(ANWR) Drilling Debate Hits Close To Home

FoxNews ^ | 12-29-01 | Julie Asher

[GRRRRR]

A balanced view of the Arctic National Wildlife Drilling (for oil) debate presented in short summary by Fox.

Two Eskimo (not PC!) villages give their views with supporting info from Biologists...

The Gwitch'in were among the last Native Americans to come in contact with Europeans and their culture today remains largely intact since that first meeting. The 150 residents of Arctic Village rely heavily on caribou for all kinds of reasons – drying the meat in handmade smokehouses, using bones for tools, and skinning the fur for leggings and moccasins.

[patriciaruth]

So, one story says they are thriving and another says they are avoiding the village where they are hunted. And another story says that their numbers were dwindling seriously a hundred years ago, probably due to hunting by natives. Everybody has an agenda, so it's difficult to get a consistent slice of information.

[GRRRRR]

Yeah, That's the beauty part...you get to read both sides of the story and make up your own mind. I tend to believe the people who are actually living with and off the elk herds, they wouldn't be thriving (as shown in the video) if the elk weren't there.

GRRRRRRRollin'

[Tripleplay]

Sure, protect the caribu. Let the USA depend on oil from countries who support the taliban, suicide bombers, cartels controlling the supply of oil, and people who are taught to hate America from birth. Let's pay $3.00 per gallon in five years so a few caribu can graze the tundra of Alaska.

[Brad C.]

Here's an idea, go dig out a map of the State of Alaska, and look to see just where Arctic Village is located. It is right on the lower boundry of ANWR. Then get out your little measuring device and check the mileage from Arctic Village to the coast (where the oil is). By my measurement it is 150+ miles or so. And one has to cross the continental divide to get there. I really don't think that the people of Arctic Village do much hunting up there, being as it is so far from their homes.

[GRRRRR]

Excellent Idea...How about this one?

[GRRRRR]

Looks like plenty of room for oil drilling and elk habitat to me!

[patriciaruth]

Naw, I don't like your idea of killing off the caribou now. So, I think we should ban the natives from killing them.

Then I think we should get our oil from George's new buddy Vladimir, who has ever so many barrelsful in the Caspian Sea region. And when Vladi's oil is gone, then we will have so many caribou thriving without the natives killing them that we could drill in ANWR and have leeway to knock off some caribou accidentally.

P.S. I am pulling your leg

[Brad C.]

Very good, except it doesn't show Arctic Village, which actually sits at the top of that little pocket just above Ft. Yukon. It also doesn't show the two mountain ranges between the village and the coast. Note the lack of roads in the area.

[Brad C.]

BTW, there are no elk in the interior of Alaska, they only live on the islands, because they were transplanted there many years ago.

[D. Miles]

My Indian grandfather had a saying, "Take only what you need, and always put something back." Perhaps those Indinas have hunted thenselves right out of the path of the very animal they depend on. We the American people need that oil, but we need to be very careful in how we get it. We also need to remember to return something to the land, such as cleaner forms of roads in the area, ect.

[Bommer]

Biologists say the porcupine caribou herd, which calve on the coastal plain of the ANWR, has dwindled in the past few years, probably due to natural cycles. But the lower numbers have already made things difficult for the people of Arctic Village.

Time to refer to the Liberal Playbook: Endangered Species Section. Apparently due to "over hunting" of the caribou, their numbers have severely dwindled. We know for a fact that the caribou herd population exploded when the Alaska Pipeline was installed. Since they do not want drilling which would increase the Caribou population in Anwar, and their numbers are dwindling, maybe they should be put on the endangered species list and hunting banned!

[Bommer]

Biologists say the porcupine caribou herd, which calve on the coastal plain of the ANWR, has dwindled in the past few years, probably due to natural cycles. But the lower numbers have already made things difficult for the people of Arctic Village.

Time to refer to the Liberal Playbook: Endangered Species Section. Apparently due to "over hunting" of the caribou, their numbers have severely dwindled. We know for a fact that the caribou herd population exploded when the Alaska Pipeline was installed. Since they do not want drilling which would increase the Caribou population in Anwar, and their numbers are dwindling, maybe they should be put on the endangered species list and hunting banned!

[Jorge]

Here's an idea, go dig out a map of the State of Alaska, and look to see just where Arctic Village is located. It is right on the lower boundry of ANWR. Then get out your little measuring device and check the mileage from Arctic Village to the coast (where the oil is). By my measurement it is 150+ miles or so. And one has to cross the continental divide to get there. I really don't think that the people of Arctic Village do much hunting up there, being as it is so far from their homes.

According to an Anchorage Daily News;
"Kaktovik, the only community inside the refuge."

...and "Kaktovik residents overwhelmingly support refuge development if only because the memories of the past without oil are more troubling than the thought of a future with it. A city poll in January found that 78 percent of Kaktovik residents support opening the coastal plain to development."

Also from The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.);
"Chuck Green, a member of the Northwestern Arctic Natives' Association, said: "The oil development will really help our people. It will mean good employment and cash so that we're able to do things the rest of America takes for granted. Many of our communities don't have water and sewerage."

And according to MSNBC;
"Anchorage, March 7 - A statewide poll conducted in January by Dittman Research shows 75 percent of Alaskans surveyed favor drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."

Seems to me when you consider both views, that support for drilling in Alaska clearly out weighs the opposition.

It's enviro-nazis down here who are blocking it.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Nice post. New Headline should be:

DemocRATS Opposed to Drilling ANWR HATE Alaskan Indians, Defy The Wishes of Majority

[Dustoff45]

Two Eskimo (not PC!) villages give their views with supporting info from Biologists...

I may be one of the few Freepers that has actually visited both Kaktovik (Barter Island) and Arctic Village.

The proposed drilling areas are quite close to Kaktovik. The residents of Kaktovik are Inupiat Eskimos. Also close to Kaktovik are the 10s of thousands of Caribou that can be seen grazing on the tundra in the Arctic summer (The calving season).

Arctic Village, the home of the Gwitch'in people is quite remote from the proposed drilling areas of ANWR. The Gwich'in are a tribe within a culture of Alaska Indians called Athabascans.

I flew there from Ft. Yukon on the Yukon river side of the Brooks range. The people there live a life much like the other small remote villages like Venetie and Chalkyitsik. The people have erected log cabins and live near rivers.

I met one of their chiefs during my visit. He was treated more like a local celebrity than a chief in residence.

After watching a Public Television show broadcast in Anchorage about the terrible plight that Oil drilling would bring to the Gwitch'in, I realized that Arctic Village had succeeded in making the whole issue political and all about them.

A small village of 150, some 90 miles from the coastal plain, Arctic Village has linked itself with the environmental movement, and thus they have the abundant power of their lobbyists to keep their plight in discussion.

Interesting article about both villages posted here.

Native villagers are divided over oil drilling debate

A point I want to make is that the Anti-ANWR group is hiding behind a group of independents that are complaining about a loss of caribou that can not actually be blamed on oil drilling that has not occurred.

What they have forgotten is that the Athabascan people were nomads that followed the herds, not waiting for the herds to come to them. They have changed their ancestral ways, but wanted to blame others for their issues.

[GRRRRR]

Wow, you sure dug deep into the archives to reply!!

From 2001!