This is a word cloud. The bigger the word, the more times it was used in activists' stories.
- I am Aqugaq, an Inupiaq from Tikigaq (Point Hope, Alaska). Tikigaq is one of the oldest known whale hunting society and a society that still has clans and rituals that are followed from season to season. The importance of our festivities from season to season revolved around the whale and with the oil and mining industries inside our doors already threatening our cultural and religious practices with the contamination that will flow through out ocean waters and land.
Mae H., AK
Since the beginning of the 19th century efforts of Tikigaq’s battles and survival since the arrival of commercial whale hunters – to mid 20th century DOE’s intent to blast a canal with atomic bombs; a canal like the Panama Canal with the purpose of exporting oil via ocean waters – then to radioactive soil imported from the Nevada test sites with experimentation in arctic soils and Tikigaq residence’s.
After the passing of ANSCA our battle with Red Dog mine’s contaminants flowing into our hunting grounds via the ocean currents and wind brought into Tikigaq.
Now the talks we hear is the possible development of the Point Lay Coal mine with a possible building of a road from the Point Lay mine to the harbor of Red Dog. The Road threatens our way of life by cutting off the caribou, which we depend on for meat.
These are the battles we have experienced and now the current one is the oil industry in our hunting grounds. Our whale catches are shared with many from our area not only in our village but surrounding villages statewide and for some of our people who live outside in the lower 48 bring some back with them back to where they live.
We have continuously fought to retain our cultural and religious ceremonies from the state, federal and private sectors for over a hundred years. I am now a third generation Inupiaq battling to keep our food source that comes from the ocean and from land healthy and to ensure that our rights as Inupaiq are protected. For my grandchildren their right to be Inupiaq by ensuring their food source is healthy to eat. And that they have the same rights as I did in participation of our whale hunt that brings forth our rich cultural and religious practices after the whale hunt.
I would like to see my oceans and lands clean and protected to have that right to eat our traditional food during ceremonies that occur by seasons. For every season we have rituals we celebrate that are practiced to ensure our success in the following whale hunting season for the next year. These rituals are our religious practices.
I would like to invite our president and Congress to see firsthand our whale hunting and festivities that occur. Our festivities occur only with the success of the whale catch. Even without the catch throughout the season we do follow rituals to ensure our next year of whale catch may be successful.
– Mae H., Alaska
- I am passionate about leaving Alaska wild, not only because my people are stewards of the land but also because we have a unique connection between the people, land and animals. I say this because a few years ago, my father passed away and at his burial, an eagle appeared. flew around for a bit then was going away until my family started to sing traditional native songs then the eagle came by three times. My family and I took this as a way for my dad to say good bye. This year, we lost a young nephew and at his burial, seven eagles showed up! We are born here and buried in the ground (land) when it is time to go home. We respect animals because they have kept us alive before the stores came into play. The creator knows that we never take anything that we didn’t need. These eagles that appeared for us, that really says something about our connections with the land and animals. If nothing else convinces you to keep our Alaskan wild life active, please take in consideration that America has its own little pure land that the people, animals and land still have a connection like no one else in this country.
– Georgina S., Alaska
- I am a grandmother that has lived and worked on the shores of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. I have watched skinny polar bears, exhausted, be shot on the beaches, because there is no more old ice for them to rest on, hunt from and so they arrive in the village and are killed before they can hurt a person, eat a dog, or dig up the remains of last season’s whaling. I worked in Kaktovik, the northeastern village on the edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and I saw the mighty Porcupine Caribou calving. I am a white old woman, a social worker and Alaska has blessed me with a wonderful life, I doubt my grandchildren will know. Besides disregarding the Human Rights of the Athabascan Gwich’in Indians that see the Arctic Coastal Plain as sacred ground, we have been wasteful, inconsiderate and disrespectful. I feel sad. I try to say something and I get so emotional that I can be discredited as a nut case. The Arctic I know and love is dying. We must become more thoughtful.
– Patricia G., Alaska
- I am a lifelong lover of America’s wild places. The first peoples of America believed that they came from the land so their names also came from the land. What might our names be if we were to be named for the way we treat our wild lands?
– Kat H., Alaska
