Oil Age Eskimos

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Joseph G. Jorgensen I n a book made especially timely by the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill in March 1969, Joseph Jorgensen analyzes the im pact of Alaskan oil extraction on Eskimo society. The author investigated three communities representing three different Alaskan environments : Gambell (St. Lawrence Island, Bering Sea}, Wainwright (North Slope, Chukchi Sea), and Unalakleet (Norton Sound). The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 , which facilitated oil operations, dramatically altered the economic, social, and political organization of these villages and o thers like them. Their economies are much more dependent on public sector transfers than they were two decades ago. Despite marked changes in many aspects of Eskimo society, most households in the villages still depend for subsistence on the naturally occurring resources of the land and sea around them . Birds, eggs, fish, plants, land mammals, and sea mammals are harvested and consumed, much as they were twenty years or two hundred years ago. Natives retain an ethic of sharing food, cash, and labor with others in need, without hesitation and without explicit expectation of reciprocation. They also wish to remain sovereign in their own places, yet they have experienced the power of the public sector in shaping many aspects of their society, even to the animals they choose to harvest. Although Eskimos have received little direct economic benefit from the oil economy, they have assumed many environmental risks posed by the industry. Jorgensen

Oil Age Eskimos

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Oil Age Eskimos J OSEPH G. J ORGENSEN

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles Oxford T hie

On e

IIIIII

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, Califontia Univenity of California Press Oxford, England

Copyright c 1990 by The Regents of the University of Califom_ia Lihmry of Congms C.ataluging-m-Publicati<m Dala

jorgen..:n, Joseph C. Oil age eskimos/ Joseph C. Jorgensen, P· em. Includes bibliographical references ISBN 0-520-0684!1-2 (alit. paper) I. Esk.imo.t-Alask.a-Economk conditions. 2. Eskimos-AiaskaSocial conditions. S. Pct.rOieum iudu.Atry and trade--Ahulut--Social ~5pecu.. L Titl'!.

E99.E7J634 1990 3S0.9798'705'089971-dc20

89-49213 ClP

Printed in the United States of Ame-rica

I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American Nationa.l Standard for Information Sciencet-Permancnce of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI ZS9.4S-1984 @

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To the numwry of Robert N. Jorgensen, brother, mi.ISier prosecutor, polyglot, man of leUers, computer junkie, teacher, guide, keeper of the hymns and the memories

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Contents

Tables, Figures, Maps

IX

Preface I

XIII

THE PROBJ EM

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2. THE STUDY VILLAGES

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3 HISTORICAL BACKGROJJND

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4 THE AVAII.ABII.ITY AND HARYFSTING OF NATI!RAI.I.Y OCCURRING RESOI!RCFS ·

SUBSISTENCE ECONOMY. PART 1

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5. THE ORGANIZATION OF EXTRACTION· SUBSISTENCE ECONOMY, PART 2 6

95

AN EXPI ANAT!ON OF DEPENDENCY

AND SUBSISTENCE: VILLAGE ECONOMICS, PART I

133

7 THE CONTEMPORARY MODE OF

PRODUCTION: VILLAGE ECONOMICS. PART2

154

8. KI NSHIP AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. PART I

203

9. KINSHIP AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. PART 2 I0

230

IDEOLOGY

258

Epilogue

287

Vll

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Contents APPENDIXF$ A

METHODOI.OGY

315

B. OBSTACLES IN THE PATH OF THE INQUIRY

323

C. THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS

336

Bibliography

373

Index

387

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Tables, Figures, Maps

TABLES l.

2.

3.

4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

Native/Nonnative Populations in the Three Villages, 1982 Estimated Annual Meat Consumption by Dogs in the T hree Villages, 1965 and 1982, and Projected Consumption for 1982, Assuming Total Dog Traction Expenses Incurred by Families and Walrus/ Bearded Seal Crews for Extraction Trips, Unalakleet, Wainwright, and Gambell, 1982 Annual Equipment Expenses for Subsistence Extraction, Unalakleet, Wainwright, and Gambell, 1982 Estimate of Annual Subsistence Consumption per Household, Gambell and Unalakleet, 1982 Infrastructure, Unalakleet, Gambell, and Wainwright, 1982 Ownership of Businesses, Unalakleet, Gambell, and Wainwright, 1982 Full-time Employment, Unalakleet, Gambell, and Wainwright, 1982 Employment in Private, Family-held, and Family-operated Businesse.s, in Unalakleet, Gambell, and Wainwright, 1982 T he Household Balance Sheet: Relations between Expenses and Income in Unalakleet, Gambell, and Wainwright, 1982 Some Food Prices in Unalakleet, Wainwright, and Newport Beach, California, 1982 Commercial Salmon Harvest, Average Numbers of Fish and Dollars, Unalakleet, 1961-1982

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90

106

108 132 155 162 170

171

182 184 194

IX

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Tallies, Figures, Maps

13. Comparisons of Salmon Catches, Total Values, and Prices per Fish, Unalakleet, 1981-82 Seasons 14. A Commercial Salmon Fisherman's Start-up Costs, Unalakleet Prices, 1982 15. A Commercial Salmon Fisherman's An nual Operating and Maintenance Costs, Unalakleet Prices, 1982 16. Equipment Costs to Penetrate the Commercial Herring Fishery, Unalakleet, 1982 17. Average Household Sizes in Unalakleet, Gambell, Wain wright, and the United States, at Unequal Intervals, 1955-1982 18. Household Composition in Unalakleet, Wainwright, Gambell, and the United States, 1982 19. Populations, Birth/Death Ratios and OutMigration, Unalakleet, Gambell, and Wainwright, 20.

21.

22. Cl. C2. C3. C4. C5.

1982- 1987 Native Employment, Full-time for 1982 and Estimates of Full-time Equivalents for 1987 in Gambell, Wainwright, and Unalakleet Public Sector Transfers: Combined Values of Food Stamps, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and Adult Public Assistance in Gambell, Wainwright, and Unalakleet, 1984-1987 Market Basket Prices, T hree Villages and Newport Beach, California, 1988 Comparisons of the Three Climates Availability and Harvests of Marine Mammals in Unalakleet, Wainwright, and Gambell, 1981-82 Availability and Harvests of Land Mammals in Unalakleet, Wainwright, and Gambell, 1981-82 Availability and Harvests ofFish in Unalakleet, Wainwright, and Gambell, 1981-82 Average Weigh ts, Calories per Edible Pound, Relative Concentrations of Vitamins, Abundance,

196 197

198 201

215

217

304

304

306

307 352 354 355 358

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Tahks, Figures, Maps

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and Extractability of Several Important Arctic and Subarctic Fish Genuses C6. Availability and Harvests of Birds in Unalakleet, . Wainwright, and Gambell, 1982 C7. Comparisons of the Extraction of Commonly Available Avian Species in Gambell, Wainwright, and Unalakleet, 1982 ca. Marine Invertebrates Harvested in Gambell, Unalakleet, and Wainwright, 1982 C9. Marine Plants and Land Plants Harvested in Unala.kleet, Gambell, and Wainwright, 1982

360 363

367 368 370

FIGURES

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2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Mandated and Optional Governmental and Economic Organizations of Contemporary Eskimo Villages Gambell and Total St. Lawrence Island Population, over 130 Years (1852-1982), at Unequal Intervals Unalakleet Population, over 146 Years (18361982), at Unequal Intervals Wainwright Population, over 93 Years ( 18901983), at Unequal Intervals Population T rend Lines, Unalakleet, Gambell, and Wainwright (1880-1982) Yearly Subsistence Cycles, Three Villages, 1981-82 Typical Walrus (Beluga, Bearded Se.al) Crews at Gambell, Wainwright, and Unalakleet, 1982 Typical Whaling Crew Composition in Wainwright and Gambell, 1982 Representative Young-Bird and Egg-Collecting Crews, Gambell, 1982 Subsistence Seine T echniques, Unalakleet, 1982 Schematic Representation of Kind reds, Unalakleet and Wainwright, 1982

14

61 70 73 73 86 119 120 120 121 240

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Tabks, Figures, Maps

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A St I awrence I sland Patrician with Clan

Segments in Gambell and Savoonga, 1982 13. A Kinship Sharing Network, Gambell, 1982

252 257

MAPS Location of the Villages in the Study 2. Gambell 3. St. Lawrence Island Region, Bearing Sea

25 26 27

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IJnalakleet

5. Eastern Norton Sound Region 6. Wainwright 7. Chukchi Sea Region, Arctic Ocean 8. Distribution ofUnalit(Yupik), Malemiut (lnupiaq), and Kawerak (lnupiaq) about 1836 (from Nelson 1899) 9

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51

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Total Resource Exrracrjon A rea of I lnalakleet

Villagers, 1982 I0

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103

Total Resource Extraction Area of Gambell

Villagers, 1982 11 . Total Resource Extraction Area of Wainwright Villagers, 1982 Cl. Vegetation Areas of the Three Villages

104 105 351

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Preface

Oil age !Eskimos are different from pre-oil age Eskimos but not that different. Like their predecessors, indeed, like themselves twenty years ago, oil age Eskimos are hunters, fishers, and gatherers. They have "subsistence life-styles" in which the bulk of their diet is extracted from their environment. The oil age for Eskimos is very recent; it has not even spanned a single generation. Aided and abetted by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA), which extinguished native claims to land, water, and naturally occurring, renewable resources in Alaska, multinational corporations swooped onto Prudhoe Bay on the coast of the Beaufort Sea in northeastern Alaska. Oil wells were drilled, oil pipelines and holding tanks were constructed, and oil was pumped. The oil reserves (and presumed reserves) became the property of the

federal government (offshore) and the state government (onshore). Each established agencies to lease the tracts that were presumed to contain oil. Oil-related developments had many unintended consequences. for Alaska's natives. Many who had resided in urban areas throughout the United States, pursuing educations or occupations, returned to their natal villages as the ANCSA's provisions began to be implemented. And many others, who otherwise would have migrated from their natal villages for elementary and secondary educations, benefited from the construction and staffmg·of schools iri their own villages and therefore stayed at home. Village populations have grown rapidly, then, by natural increase and by return migration. When Congress enacted ANCSA, it was presumed that whereas Eskimo villages would prosper from the creation of native corporations, still they would not experience much growth, and educated Eskimos would continue to migrate to urban areas through selfselection. Eskimo viUages have not created successful, for-profit corporations, nor have Eskimos gained more than token emXIII

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ployment in oil-related occupations. Rather, the villages have become deeply dependent on federal and state income transfers to supply cash, jobs, services, and welfare. Eskimo villages are resilient places, however, and natives have successfully integrated public sector dependencies with subsistence life-styles. This is an analysis of three modern Alaskan Eskimo viUage.s and an account of how they came to be as they are today. By law, the agencies charged with leasing federal resources must assess the probable impacts on the environment from the exploration and extraction of oil before tracts can be leased to oil companies and before exploration can commence. The writing of Oil Age Eskimos has been made possible by environmental legislation, specifically, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 (~EPA) . The data on which it is based were collected in field research in the western Alaskan vil.lages of Unalakleet (Norton Sound) and Gambell (St. Lawrence Island, Bering Sea) and the north Alaskan village of Wainwright (Chukchi Sea). The studies were contracted by the Department of the Interior (originally the Bureau of Land Management. subsequently the Minerals Management Service) so that, as leasing agent for outer continental shelf oil, it could prepare environmental impact statements for Norton Sound, the Chukchi and Bering seas, and the Navarin Basin. Thus, the requirements of environmental legislation would be satisfied and leasing (and drilling) could proceed in those places. T his work. is not an environmental impact statement, nor are any of the reports on which this comparative study is based. T he Minerals Management Service, Alaska Outer Continental Shelf Region, Department of the Interior, awarded to the j ohn Muir Institute, Napa, California, and to me, as principal investigator, Contracts AA851-CTI-59 and 14-12-00 1-29024 to conduct research in three vil.lages and to base several technical reports on this research. Those reports provide the basis for several environmental impact statements that the Minerals Management Service must prepare. T hey also provide the basis for this book., which also was supported by Contract 14-12-001-29024. On completion in 1983 of the comparative research on the relations among the harvests of naturally occurring, renewable resources, private and public economic forces, and contempo-

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Preface rary Eskimo village life, my colleagues and I spent a· couple of years analyzing the data and on occasions-some opportunistic, some serendipitous, some fortuitous--made return trips to the villages. In 1986, about six months after I had completed the second draft of this book, I, as principal investigator, was awarded a second contract from the Minerals Management Service to create and validate a social indicators system by studying thirtyone Eskimo villages over the 1987- 1990 period. The three villages analyzed here-Gambell, Wainwright, and Unalakleetare in the social indicators study sample. Return visits to these villages in 1987, 1988, and 1989 on the social indicators project have allowed me to analyze recent changes and current conditions within the village. This analysis appears in the epilogue. It is important because of the consequences to Eskimos from the downturn in international oil prices and the ever-decreasing federal programs and public transfers of the Reagan administration to Native Americans. It is also important because in 1988, ANCSA was amended to rectify some of its worst provisions. It is too early to assess the consequences of the changes to ANCSA. It is also too early to assess the effects of the Bush administration on Alaska's Natives. In the fieldwork conducted in 1982, some of which spilled over into 1983, Harry Luton served as field investigator and Charles F. Cortese as senior investigator in the village of Wainwright. The major report on the village is Luton's Effects of Renewable Resoorce Harvest Disruptions tm Socioeconmnic and Sociocultural Systems: Chukchi Sea (1985). As is true for the major reports for Unalakleet and Gambell as well, only a limited portion of the detail pertinent to Wainwright is employed in this comparative analysis. Interested readers are referred to Technical Report Number 91, available from the Minerals Management Service, Alaska OCS Region, 949 East 36th Avenue, Room 110, Anchorage, AL 99508-4302. Lynn A. Robbins, as field investigator, and Ronald L. Little, as senior investigator, conducted the research in the village of Gambell. The major report for that village is Little and Robbins, Effects of Renewable Resoorce Harvest Disruptions on Socioeconomic and Sociocultural Systems: St. Lawrence Island ( 1984). Jean A.

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Preface

Maxwell, as field investigator, and I, as principal investigator, are responsible for the field research and major report on Unalakleet: Jorgensen and Maxwell, J:.}fects of Renewabu Xts&urce Harvest Dirruptions on Socioeconmnic and Sociocultural Systems: Norton S&und ( 1984). We learned how significant subsistence ways of life are to the natives in the three viUages before we were allowed to conduct even the tiniest amount of research within any viUage. At the same time, and of a piece with the way in which villagers regard their life-style, we learned how threatening oil developments are to them. We were struck by the importance of hunting, fishing, and gathering in contemporary native households. In all of the villages, a majority of the diet is obtained from naturally occurring resources. I developed three rather huge appendixes for this volume presenting and analyzing the data on environmental resources and the ways in which they are harvested, processed, stored, and used. But such information appears to be more for specialists than general readers, even knowledgeable social scientists. Because the information on harvests of natural resources is so extensive, I refer interested readers to the original reports cited above. Oil developments threaten the native resource base, and the vil.lagers know it. We also learned that, unlike migrants from rural America, Eskimos who have left their natal villages to acquire educations, pursue occupations, or both, can and do return to their viUages and resume subsistence life-styles. They do go home again. Indeed, they have returned home--or decided not to venture from their natal viUages-in large part because federal legislation (such as the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act) and income transfers from oil tax revenues have made it possible to do so. Yet the oil age has not stimulated healthy, growing economies in any of the three villages. It has not even provided employment in the oil industry for more than a handful of natives. · Rather, as in the rural western United States, the energy industry has created boom growth, but the jobs have gone to outsiders, and profits have been drained from the region. Infrastructure to service the industry and government has been developed; populations .have grown; and inflation has plagued

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Preface

xvii

some of the villages' as it has plagued the western U.S. communities that have become the centers of boom activities. In the rural American West, residents often anticipate energy developments with optimism and hope, no matter how many boom-bust cycles they have experienced in their lifetimes. Such is not the case in the three villages analyzed here. Threats to sea mammals, waterfowl and seabirds, fish, plants, the beauty of the landscape, and even to the integrity of native culture are anticipated, and some are already being experienced. Moreover, in expropriating native resources, the state also arrogated control over the animals that provide the basis for native subsistence. Dependency, then, has been accompanied by domination. Natives, however, eschew domination. They take their traditional sovereignty very seriously. Several villages, including Gambell, have gone to court repeatedly to protect their envi.r onments from harm and have won injunctions against leasing and exploration in the Bering Sea and Bristol Bay. In fall 1985, successful cases were heard in the U.S. District Court for Alaska (ViiUJge of Akutan v. Hodel, D. Alaska Civ. 85-701) and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (ViiUJge of Gambell v. HOlkl, 853877). Yet in March 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Circuit Court decisions and lifted the injunctions. It is not possible to deal with each village in the great detail that we have marshaled for the technical reports, but the comparisons that I make here should provide some generalizations that cannot be made in single-case analyses and some modest validity checks as well. There are several topics that we did not pursue in our inquiries which will undoubtedly hold interest for many readers. We did not request or gain the informed consent of villagers-leaders and nonleaders--to study alcohol or drug abuse, interpersonal violence of any kind, suicide, or crimes (alcohol-related or otherwise). As a consequence, I do not report on these issues. We did not pursue these questions in part because they were peripheral to our research interests but also because these topics are extremely vulnerable to bias and errors in reporting (threats to validity). In two separate analyses of social indicators in Alaska, we studied these topics among large samples of villages (Jorgensen, McCleary, and McNabb 1985;

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Preface

Jorgensen and McCleary 1987; Jorgensen 1988). We did not obtain positive correlations among these presumed measures of social dislocation or between them and factors that are assumed to cause them. I do not wish to give the impression that there is no public drunkenne.ss, or violence, or drug abuse in these three villages or that suicides do not occur within them. Each of the three villages has an ordinance prohibiting alcohol; pubiic drunkenness was not common or even noticeable; and violence within families was not noticeable. During 1982 and subsequently, I have visited Gambell and Unalakleet. Residents of both villages have visited me as well, and I have maintained correspondence and other communications with persons there and in Wainwright. My research associate, Jean Maxwell, conducted research in Gambell and subsequently took up residence in Unalakleet for three years. Thus, the ethnography that underpins this study is well informed. During 1987 and 1988, as part of the social indicators project, Steven McNabb, Morgan Solomon, and Muriel Hopson conducted research in Wainwright. In 1989, Mike Galginaitis conducted research for me there. In 1988 and 1989, Lynn A. Robbins conducted research in Gambell. He was joined by Donald Callaway in 1988 and Allan Alowa in 1989. Steven McNabb and Helga Eakon conducted research in Unalakleet in 1988, and McNabb was joined there by Steve Ivanoff in 1989. I am deeply indebted to the villagers of Wainwright, Unalakleet, and Gambell for the information they have provided and to Charles F. Cortese, Virgil Katchatag, Paul Katchatag, Ronald L. Little, Barbara Luton, Harry Luton, Jean A. Maxwell, Delbert Ozoovena, Lynn A. Robbins, T immy Slwooko, and Vernita K. Zyllis fo•· thei•· careful research.

I thank my colleague and fishing partner, James). Flink, for his careful reading and useful comments. Max Linn, president of the John Muir Institute, has been an excellent associate and friend over the past twenty years. He contributed to the entire research project with his good sense and his managerial skills, but he also brought his keen mind

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Preface

and sharp editing skills to several of our reports and to this book. Jack Heesch, the Contracting Officer's T echnical Representative (COR) who inherited our project a few months after its inception and guided it to the completion of the Unalakleet report and near completion of the other two, was superb at his task. He provided help when necessary and showed understanding all of the time. Timothy O'Leary, fabled ethnographic bibliographer and director of files research at the Human Relations Area Files, New Haven, provided an extremely careful reading of the text, caught a thousand errors, and painstakingly checked (correcting as necessary) every one of the Linnean binomials. Professor Wendell Oswalt, a bold (he identified himself), knowledgeable (he too is fabled as the most erudite of scholars working in the Alaskan arctic and subarctic), and very helpful reader for the University of California Press provided good insights for generalizations I had not made and appropriate challenges to some shaky claims. I thank him but do not hold him responsible. A second UC Press reader remains anonymous, but I thank that reader for useful comments. I hope that this work assists readers in understanding contemporary Alaskan Eskimo village culture and the way in which federal legislation and oil-related developments have influenced village life. June 1989

Joseph G. Jorgensen

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1 THE PROBLEM

In late 1981, the Minerals Management Service, United States Department of the Interior, was conducting a pub:Jic hearing in the villa,g e of Unalakleet for a proposed oil lease sale in Norton Sound. Public hearings on draft environmental impact statements are required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 before final statements can be prepared and tracts can be leased . Although officials from agencies that prepare reports also conduct the public hearings, it is not required that they respond to comments or questions from the public at those

hearings. Representatives of two oil companies testified that the modern sciences of oceanography, marine petroleum geology, mechanical engineering, and related disciplines had developed information to understand ice, wind, water, and technologies to control the extraction and transport of oil in arctic and subarctic waters. T hey assured the government that the oil lease sale could proceed without risk to the environment.' Among the natives who packed into the hearing and waited their turn to speak was a Unalakleet Eskimo man in his early eighties. Although the following is a paraphrase, he said, I have listened to the learned scientisL• from the oil companies who have studied the ice and the wind. I too am a student of ice and wind. I have been a student of ice and wind all of my life. I wonder if one of you learned men can tell me what will happen to those I. To inform government officials, environmentalists, amd other interested parties about the way oil companics integrate harmlessly with the en• vironments in which they extract, transporL and refine oil, EXXON publishes a quarterly magazine entitled EXXON, each issue of which carries at least one article on oil.-related activities in Alaska and the way modem petroleum sci-

ence complements the arctic and subarctic environments. I

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wells out there in the sea during one of lhose Slorms lhat occur around here. You know what I mean, those times when you're out on lhe ice hunting seals and lhe wind starts blowing and keeps on blowing. You know what I mean, when the wind blows at 100 knots for several days and you can't move. You have to make do as best you can on the ice. You know what I mean, when the temperature is -400F and lhe wind keeps blowing until it dislodges the short-fast ice and hundreds of miles of ice are moved by lhe wind. When that happens, no force on earth can stop the ice, as you learned men know. So what I want to know is how you are going to stop that oil lhat is going to come out of that well when lhose pipes are destroyed by lhe moving ice? Where is lhat oil going to go? How much of it will stay attached under the ice as lhe ice moves north at breakup? What will happen to the seals, and walrus, and whales, and birds and fish? No answers were forthcoming. The 12-million-gaUon Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989. has not surprised the Eskimos and Aleuts with whom my associates and I have spoken subsequently. As of Ju ne 1, 1989, the oil had diffused sufficiently to attach to rocks, pebbles, and sand along 500 miles of the Alaska coast. On that same date, one mile of that area of coastline had been cleaned. T he technology used was steam blasting, which dislodged the oil from the rocks and forced it back into the sea while killing all surface and subsurface animal and plant life to seven inches below the surface. The cleanup technology appears to be part of the problem. It is not likely that the spill, or the technology to control it, or the management of the removal operation surprised the elderly student of ice in Unalakleet or, for that matter, Yale University sociologist Charles Perrow, either. Perrow's book, NlmTUil Accidents (1984), forecasts "accidents" such as Exxon Valdez, T hree Mile Island, Chernohyl, and Bhophal as normal consequences of combinations of unanticipated system failures in complex technologies. We can expect more in Alaska. Natives expect them, and they fear for their environments and their subsistence ways of life. The basic ethnographic research that my colleagues and I conducted in the Alaskan Eskimo villages of Gambell, Unalak-

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TheProbkm

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leet, and Wainwright is inherently interesting as well as timely. But oil-related developments and their consequences lie behind the inquiry, and the basic ethnography cannot be understood without an analysis of the political economic context in which contemporary Alaskan Eskimos live. We sought to determine contemporary subsistence, economy, polity, kinship, and ideology in each village, so that a larger question could be asked: for Eskimo society, what are the consequences in the 1980s of the major legislation and economic programs that were implemented in the 1970s? T he intention of our field research was to collect comparable information for the three villages, so that we could explain those consequences by using a comparative ethnological perspective (see Appendix A). As so often happens in comparative primary research projects, some of the data collected in each of the three villages are not comparable, and some data that were sought were not obtained. And because some of the data that are available for one village are not available for other villages, comparisons on all topics that are of interest to me cannot be made. In several places, therefore, comparative ethnology yields to ethnography, and I analyze a single village, or two villages, rather than all three. It is also the case that hypotheses of the "why, possibly" and "how, possibly" types must serve as temporary conclusions, while providing direction to the next round of research. Well before the "normal accident" of Exxon Valdez., I considered it important to write this book because although a very large amount of research under federal and state government sponsorship has been conducted on Eskimo subsistence and culture in the past fifteen years, a very tiny amount of that research has seen the light of day in sch o larly journals or in book form.

Inasmuch as I am not.dependent on government contracts, it has been possible to break from the pattern of moving from one contract to another and to write. The government agency that sponsored the basic research also wanted the fruits of its contract dollars to be distributed beyond its own walls, and it provided some support for writing Oil Age Eskimos. As is well known to ethnologists of the Alaskan arctic and subarctic, perhaps no feature of Eskimo life has commanded more

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The Problem

attention than their subsistence pursuits and the influence such pursuits exercise on aJI other aspects of Eskimo culture. For a fuJI century, scholars have been concerned to explain the ways in which Eskimo populations developed and maintained adaptations to the sea, spreading along the coastlines from eastern Siberia to eastern Greenland and from above 80°N latitude to about 60°N latitude (see, e.g., Boas 1964; E. Nelson 1899; Birket-Smith 1929; Spencer 1959; VanStone 1962; Oswalt 1967; Bandi 1969; R. Nelson 1969; Burch 1975; Laughlin and Harper 1979; Dumond 1983). The availability of natural resources and the uses to which they are put have been central to practically all analyses of Eskimo organizations of labor, distribution, kinship, settlements, ceremonials, and sodalities. Moreover, Eskimo ideology, in particular the beliefs associated with illness, health, and success in subsistence pursuits, has been analyzed in relation to the quantities and variability of naturally occurring resources. Indeed , most of the great ethnographies of Eskimo cultures focus on the adaptations of Eskimos to environments that are often brutally harsh (see, e.g., Jenness 1964; Birket-Smith 1929; Gontran de Poncins 1979; Hughes 1960). The pre-Contact tool kits and the techniques of their uses that have accommodated Eskimos to the rigors of the Far North have been referred to as the "arctic genius." The formerly widespread practices of infanticide and geronticide' have been recognized as mechanisms that were employed in the most life threatening of circumstances, by means of which productive members of Eskimo groups could relieve themselves of unproductive kinspersons, so as to sustain Eskimo societies. More recent inquiry, particularly studies conducted since the conclusion of World War II, have focused on the changes that have occurred in the technologies and economies of Eskimo populations which, in turn, have stimulated the concentrations of erstwhile disparate family settlements into larger villages and influenced changes in other aspects of Eskimo society. The 2. The practice of disposing of the aged and infirm, often at the will of the: fated penon. has been mentioned by sc:vc:r.sl 5tudc:nu of b kimo 50cieU~.

including Boas (1964), Weyer (1932), Rainey (1947), and Balikci (1970).

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widespread adoption by Eskimos of ri8es, shotguns, outboard motor boats, and snowmobiles ("snowmachines," in Eskimo usage) have altered hunting, fishing, and collecting practices. Carving, trapping, commercial fishing, .and public funds have stimulated the use of cash in local economies. But the seasonal cycles of subsistence activities have remained much the same as they have been for centuries among most of the communities that have been studied (see VanStone 1962; Graburn 1969; R. Nelson 1981; Fienup-Riordan 1983). Postwar research often suggests that even though the seasonal cycle of subsistence activities remains much the same as it was sixty years ago, the seemingly inevitable shift to a "cash" economy is unalterably dissociating Eskimos from their subsistence life-styles. Richard Nelson (1969), in his brilliant analysis of the village of Wainwright on the Chukchi Sea in the early 1960s, foresaw a death of hunting in the near future. Yet about two decades later, on restudying the village, Nelson (1981: Ill) wrote, [In the] 1000s I believed that growing contact with the outside world would soon eliminate subsistence as the basis of village economy and culture.... [A]lmost 20 years later the material aspects of life in Wainwright have undergone a steady and progressive change, resulting in far greater modernity than I could have foreseen .... [Yet] the continuation of traditional patterns is nowhere more evident than in subsistence resource harvesting.... Subsistence has persisted here for a number of reasons, most of them related to its prominent position in Inupi.at culture, soci.al organization, and value system. The most recent research conducted in the Alaskan arctic, of which Nelson's (1981) study is representative, does not reiterate the forecasts of ten and twenty years ago that the waning of subsistence pursuits and the full integration of Eskimos into a modern market economy was inevitable and imminent. (See Ellana 1983, Jorgensen and Maxwelll984, Luton 1985, Little and Robbins 1984, Wolfe 1981, and Wort, Wort, and Lonner 1981 for a sampling of the most current literature.) To the contrary, political and economic events since 1970 have had the

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contradictory consequences of causing Alaskan Eskimos to become increasingly dependent on the public and private sectors of the national economy but also to hunt, fish, and collect more efficiently. Furthermore, the economic and political forces of the past fifteen years have triggered a renascence of Eskimo dancing and singing, a return migration to villages from urban areas in and outside of Alaska, and a growing struggle for claims to natural resources and to the rights to harvest those resources. In short, there is a determination on the part of Eskimos to maintain traditional Eskimo culture and at the same time to adopt a pragmatic acceptance of the benefits of modern technology. ANCSA AND OIL Because ANCSA was passed in 1971 , thereby making possible the extraction of Alaskan oil, the watershed year is 1971 for the renaissance of Eskimo culture and for the contradictory development of Eskimo dependency on (1) petroleum products to heat their houses and to propel their snowmachlnes and boats and (2) earned and unearned income derived from public sources to purchase homes, the technology to aid in subsistence endeavors, and petroleum products to make the technology go and to heat their homes. This is not to say that at least some Eskimos in many villages had not converted to oil to heat their homes or begun to use motorboats or snowmachines before 1971. These technologies that enhanced subsistence and economic pursuits were employed by many Eskimos before 1971. But that is not the issue here. Eskimos seem to have adopted these technologies as soon as they were able to do so. This is not surprising. Eskimos have always been quick to adopt new technologies that can better assist them in coping with harsh conditions. They converted to oil, snowmachlnes, and motorboats in greater numbers after 1971, but the consequences of the adoption were no longer the same. The issue is the dependency that major oil developments and ANCSA, because of its provisions and its intent to facilitate oil discoveries and extraction, caused for Eskimos.

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The Problem

ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT Ac:r In 1971, ANCSA was ratified by Congress and signed in10 law by President Richard Nixon. It extinguished Eskimo and Indian claims to aboriginal hunting, fishing, and land rights on the 400 million acres that comprise Alaska and on the territorial waters off its shoreline. It dissolved the six reservations that had been established in Alaska and revoked the Native Allotment Act of 1906, which allowed natives to claim 160 acres, devoid of mineral rights, to be held in trust by the secretary of the interior. Inasmuch as Alaska's Eskimos have maintained maritime subsistence economies for millennia, the government's restrictions on the uses of many subsistence resources of land and sea since 1971 have fostered apprehension among natives about governmental management of naturally occurring resources and have created conflicts over the harvesting and uses of some of those resources. ANCSA provided to Alaska's 80,000 Natives-Eskimos, Aleuts, and Indians of at least one-fourth Native blood quantum-44 million acres of land and $962 million, and although it revoked the previous forms of native government that had been recognized by the federal government, it mandated a formidable framework of new native organizations: village profit corporations, regional profit corporations, and regional nonprofit corporations. Village nonprofit corporations were optional. The profit corporations are destined by ANCSA to go public in 1991. THE PROFIT CORPORATIONS

The village profit corporations, literally stock shareholder corporations in which natives declared membership and were awarded shares and voting rights, were awarded land in and around the village. The village corporations, through conveyance, received half of the land allocated 10 the regional corporations (22 million of the 44 million acres). Shareholders within the villages can claim parcels of the land conveyed 10 the village corporations for homesites. Ownership Villa.ge Profit Corporatitms.

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The Problem

of the surface of each parcel is conveyed to the shareholder from the village corporation. Subsurface rights to village and shareholder land, however, are held by the regional profit corporation. Each village profit corporation is empowered to use the funds made available to it through the $962 million ANCSA provision to develop and control village businesses. It is also empowered to seek federal grants, contracts, and awards for business and community development projects. The corporation's Board of Directors is elected. The board hires a manager for the corporation. Regiqrwl Profit Corporations. The more than two-hundred native viUages were organized into and subsumed under twelve regional profit corporations (a thirteenth, for Alaskan Natives residing outside Alaska, received no land and was based in Seattle). Funds from the $962 million ANCSA provision are also disbursed to each of the regional corporations to develop and control business for the region. Each native person chose membership in a regional corporation, usually the regional corporation that encompassed the village in which the native resided, and each was awarded shares of the corporation's stock. Twelve of the thirteen regional profit corporations were originally awarded the 44 million acres, but they retained only half of that acreage after conveyance to the viUage corporations. Yet the land allocation to the regional corporations included the subsurface rights to regional land as well as to the land owned by village corporations and villagers (on conveyance). The regional profit corporations, rather than the village profit corporations, were presumed to be the organizations that would generate the business sufficient to accommodate the economic needs of Alaska's natives. The vesting in regional corporations of subsurface rights to village and individual property had created conflicts in Alaska within a decade after the passage of ANCSA. The regional corporations, too, were empowered to seek government contracts, grants, and awards for the development of business and for the infrastructural developments considered to be prerequisite in business growth. Roads, airstrips, utilities,

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sewers, docks, commercial buildings, and the like, were sought as being necessary for corporate development. THE NONPROFIT CORPORATIONS

Regional Nonprofit Corporati<ms. Regional nonprofit corporations were created to sepa.rate business affairs from other affairs of government. T he .i ntention was to avoid the

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The Study Villages

Gambell comprises both igneous and sedimentary formations. Lagoons are frequent around the shoreline, and many shortcourse rivers empty into them or directly into the Bering Sea. In 1970, just prior to ANCSA, the Gambell population was 372. It had grown to 465 by 1982 and 522 by 1989. About 15 nonnatives reside in Gambell. The 25·percent population increase in the first eleven years following ANCSA and the 12 percent population increase since 1982 represent far more rapid growth than had been experienced at Gambell since the turn of the century. INFRASTRUCTURE, UTILITIES, AND SERVICES

Gambell enjoys few conveniences of public infrastructure. It has few public buildings and does not have sewers, running water, or an all-weather airport. Air transport has become the major form of transportation in the Alaskan bush. T o be without an all-weather airport means that transportation is limited to windows of g~ weather, and in a fog-enshrouded village such as Gambell, there is not a lot of good weather for flying. The village has some public conveniences, such as a community "washateria" (automatic clothes washers and a public bath) and community water pumps. Water for culinary and other household uses is hauled from community pumping sites and distributed at each house. Gambell is electrified, although electricity is not cheap, costing 49.5 cents per kilowatt-hour in the 1980s. The state of Alaska absorbs 12 cents of each kilowatt-hour cost through an "equalization" program/ but even 37.5 cents per kilowatthour causes Gambell households to use electricity with great care. Gambell houses are heated by oil. In the early 1980s, the average household paid about $2,700 annually for heating oil. There is no timber or outcroppings of coal and very little driftwood on St. Lawrence Island, so coal or wood-burning stoves are not used. 2. ""Equalization" fonnulas for energy costs vary by villages and by the household needs, so all villages do not receive the same amount of assistance per kwhr from the State of Alaska.

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Regularly scheduled bush flights from Nome, weather permitting, carry mail, freight, and passengers to and from Gambell. The almost ever-present cloud cover and recurrent nasty Bering Sea storms cause frequent flight cancellations of the small, twin-engine Cessnas and Otters that Ry between Nome and GambelL Flights, which should occur about twice a week, are often delayed for two weeks by unfavorable weather. Most of the heavy freight to the village, such as skiffs, outboard motors, snowmachines, all-terrain cydes, building supplies, oil furnaces, and canned goods, arrives on the two annual visits (one going north and one coming south) of the BIA's ship, the Nm-th Star. The ship sets anchor offshore, and the freight is brought in on a barge. Oil is also lightered from a distributor in Norton Sound. The state of Alaska received billions of dollars in revenues from Prudhoe Bay oil operations during th e late 1970s and early 1980s. .It redistributed many of these funds to projects statewide, including among the native villages. In Gambell, state and federal funds were used to construct a small community center, which houses three village organizations-the village profit corporation, the city government, and the IRA government. Federal funds were also used to construct over thirty houses for Gambel.l families. CORPORATION AND GOVERNMENT

Under ANCSA's mandated provisions, Gambell chartered the Sivuqaq Native Corporation (SNC) as its for-profit village corporation. It is guided by an elected Board of Directors who serve without remuneration. It also has an IRA government, which serves as its nonprofit corporation, and a city

government. The passage of ANCSA threatened St. Lawrence Island's residents because that act stripped the island of its reservation trust status. The residents feared the irretrievable loss of the island, the loss of their subsistence base, and undesired alterations to their life-styles. Rather than participate in the Bering Straits Regional Corporation (profit) a.nd re~:eive

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