The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Bears Ears National Monument couldn’t look more dissimilar — one a brown tundra dotted by caribou and lemon-yellow bush planes, the other filled with sleepy mesas marbled by desert hues. Yet among their wilderness, a similar narrative continues to play out: Native communities across the U.S. are being confronted with threats to their sovereignty and the land they rely on for their culture and way of life.
The Arctic Refuge is in danger of being developed for oil and gas drilling, threatening the Porcupine Caribou herd on which the indigenous Gwich’in people, who live on the refuge’s coastal plain, depend. As they have been for decades, the Gwich’in are on the frontlines of the fight to protect the refuge, which they refer to as “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins.”
“For thousands of years, we have lived in these landscapes, walked across them and raised families within them. We have experienced loss and joy, drank their waters and ate the foods they have provided for our communities,” says Dr. Len Necefer, a member of the Navajo Nation and founder of NativesOutdoors.
Together with filmmaker Greg Balkin and the Wilderness Society, Necefer traveled to Alaska to learn how the Gwich’in peoples’ fight for the refuge parallels the way native communities have led the charge to protect land across the U.S.
“Our stories come from the land, and who we are as a people cannot be separated from these landscapes,” Necefer says. “The stories of elders remind us who we are and how we are connected to the places around us. We have a duty to steward it for everyone coming after us. These stories and sacred histories of our people are what tie these landscapes together.”
XX Johnie Gall. Photos and film by Greg Balkin and Len Necefer.
Watch the short film about the fight for the Arctic Refuge and show your support for the Gwich’in people at gwichyaazhee.us. This story originally appeared in RANGE Magazine Issue 11: Origins. Buy your copy HERE.