Word: gwich
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White. Evon Peter, a Gwich'in Native American from the southern fringes of the wildlife refuge, stands atop a hill and looks out over the whiteness. He starts naming it: "Vatr' agwaahgwail"--the line of a caribou trail. "Vatthaih ik"--Snowy Owl Mountain. "Shih han"--Brown Bear River. Each part of the landscape has a name and a story, often related to the caribou the Gwich'in depend on for food. As he speaks, the whiteness comes alive. "When I stand here, I feel I am free," says Peter, a staunch opponent of oil drilling. "Here nature is the only...
...impossible to know how the Porcupine herd will be affected by oil drilling. But Evon Peter and the other members of the Gwich'in tribe fear the worst. Peter lives in Arctic Village, pop. 130, on the southern slopes of the Brooks Range. The caribou come through his area every fall, and the Gwich'in hunt them to feed the whole village. "The caribou for us are like the buffalo were to the Indians of the Lower 48," says Peter. The Gwich'in are worried drilling will drive the caribou away into Canada forever. "Our struggle," says Peter, "is spiritual...
...crude could be carried cheaply in the 800- mile trans-Alaska pipeline, which has a good safety record. Environmentalists, however, see the drilling as a gross intrusion on one of the last untouched wilderness areas. Many Eskimos favor development because they would legally share in the income. But the Gwich'in Indians in Arctic Village (pop. 100) near the refuge bitterly oppose it. "This is a simple issue. We have the right to continue our way of life. We are caribou people," says Sara James, a tribal leader...
Surrounded by vast, empty wilderness, the Gwich'in have only grudgingly allowed the intrusions of modern life. They have moved from caribou tents to log homes, from bows and arrows to rifles, from dogsleds to snowmobiles. But they argue that they can pick and choose from modernity without losing their soul. In 1971, instead of participating in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the Gwich'in Indians chose to retain their Delaware-size (1.8 million acres) reservation extending south from the Arctic refuge. Today they have little cash, but Trimble Gilbert, their newly elected chief, believes that history has vindicated...
Still, says Gilbert, the land is nothing without the caribou. "Ever since they are little, Gwich'in are hungry for caribou," says the chief, speaking of a hunger that is more than a physical appetite. "If there are no caribou, people will not want to live here anymore." It is for this reason that tribe members oppose oil development. Caribou will not calve near rigs or pipelines, they argue. "Oil does not combine with living things," says Tritt...