Alaska Blog: “Report from Dillingham, Alaska” 04-25-07
This morning I flew on a small two-engine turboprop plane with 7 Russians and Earl and Robert from the North Slope. We are staying between the villages of Naknek and King Salmon, in Bristol Bay. Norman Anderson picked us up in his tattered jeep, transporting everyone from the dusty runway to our accommodations back and forth in three trips. Our travel companions have likely never been far from their island home in the Russian Far East. There’s an environmental attorney with them from Moscow, and even he doesn’t speak English.
Their interpreter is an Allen Ginsberg look-alike named Mischa, living and working in Russia, although he’s got a California drivers license. I know this because Norm helped him rent a van from a lodge down the street from where we are staying. I guess he didn’t like Norm’s Jeep.We arrived in Bristol Bay before 9am. When Earl from Pt. Hope heard there was an aggregation of bowhead whales down at the mouth of the river, he disappeared into the brush. He should be at home whaling, he had said as we boarded the plane. Robert Thompson and I ended up helping Norm get things ready for the potlatch and meeting tonight. Norm knows everyone between the three villages in the area and I think he has invited all of them to the potlatch.After getting things squared away with the village liaison at the Bristol Bay Native Association Senior Center, Norm took us down to the beach. As we sat there in his Jeep looking out on Bristol Bay, he described what the area looks like during the fishing season. There are literally a thousand fishing boats camped out right at the mouth of the Naknek River. It’s hard to believe that, just a few miles down the coast, is the area of lease sale 92. Norm mentions that the boats you see on the Discovery Channel show, The Deadliest Catch, actually fish right in that lease area where Shell Oil is poised to drill.
The Russians are here to talk about Shell Oil. Shell’s offshore oil drilling near Sakhalin Island has ruined the habitat, wiped out certain species, and permanently scarred the indigenous culture of the region. Now Shell is planning a second offshore drilling operation for Sakhalin and they are aggressively pursuing offshore development in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, and Bristol Bay. This is the first time indigenous people from both sides of the Pacific have come together over the issue of offshore oil and gas. The Bristol Bay, Cook Inlet, and North Slope natives hope to create a formal Alaskan indigenous alliance opposing offshore.
As Norm lists off the number of whales, birds, seals, and fish that congregate in Bristol Bay, a large pod of belugas begins to feed in front of us. The three of us sit in silence for a minute, taking in the wonder before us. The white backs of the whales rise in and out of the Bay like waves. They swim in the direction of the incoming tide, toward the mouth of river to our left. To Earl, I imagine; who is likely still standing at the bank of the river upstream, waiting for the whales to swim his way.
