In Northwest Alaska, a proposed 211-mile mining road has divided an Inupiaq community already devastated by climate change.
Excerpt from this story from the Associated Press (AP):
Ice blocks drift past Tristen Pattee’s boat as he scans the banks of Northwest Alaska’s Kobuk River for caribou. His great uncle Ernest steadies a rifle on his lap. It’s the last day of September, and by every measure of history and memory, thousands should have crossed by now. But the tundra is empty, save for the mountains looming on the horizon — the Gates of the Arctic National Park.
Days after Pattee’s unsuccessful hunt, the Trump administration approved construction of the Ambler Access Road — a 211-mile (340-kilometer) route designed to reach massive copper deposits that would cut through that wilderness, crossing 11 major rivers and thousands of streams where salmon spawn and caribou migrate. The approval, which is facing lawsuits though proponents believe construction could start next year, came as record rainfall in Northwest Alaska flooded villages and ripped through fish spawning habitat — the latest climate-driven blow to Indigenous communities already watching caribou and salmon numbers plummet.
As the co-owner of a wilderness guiding company in Ambler, Pattee’s livelihood depends on keeping this landscape intact. An Inupiaq hunter, his ability to feed his family and continue the subsistence traditions of his ancestors depends on healthy caribou and fish populations.
Yet he supports building the road.
“Everything takes money nowadays,” said Pattee, who serves on Northwest Arctic Subsistence Regional Advisory Council, a federal advisory group. Jobs in local villages are scarce, and with gasoline at $17.50 a gallon, the ability to power all-terrain vehicles and boats needed to hunt is out of reach for many. Pattee estimates a single caribou hunting trip from Ambler costs $400. Mining jobs, he believes, would offer a lifeline, and the minerals could slow the climate shifts that are threatening his subsistence way of life.
It’s the irony of climate change in Northwest Alaska: the minerals needed to power the green energy transition sit beneath some of the continent’s last pristine wilderness — a landscape already on the frontlines of the climate crisis, where temperatures are rising four times faster than the rest of the planet.
“I see the climate changing. I’ve been seeing it for years now. It’s scary,” said Pattee. “Losing our culture, our tradition, is very concerning. So let’s do anything we can to help mitigate it.”
