Word: inupiat
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Eskimos in Kaktovik also hunt caribou, but they depend more heavily on the sea, where captains like Isaac Akootchook go out in 18-ft. boats after seal and bowhead whale. The Inupiat (as they prefer to be called), who chose to participate in the 1971 claims settlement, have benefited from oil revenues in the form of a school, a community center and other projects. "We feel caught in the middle," says Akootchook. "We don't like exploration, but if we oppose it and they impose it anyway, we get nothing...
...Almost overnight, tens of thousands of Americans followed the advice in the chorus of the Johnny Horton pop tune, "North to Alaska! Go north -- the rush is on!" The state began to fill with drilling crews, geologists and oil-company executives. The barren North Slope, where only a few Inupiat, or Eskimos, had lived, now bristled with hard-hatted workers who were hardy enough to endure temperatures that could fall as low as -80 degrees...
...history of invasions has transformed the population. In 1880 there were only about 33,500 people in Alaska, 99% of them natives. But by 1959, when the territory became a state, the population had increased nearly sevenfold, and the typical Alaskan was no longer an Indian fisherman or an Inupiat hunter but a white storekeeper, bush pilot or construction worker. Today nonnatives account for 84% of the state's 530,000 people...
...they are eager to drill there. President Bush and the U.S. Interior Department favor opening up the area to exploration and development. Unlike Bristol Bay, where powerful fishing interests have always fought drilling, the land adjacent to this preserve is home only to a handful of Inupiat. Alaskan politicians thus have had little to lose and much to gain by pushing for exploration -- even the usually pro-environment Governor Cowper, who favors the plan...