The City of Kaktovik Alaska


OUR LAND / CULTURE	ISSUES / PERSPECTIVES	PHOTO / ART GALLERY	CONTACT INFO / LINKS

oil developement

wilderness

our future

Issues & Perspectives

For a relatively small village, Kaktovik has been the center of much activity in recent years. In fact, as long as most Kaktovikmiut can remember, people from the outside have been coming to this place to pursue various interests. Over the years we have often welcomed these outsiders, while at times our relationships with them have been more problematic. In the late 1800s through the early part of the 20^th century sea-faring people, mostly commercial whalers and traders, came here to buy and sell goods. Not long after, reindeer herders came over from the west and set up camps. In the 1940s the federal government came and set up military posts for their DEW Line, or Distant Early Warning, sites.

For a variety of reasons, people have always shown an interest in this place we call home. Sometimes we were included in their pursuits and sometimes not. Many who have come to this place have settled here, started families and become functioning members of the community. Others have come here with more insidious agendas. Either way, we have usually been accepting of outsiders, and most who spend enough time here learn to adapt to the culture and way of life of the Kaktovikmiut.

During the last half of the twentieth century, more outsiders have come to Kaktovik pushing foreign agendas. In a large part this came from the designation of statehood. Since this time many from the outside have assumed more right to this place, more right even than us. They have conveniently overlooked our history here as they came to our place to conduct their business. For instance, when the US Fish and Wildlife service first began flying around this region, harassing our animals and our people with their helicopters, we were very upset. Some groups were respectful of the Kaktovikmiut, while others were not. Those who chose to listen realized the best way to operate in Kaktovik is to include us in the work they do.

When oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay many more people came here pushing outside agendas and again we were concerned. We still are, even though some of these people have learned the importance of working with us. Getting the respect we deserve has not always come easy. The fact is we often had to demand it. We have worked long and hard to gain oversight regarding any outside activity, from the petroleum industry or otherwise. Our land, animals, and the culture we hold dear depends on it and that is something we will never sacrifice.

When much of our land was designated a wildlife range, and then a refuge, many more people felt entitled to this area. Many groups, most of whom have never even been to our place, were making efforts to seize our land by putting more names to it and creating more rules and regulations. Regulations that once enacted could not be undone. The area that we called home for thousands of years was now being seen exclusive of the people who lived here. For the first time we found ourselves fighting an enemy we could not see. Some of these people we offered to meet with so that we might discuss our concerns. Most never had the decency to respond. Perhaps they felt guilty. Perhaps looking into the eyes of the true people of this land was just too real for them.

Regardless, most of these people continue to talk their talk, and they do it very far from this place. We see the news of other places, we see people talk as though they are from this place, we see them dance and sing and praise our land and call it their own. It is against the culture of the Kaktovikmiut to speak for other people and to assume what may be right for them, or to presume their intentions. Over time we have learned that this not necessarily how other people think.

People come to Kaktovik asking all sorts of questions about ANWR. Do the Kaktovikmiut support oil development or do we oppose it? Here the questions are not so simple and the issue is not so easily defined as to which side of this debate do we support. That argument is not conceived here. The polemic surrounding ANWR was not created in Kaktovik, but constructed in the minds of two warring factions conspiring against one another in a place very far from here. It was created outside our place, so is of little consequence to us. The fact is that some groups on either side of this argument are benefiting greatly from the debate. Just as there is financial gain in war, for some there is financial gain in the ongoing battle over ANWR. Consequently, the war that goes on between these two groups do not involve us and will continue to elude us.

What if everything you knew about the ANWR debate was wrong? What if the argument that you have seen played out in the media was something of an illusion? What if there was another position, one from a perspective that lied outside all you have seen and heard, yet was closest to the place in question? Would it make sense to you? Would you believe it?

In Kaktovik, we live in that place. Here the questions surrounding the ANWR debate are not laid out in black and white. Here the answers are not so easily summed up and delivered in digestible sound bites. Our position here in Kaktovik is much more complicated, yet remarkably simple. Our concerns are real, not theoretical, as we are the ones who will be most affected by anything that happens here. In Kaktovik we live in this place, and our perspective is not so narrow. In fact it is as wide as these lands are vast.