is grey – grey sky, grey ocean, grey sand – except these two creamy white creatures exploring the beach.

AMY: It's like an ivory, slightly yellowish white, and she looks big and healthy. And baby's nose is a lot flatter and rounder, rounder face, and just tooling right behind her mom. You can definitely see the hunter in them and she's looking, looking right at us right now. She looks incredibly powerful. Just really happy to be in a vehicle right now. 

AMY: Robert says oil development in the refuge poses a direct threat to mothers and cubs like this pair, even before any wells are drilled. As we talked about last time, seismic testing is usually the first step in oil exploration. The way it works is that a big truck, commonly called a thumper truck, drives across the exploration area, stopping intermittently to lower a metal plate, which sends a vibration deep underground. Decades ago, these heavy trucks did damage to the tundra that's still visible today – tire tracks that tore up the fragile Arctic soil. To mitigate that, seismic exploration in this area is now limited to the winter months, when the ground is frozen. But this attempt to address one problem created another, because winter is when polar bears make dens under the snow. Females give birth to their cubs in these dens and nurture them there for many months, without eating or drinking anything themselves. Then they emerge with the cubs in March or April, extremely hungry and with new mouths to feed.

AMY: They were playing with some stuff before kind of tossing it around in the air...and then the baby's like a quarter of her height, moving behind her, kind of copying her movements.

AMY: The thumper trucks used in seismic surveys can be equipped with infrared technology designed to detect polar bear dens. But Robert says the bears could still be disrupted at a very vulnerable stage in their life cycle, or even get missed by the infrared, and crushed in their dens. And right now, he says, the last thing polar bears need is another threat.

ROBERT: I'm an Eskimo person from North Slope being rained on in February. I don't need any more scientific evidence – we're being affected. We're losing species, we will never hunt muskox again, we had muskox here, and the polar bear on the way out. And other species are moving in and the ocean currents are changing, and the whole fishing situation is changing. And usually it's not for the better.

AMY: Robert's not a shareholder in the two Alaska Native corporations that have the most to gain from development here, but he is a shareholder in a different one. And because all the Alaska Native regional corporations share some of their profits, he does still stand to benefit financially from drilling.

AMY: I mean is there a part of you that's like, well that money would be really nice, maybe it's worth it. Have you ever been tempted?

ROBERT: No, no. Never.

AMY: Why not?

ROBERT: I'm happy without that money. I probably wouldn't be happy – there are stories of people who won lotteries and everything, it almost to a person, they, they run through it and, or their life falls apart. No, I've been poor before. I can be poor very well. I don't need that money. Plus I'm involved in ecotourism and I like that and it's enjoyable and it's not harming the environment and it's fun. So why should I sit there getting dividends? I don't need it. I wouldn't miss it and I'd rather have the land like it is.

AMY: I have to look through the binoculars again. Wow. It's really cool to see her through the binocs, she's beautiful, her face is kind of dirty...greenish brown…Paws kind of look like with puppies where the paws are so oversized for the body.

NICK: Aww, sharing.

AMY: She's licking his face. She licked his face a minute. Sweet. (laughter)

ROBERT: I hope people listen to this and realize, hey, it's amazing to see these bears, but their probably on the way out because of climate change. You got to look at reality, and I don't know if we can do enough to mitigate it. But we shouldn't do anything to take what they have left away. Who knows, it might turn around. Some miracle will happen.

AMY: In our first episode from Kaktovik, we heard from Fenton Rexford, one of the people in the village who supports drilling in the refuge. He was speaking at that same hearing where we heard the tape from Congressman Don Young earlier – in fact, Fenton was invited to that hearing by the congressman. I want to replay part of what Fenton had to say.

FENTON: We are not an exhibit in a museum. Nor should the land that we have survived and thrived for centuries be locked away for the peace of mind from those from far-away places. This school of thought amounts to nothing more than green colonialism – a political occupation of our land in the name of environment, while others exploit the idea of wilderness for economic gain.

AMY: Fenton and Robert know each other of course. Everybody knows everybody in Kaktovik. They're of the same generation, I'm sure they have so much in common. But they see this issue of drilling in the refuge so differently – Robert sees drilling as a direct assault on Iñupiaq culture, and Fenton sees it as an expression of Iñupiaq sovereignty. That's big stuff to disagree on. And yet, somehow, these two men and everyone else with different feelings about drilling in the refuge here – they're making it work as a community on this small Arctic island. I was there for less than a week, I can't begin to say I understand this whole situation, or how they're getting through it. But it seems like some combination of airing out of differences from time to time, and mostly focusing on what they have in common instead of what divides them. Nora Jane Burns, the former mayor of Kaktovik who we met in part one of this episode, extends that attitude beyond the village. She's a big advocate for dialogue with their closest neighbors, the Gwich'in.

NORA JANE: I know they always try to say that those folks are not from here, but, but when you look at the map, Arctic Village is really close borderline to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. So maybe work with them and come up with some kind of solution. There's always a possibility of solutions or pod. They can work together. Yeah, working together would be the best way, and everybody win win.

AMY: Iñupiaq territory is on the northern part of the refuge, Gwich'in territory is to the south, on the other side of the Brooks Range. And the Porcupine caribou herd, which both tribes have deep ties to, moves between these two regions – they migrate from Gwich'in to Iñupiaq lands and back again. Nora Jane says a quick glance at social media provides all the evidence you need for how much these animals unite people here, regardless of their tribe or their opinion on oil development.

NORA JANE: 'Cause they all everybody, they all, you'll see posting, oh, I had caribou with this, I had caribou this. They all like to eat caribou.

AMY: That's kind of the connective thread.

NORA JANE: That's connecting thread. That caribou. So that's what I, I like to see them is just to at least sit down and just listen to them, listen to their concerns. Because if you flip it, if it was flipped, if their country had lot of oil and we didn't have anything and we know our animals migrate to their land, I think I would be concerned too. They're people like us, they eat the same animal we eat.

AMY: At that hearing in Washington, D.C., Congressman Young accused his colleagues of dividing these tribes.

DON YOUNG: You've divided two tribes. Two tribes.

AMY: But who has divided the Gwich'in and the Iñupiat? And how divided are they, really? Maybe it's appealing to make a nice simple story in which one tribe wants oil development, and the other doesn't. Then all you have to do is pick which side you're rooting for. But that narrative only works if you ignore Carla SimsKayotuk, and Robert Thompson, and Nora Jane Burns, and Vebjørn Aishana Reitan, who we met in our first episode. And many others.

I didn't hear anyone in Kaktovik or in Arctic Village, where we're going next time, describe this situation in these binary terms – as a fight between one group that wants oil development and another that doesn't. Instead, I heard Iñupiaq people and Gwich'in people talking about the pride and pleasure they take in their cultures – their food, their languages, their ways of being in the world. I heard them describing the painful effects of colonization and racism and ignorance and arrogance from outsiders, and how they're dealing with those things, as individuals and in their communities. And I heard people with very different opinions on oil development express a strong common value: a determination to survive.

SARAH: We’re not going anywhere. We’re here to stay. God or creator put us where we are today as Gwich’in people, to take care of this part of the world and we did good, and we like it, and we’re going to stay. We’re not going anywhere, we’re here to stay.

AMY: This is Sarah James, a Gwich'in leader from Arctic Village, Alaska. We'll meet her next time on Threshold.

Credits

NICK: Our reporting was funded by the Pulitzer Center, Montana Public Radio, the Park Foundation, the High Stakes Foundation, NewsMatch, the William H and Mary Wattis Harris Foundation, and by our listeners. You can support our work and find out more about all three seasons of Threshold at our website, threshold podcast dot org.

AMY: The team behind Threshold includes Angela Swatek, Brook Artziniega, Caysi Simpson, Eva Kalea, Lynn Lieu, and Nick Mott, with help from Michelle Woods, Frank Allen, Hana Carey, Dan Carreno, Kara Cromwell, Katie deFusco, Caroline Kurtz, Matt Herlihy and Rachel Klein. Our music is by Travis Yost.

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