Defending the Arctic Refuge

Finis Dunaway

Description

Tucked away in the northeastern corner of Alaska is one of the most contested landscapes in all of North America: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Considered sacred by Indigenous peoples in Alaska and Canada and treasured by environmentalists, the refuge provides life-sustaining habitat for caribou, polar bears, migratory birds, and other species. For decades, though, the fossil fuel industry and powerful politicians have sought to turn this unique ecosystem into an oil field. Defending the Arctic Refuge tells the improbable story of how the people fought back. At the center of the story is the unlikely figure of Lenny Kohm (1939–2014), a former jazz drummer and aspiring photographer who passionately committed himself to Arctic Refuge activism. With the aid of a trusty slide show, Kohm and representatives of the Gwich'in Nation traveled across the United States to mobilize grassroots opposition to oil drilling. From Indigenous villages north of the Arctic Circle to Capitol Hill and many places in between, this book shows how Kohm and Gwich'in leaders and environmental activists helped build a political movement that transformed the debate into a struggle for environmental justice.   

In its final weeks, the Trump administration fulfilled a long-sought dream of drilling proponents: leasing much of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain for fossil fuel development. Yet the fight to protect this place is certainly not over. Defending the Arctic Refuge traces the history of a movement that is alive today—and that will continue to galvanize diverse groups to safeguard this threatened land.

Sujets

• Territoires du Nord-Ouest
• Alaska
• Yukon
• California
• Sierra Club
• Old Crow
• Sonoma
• United States Fish and Wildlife Service
• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• Northwest Territories
• Climate change
• Oil well
• Inupiat people
• Republican Party
• Canada ? United States border
• Environmentalism
• Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation
• Arctic Village
• Nature photography
• Indigenous rights
• Alaska Wilderness League
• Subhankar Banerjee
• Inupiat
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Informations

• Publié par: The University of North Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 12 avril 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781469661117
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Defending the Arctic Refuge
Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges
MART A. STEWART AND HARRIET RITVO, EDITORS
The Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges series publishes new works of environmental history that explore the cross-border movements of organisms and materials that have shaped the modern world, as well as the varied human attempts to understand, regulate, and manage these movements .
Defending the Arctic Refuge
A PHOTOGRAPHER, AN INDIGENOUS NATION, AND A FIGHT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Finis Dunaway
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
Chapel Hill
2021 Finis Dunaway
All rights reserved
Set in Utopia and Bunday Sans by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
Manufactured in the United States of America
The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
Jacket photographs: ( front ) caribou from the Porcupine herd migrate toward the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, taken north of Old Crow, Yukon, by Peter Mather, May 2016; ( back ) Alaska s Brooks Range, shutterstock/Ovidiu Hrubaru.
P. ii photograph: Caribou Migration I , Coleen River valley, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 2002. Photograph by Subhankar Banerjee.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dunaway, Finis, author.
Title: Defending the Arctic refuge : a photographer, an Indigenous nation, and a fight for environmental justice / Finis Dunaway.
Other titles: Flows, migrations, and exchanges.
Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2021] | Series: Flows, migrations, and exchanges | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020046382 | ISBN 9781469661100 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469661117 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH : Kohm, Lenny, 1939-2014-Political activity. | Environmentalists-Political activity-United States. | Photographers-Political activity-United States. | Gwich in Indians-Political activity. | Show-and-tell presentations-Political aspects. | Environmental justice-Alaska-Citizen participation. | Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Alaska)-Government policy-History-20th century. | Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Alaska)-Government policy-Citizen participation.
Classification: LCC QH 76.5. A 4 D 86 2021 | DDC 333.720973-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020046382
For defenders of the Arctic Refuge-past, present, and future
Contents
Prologue. At Lenny Kohm s Memorial
1 On the Road
2 The Last Great Wilderness
3 The Sacred Place Where Life Begins
4 Lenny s Epiphany
5 Glendon Brunk s Epiphany
6 Delivering Bosco
7 The Little White Man Who Never Sleeps
8 The Slide Show at the Art Farm
9 Science and Skulduggery
10 I Hope People from the South Listen
11 Rebirth of a Nation
12 The Arctic Refuge in a Broader Frame
13 Grassroots versus Goliath
14 Catastrophe and the Coalition of Conscience
15 Native Corporations and Arctic Drilling
16 A Victory for the Grassroots
17 Gwich in Recruits, Gwich in Lives
18 Budget Showdown
19 Turning Spectators into Activists
20 9/11
21 Flat, White Nothingness?
22 How the Refuge Survived the W. Years
23 Building a Bigger Choir
24 The Slide Show in Old Crow
Epilogue. History and the Ongoing Struggle
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Map and Figures
Map
2.1. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and vicinity
Figures
P.1. Lenny Kohm in the Arctic
P.2. Title slide for the Last Great Wilderness slide show
2.1. A snowy owl, near Camden Bay, on coastal plain of Arctic National Wildlife Range
2.2. Caribou cow and calf, near Camden Bay, on coastal plain of Arctic National Wildlife Range
3.1. Gwich in Steering Committee map, Primary Habitat of the Porcupine Caribou Herd
3.2. Partially reconstructed caribou fence
6.1. Mount Chamberlin, Brooks Range, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
6.2. Caribou meat in portable smokehouse
7.1. Norma Kassi s family hunting camp
7.2. Danny Kassi and Clayton Jonas talking and looking at snowshoes
7.3. Caribou antlers hanging on wooden racks, Old Crow, Yukon
8.1. Cotton grass
9.1. Porcupine caribou herd, taken above Niguanak River, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
9.2. Mike O Meara cartoon in Homer News
9.3. Pipelines at ARCO Drill Site 14, Prudhoe Bay oil field, Alaska
9.4. Gas flaring at BP s Gathering Center 1, Prudhoe Bay oil field, Alaska
10.1. Caribou antlers on land
10.2. First photograph from caribou hunt series
10.3. Richard Dick Nukon, second photograph from caribou hunt series
10.4. Richard Dick Nukon, third photograph from caribou hunt series
10.5. A man with salmon and boat, Alaska
11.1. Ellen Bruce talking with Brewster Fields Jr.
12.1. William Peter Smith
12.2. Four children running
12.3. Transition between slides, showing the fade-dissolve feature of the Last Great Wilderness slide show
12.4. Migrating caribou, Kongakut River, Arctic National Wildlife Range
14.1. Advertisement and poster, Our Arctic Way of Life
21.1. Polar bear, Bernard Harbor, Alaska
21.2. I upiat cemetery marked by bowhead whale jawbones, Kaktovik, Alaska
21.3. Charlie Swaney s hunting camp along the East Fork of the Chandalar River
21.4. Caribou Migration I , Coleen River valley, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
21.5. Snow Geese I , Jago River valley, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
21.6. Buff-breasted sandpiper engaged in courtship display, Jago River, coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
22.1. Arctic Refuge rally, Washington, DC
E.1. Bernadette Demientieff testifying at Bureau of Land Management public hearing
Defending the Arctic Refuge
Prologue | | | At Lenny Kohm s Memorial
I don t make a habit of going to funerals, especially for people I ve never met. So I feel a little sheepish finding a seat in one of the back rows of the Foscoe Community Center. It s late October 2014 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, and more than 100 people have filed into the spacious, sunlit room for this memorial service. Jeans, sweaters, and flannel shirts predominate among the guests. Many hail from nearby communities like Boone, but others have come from elsewhere, including a representative of the Gwich in Nation all the way from Alaska. A slate of speakers describes the deceased as their mentor and their brother. They share stories about how he inspired people to join struggles for justice. Some marvel at the unlikely chain of events that brought us together that day. It all started almost three decades earlier when Lenny Kohm journeyed to the Arctic and then somehow became a quietly legendary activist.
In 1987, Lenny Kohm s life became entangled with the epic political battle over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Tucked away in the northeastern corner of Alaska, the Arctic Refuge has been the focus of the longest running public land debate in North American history. Initially set aside in 1960, the refuge provides life-sustaining habitat for caribou, polar bears, migratory birds, and other species. For decades, though, the fossil fuel industry and powerful politicians have pushed to turn this unique ecosystem into an oil field. A former drummer and aspiring photographer with no previous background in political organizing, the forty-seven-year-old Kohm had a sudden revelation in the Arctic. He returned to his home in California, determined to do whatever he could to protect the refuge. Along with some friends, he launched a small grassroots group and put together a multimedia slide show called The Last Great Wilderness . For the next two decades, Kohm took the show on the road. Teaming up with Gwich in spokespeople from Alaska and Canada, he gave as many as 200 presentations per year across the United States.
I was beginning to research the history of the Arctic Refuge debate when I came across a brief profile of Kohm in an environmental magazine. Intrigued by his unusual story, I started writing Kohm a letter in August 2014 to ask if I could interview him. I paused to do more research and then finished the letter in October. Before hitting send, I Googled his name one more time, just to make sure I had the right email address. The first link to appear was his obituary: Lenny Kohm had died at his home in Todd, North Carolina, on September 25, 2014. He was 74. 1
I was stunned to read the news. The next day, I ended up talking with a friend of his for almost an hour. Near the end of our conversation, he offhandedly mentioned that he was giving the eulogy at Lenny s memorial on Saturday. And, by the way, he said, if there s any way that you can make it down, it would be wonderful to have you here. I wasn t sure how to respond and didn t know if it would be appropriate to attend. He understood my concerns but encouraged me to come anyway. The service would not be a somber occasion, he said, but a celebration of Lenny s life. Just before saying goodbye, he insisted, Lenny would want you to be there. 2
| | |
Exactly one month after Lenny Kohm s death, the Foscoe Community Center was decorated with some of his most treasured possessions. Resting on a table were the two slide projectors he carried with him as he crisscrossed the country; displayed on the stone mantelpiece were his trusty Pentax camera and a beaded, floral-patterned caribou skin vest given to him by Indigenous people from the North.
Speaking on behalf of the Gwich in Nation, Luci Beach said that all of our hearts are heavy for our brother, our