I translated for the NSB IHLC many years ago and this was the word I would often hear from our elders “Ivayaqtuqtit” – those who come and take advantage of others. The elders were talking about industry and those who approved the permitting of them to do so.
I remember some of the promises given by industry and the federal government when our elders back then were asking questions. “We will not leave a footprint”; “we will restore it back to how it was”….some of the many promises. What do you think? What would our then elders say today? If they took off from Kaktovik and flew to Barrow on a clear night. It’s all lights until you land in Barrow. All those gravel pads in the middle of the tundra, there are no rigs on them now but the gravel pads are there. The many roads that lead to no where but to abandoned sites.
No one holds industry accountable. No one looks back at the permits to see if what was needed to be done is finished when leaving a drill site. Can we ask the NSB Planning Department and get a clear answer? How many abandoned gravel pads do we have? It has changed our landscape. Are they environmentally clean? Were the Traditional Land Use Inventory information used for permitting?
How much money has the State of Alaska made from leases? Leasing what was not theirs? There was a 99 year lease with the Federal Government for reindeer herders from Point Hope to the Canadian Border. During the time of this lease, the State of Alaska started leasing to industry on top of the already existing lease? What would that be called today? Where was the Federal Government’s “Trust Responsibility”?
I saw many of our elders crying because their family graves that spread from Barrow eastward all the way to Kaktovik were being disturbed. No one listened. Let us remember the Traditional Land Use Inventories collected early in the creation of our Municipal Government from those elders. These should be part of our school curriculum.
Let us remember that it was the Federal Government that told these families that lived from Barrow to the Canadian Border to move to a larger settlement for the sake of “Education”…..was it really education? Or was it to take their homes for the sake of oil? Who are the real “Ivayaqtuqtit”?