Extracting fish from 70′ net

©Bert Gildart: Stringing a net beneath 70 feet of ice in -30°F temperatures, and then returning to a remote Athabascan Village located immediately adjacent to Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with well over 200 pounds of fish should certainly rank as an “extreme” experience.

For me it was the ultimate ice fishing experience, and I’m reminded of it now as I’ve just enjoyed some darn good outings with my group of Grumpy Old Men . What’s more, we’re soon to depart on another Airstream adventure , and such outings seem to prompt reflection.

But serving as even more of a reminder was a telephone visit this past weekend with my very good native friend, Kenneth Frank, of Arctic Village, Alaska , the man who invited me to accompany him several years ago. Whenever we visit long distance, as we’ve done many times over the past 18 years, we always visit about some of our many adventures together, none the least of which was our trip to Old John Lake on one very brutal Arctic day.

EXTREME LOCATION

To better envision the setting, first you must fly to Fairbanks, then transfer to a small nine passenger bush plane and fly to Fort Yukon on the Yukon River. This is the latitude designating the Arctic Circle, that point at which the sun neither rises nor sets on the day noted by the equinoxes.

Checking ice on Old John Lake

But we were flying further north; we were flying yet another 100 miles north to the Gwich’in Indian village of Arctic Village, inhabited by a group of about 80 men, women and children. Here, because we’d be so far north, in winter, the sun is obscured far longer than just the one day experienced at Fort Yukon. Here the sun is obscured for months.

Maintaining hole in ice

In this setting live the most northern of all Indian groups, virtually all of whom we know from having worked in a summer school teaching program there in the early 1990s.

Residents befriended us, and now we continue to remain in constant contact, once having spent four months on the Yukon in our Johnboat visiting Kenneth and Caroline and other Gwich’in Indians in other villages, all of whom we’ve come to know well. But Arctic Village is the point to which Janie and I returned for my extreme ice-fishing trip

This particularly ice fishing trip, however, was made in November, and several days after Janie and I reached Arctic Village, Kenneth and I loaded his two snowmobiles, then rode them over Datchanlee Mountain arriving 13 miles later at Old John Lake.

The temperature was -36°F, and on this late November day the sun just barely rose above the level of the horizon, where it then floated for several hours before dipping down below the horizon to create what is known as Civil Twilight.

“Look hard and enjoy it,” said Kenneth. “In another week the sun will be gone and we won’t see it until February.”

Northern lights

Time was critical for Kenneth that day, but first he tested the ice by walking out about 100 yards, listening for any signs of weakness. Satisfied, we drove the snowmobiles to a point where he said he knew from summer experiences that a drop off existed.

POSITIONING NET

Kenneth then dug out his ice auger and we took turns drilling 10 holes over a distance of about 70 feet. The holes were all in a straight line facilitating placement of a net beneath the ice. To do so, Kenneth then took a pole about 12 feet long, attached one end of the net to the tip, and then shoved it to the next hole where I was waiting.

Reaching into the water, I’d grab the pole with net, anchor it until Kenneth moved up to where I was, then we’d repeat the process with Kenneth now shoving the pole toward hole number three where I was again waiting–and looking.

Ultimately, a 200 pound catch

In this way we positioned a 70-foot-long net beneath the ice, which was weighted on the bottom to keep it open, giving it (if you were underwater and could see it) a fence-like appearance.

Then we returned to Arctic Village. By now it was dark, and northern lights blazed overhead, creating all the light we needed to find our trail.

KENNETH‘S HAUL

Next day Kenneth and I again returned to Old John. We cracked open the holes now skimmed with ice with an ax, and then grabbed the far end of the net. We attached a 70-foot-long rope so we could easily reposition the net later by pulling. Then Kenneth pulled the net up through the ice at the far hole.

“Anchor the rope,” called out Kenneth in the clear Arctic air. “Then come see what we’ve got.”

Walking over to the net I could see fish of various species to include lots of whitefish, trout, and one Kenneth called a lush. When finished Kenneth and I calculated he had about 250 pounds of fish that would augment his supply of caribou meat and so feed his family.

I’ll never forget the experience, nor will Janie and I forget Kenneth, Caroline, Tishina, and Crystal–his entire family–who once visited us here in Montana. They remain among some of our best friends and we are hoping to see them again this summer.

And then, who knows, perhaps we’ll plan another extreme ice fishing trip, or perhaps a river-boat trip to Old Crow, Yukon Territories , where the Gwich’in Gathering will be held this summer.

Embarking for 300 mile trip up Porcupine River

©Bert Gildart: The February issue of Boating (claiming to be the “World’s Largest Powerboat Magazine”), featured a story about one of the many river trips Janie and I have made in Alaska in our Johnboat.

The title for its story was “Great Adventures, Why are you still tied to the dock,” and described three other outings under separate titles in addition to ours.

Our adventure was entitled “North to the Yukon,” and the story resulted from telephone interviews editors in New York conducted with us in our home in Montana.

Answers were easy to provide as we had written stories about these lengthy boat trips for several different publications, including the environmental section of the Christian Science Monitor.

Camped on Porcupine River, searching for caribou

Our Alaska boat trip was certainly an adventure, but if you’re willing to invest the time required for organization you can also make the trip, and do so in a manner that will not make it a misadventure.

Obviously, there are some things you must have and one of those is flat-bottomed boat, for despite the fact that the Yukon is a huge brawling river, in places it is also a very shallow river, and it is difficult to predict just where those places might be.

So you need a Johnboat, and one of substantial size. Ours is 20 feet long, and it is considered small. We power it with a 50 hp four stroke Yamaha, and because you must often travel hundreds of miles without access to fuel, you’ll need to carry about 50 gallons of gas.

In other words, you need space.

The other thing you need is a good tent, and we carried a wall tent constructed from a burn-proof fabric. Because weather is at times harsh, you need a place to hole up for several days that is comfortable, and without the capability of a tent that can handle a small wood stove (“called a sheep-herder stove”) you’ll be uncomfortable. We also carried collapsible cots, a Coleman lantern, winter cloths and lots of dried food.

Fish Camp, McKenzie River, Yukon Territory

Why embark on such an adventure? In part to experience the raw country, for there were nights when caribou surged in mass across the Porcupine River, one of the tributaries of the Yukon up which we traveled.

And then there were simply nights we spent in the tent listening to the wind blow—realizing that no other human beings were anywhere within a hundred miles or more.

Just the wolves, which often howled, and the curious bears that sometimes left tracks within feet of our tent.

And then there were days with the few inhabitants who do live along the Yukon and Porcupine located in their small villages. Essentially, all were Native Americans belonging to a tribe known as the Gwich’in.

Fishing upstream from Fort Yukon

Once we worked as summer school teachers in a number of these Gwich’in villages, responding to a call from a friend (then the assistant superintendent) for people willing to explain their profession, which in my case was journalism and photojournalism.

We continued for three more summers as teachers and some of these villagers we now consider friends whom we will always want to know about. In fact, several have visited us here in Montana, and one of our web pages is devoted to this group.Trips along the Yukon and Porcupine later compelled us to take other trips, and one of them took us up the ALCAN to the Dempster Highway.

The Dempster is a 500-mile long road that leads from the ALCAN to the McKenzie River and to more Gwich’in Indian Villages, but located in Canada.

Here, we traveled with a friend down much of this historic river to the Peel Channel of the McKenzie, and then to the Arctic Ocean, all in our Johnboat. Along the route, we stayed at fish camps, and met remarkable people such Caroline Kay, a woman who had lived a life in the bush.

And so our lives go on, and we are particularly enjoying the recounting of these adventures the day before our anniversary, happy we’ve been blessed to lead such a life and anxious for the time to come when we can embark on yet other excursions, some of which will certainly be made by boat or travel trailer.

Those of you who rely on the Woodall’s Campground Directory may note that the 2007 directory contains a major story about fishing techniques. The story is incorrectly attributed to “Bill” Gildart rather than to me, Bert Gildart, as it should have been.

Editors tell me the mistake is a computer error, and because they’ve known me correctly for so many years, I’ll have let it go at that, knowing, in fact, that such mistakes do occur.

Regardless of the error the remainder of the article is correct, and knowing that there are many fisherpersons out there, I enclose a portion of the story here, suggesting that when you get your campground directory that you turn to page 80—for the rest of the story.

As well, you’ll see some of the fish I’ve been fortunate enough to land, particularly out of Alaska. Again, I’ve enclosed several here that might make you want to start checking lures and tying flies. Setting for the first photo is 400 miles up the Porcupine River in the Yukon Territory, which Janie and I reached in our Johnboat. That’s Duane James on the left and yours truly on the right. The boat is powered by a 50hp Yamaha, four stroke, and the people who make them are mighty good folks.

Ya hear!

(Note: All photos made on the Yukon and Porcupine Rivers during four-month trip in our Johnboat.) 

©Bert Gildart: My friend Bill Schneider is a fishing fool, a competition angler who likes to laud his knowledge over on friends and acquaintances. Typically, when on a trip, he begins by pulling out the latest Brown boots with Berkley hip waders uniting it all with an equally high-tech pair of Tilley Gators. Enviously, I look on, and that’s when he’ll rub it in.“What?” he’ll say, with a not-so-well-concealed look of smugness as he snugs his gators. “You don’t have a pair of these?”

Same with actual fishing paraphernalia. As he pulls out a bag containing patiently labeled clear plastic boxes of flies overflowing with a host of nymphs, streamers, terrestrial flies and other such esoteric angling accoutrements, he’ll ask—in response to my raised eyebrows—“What? You don’t have a Double Bunny? I thought everyone fished with one of those.”

But the infuriating fact is that the boxes are more than just a collection of items that might make you a better fisherman. Schneider, once the editor of the state’s hunting and fishing magazine, “Montana Outdoors,” knows how to use this stuff, something each and every one of us would like to know.And so you endure, and you ask if you could borrow one, and then (humbly), “Come on Bill; show me how to use it. Please.”

That’s the way I’ve picked up a lot of information. In fact, for years I’ve been humbling myself across the nation, picking up bits and pieces from fishing fools (they’re all a bit supercilious), trying my best to become a good all-around fisherman. In my pursuits, I’ve learned a bit about bass, trout, walleye, sturgeon and even pike—angling. In fact, I’ve picked up a few of the accoutrements, and would like to highlight what I’ve learned and detail just how to use this information, drawing at times on memories I’ve had with some of these dedicated fishermen…

Perhaps at this juncture, I should mention that you can catch many species of fish using very simple techniques, and pike are one of those species. Several years ago in Alaska, my wife and I spent the summer living out of a wall tent, traveling from hole to hole in our johnboat. In one case, we were cruising the waters for pike and had made a 70-mile trip from Circle down the Yukon to Fort Yukon where this sprawling river also accepts the Porcupine. Over the course of a week, we then proceeded 400 miles up the Porcupine River. It was hard, hard work, but you know the cliché; “Someone has to do it.”

Along the way we renewed acquaintances with a native friend, Duane James—and most assuredly, he is a fishing fool! His fishing gear, however, was—and still is—about as simple as you might get, and the incident serves to prove that you can get by very, very cheaply.

Duane was standing next to me and there I was, dapper in my Helly Hanson Hip Waders crowned with my Tilly Hat—and I was creating beautiful arcs with my line streaming out from an Orivs Rod.

My offering was a specially tied dragon fly nymph, and as I remember, both Duane and I were doing well. But confound it all, Duane was doing better, pulling out fish with almost every cast.

His gear?

Duane was using 20-pound line wrapped around a pop can. About the only thing we had in common were our lures—and the fact that we had both attached wire line to the end of our monofilament. If we wanted pike, we had to do that! After all, pike have sharp teeth, and they know how to use them for chomping through tough line, something fishermen should always remember when removing hooks. More than one person has required stitches following the slash of teeth from one of these tigers of the marsh.

Because pike and bass are both predators, you can catch them using similar techniques. Pike spawn in the spring and generally do so in shallow waters. The trick is to affix a weedless lure to your line and then generate the proper type of action. Both smallmouth bass and pike feed on frogs, and so a weedless lure (such as the popper shown in one of my photographs) that can navigate marshy environments works well. Try popping it along the surface and if they’re there, and if they’re hungry, it will send such species into a frenzy.

That’s a fly fishing technique, but you can also use a spinning rod and often do so more effectively than you can using a fly rod. But then, of course, you are no longer a purist. If that’s OK, and this time, you want to try for bass, begin by loading up your spinning rods with a rapallas or some crank bait, such as the Bomber 6A Red Crawfish or the Luhr Jensen Baby Hotlips (Don’t you just love these names!). You can also load them up with one of a thousand other lures, for the number of lures that have been created for bass fishermen is endless—and if the choices are overwhelming, you can easily simplify.

What I’m saying is, of course, heresy, but you don’t have to have a Loomis Rod, Shamino Reel, or even a Berkley high-tech line. In fact, if you really want, you can get by using a red and white Daredevil (which I’ve found works most everywhere), or one of the many variations of Mepps Spinners. To simplify even more, you can fish like my Native friend Duane fishes. You can use a pop can.

In fact, the next time I’m with Bill Schneider I may do exactly that. And because I can guarantee his boxes of accoutrements won’t contain Duane’s setup, at the propitious moment, I’m going to pull out a carefully assembled line attached to pop can and then pose the question:

“What, Bill? You don’t have a Pepsi, swivel and an old Mepps spinner? You don’t have a set up like this?

Predictably, Bill will shake his head, and that will be my clue.

“Well, honestly, Bill, you really must get one of these.”

Bert Gildart: This evening our cell phone broke the silence in our Airstream, and when we answered, we recognized the two Native American voices immediately, though we had not heard them now for months.

“Greeting from Arctic Village [Alaska] said Kenneth and Caroline Frank, almost together. We’ve been trying hard to reach you.”

Though we’ve been trying to reach them throughout our travels this summer, they managed to reach us first. Because they did reach us—bringing back some wonderful travel memories–we’re going to digress this evening, and share some memories revealing what life in the Arctic could be like—right now, as I pen these words.

Kenneth and Caroline live on the Venetie Indian Reservation, located immediately adjacent to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). They are Gwich’in Indians, and as such lay claim to being the northern-most Indian tribe in North America (Eskimos live further north). Despite the distance separating us, they’ve visited us in Montana, and we them in the Arctic on many occasions.

Though Kenneth and Caroline’s ancestors were all nomadic (Kenneth’s into the 1960s), amazingly, they have both advanced themselves in the “White-man way.” Still, they tend to prefer their own culture—and are sufficiently intelligent to walk whatever path they choose. Caroline, in fact, has earned a master’s degree and though the couple could have gone most anywhere in Alaska, they elected to return to Arctic Village, where she not only teaches, but serves as the village principal.

Kenneth has worked in drug and alcohol rehabilitation. As well, he has worked teaching the young people in his village more about their vanishing culture, which is threatened from outside influences.

We’ve known them since 1991, and are flattered that they have remained some of our very best friends, but then, we have shared many experiences, though typically, we always begin our conversations about the weather.

“What’s the temperature, Kenneth?”

“Oh, it’s not cold tonight; maybe 15 or 20 below (that’s Fahrenheit!).

Sadly, it’s been several years since we’ve seen them, and the last time was in conjunction with a trip to Fairbanks, where I was commissioned at the time to cover the Athabascan Fiddle Festival for Native Peoples Magazine. From there, we flew yet further north to see them, flying about 100 miles to the Arctic Circle, then another 200 miles yet further north to Arctic Village. Just like now, it was the first week of November, but what a contrast from where we’re camped tonight near Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, and their home in the far north, a fact quickly born out shortly after our arrival, and something Kenneth reminded me last night on the phone.

“Certainly not as cold tonight as when we went ice fishing.”

Kenneth was referring to the time that he and I had driven two snowmobiles to Old John Lake on a day when temperatures hovered at about -30°F. (That’s a 70° temperature variation from where we are tonight in West Virginia). Length of day had diminished greatly and though we left at 9 a.m. darkness engulfed us for yet another hour. Nevertheless, we made the 20-mile trip in less than two hours. But that’s when the relatively easy work turned into some very, very hard work.

Kenneth is dedicated to his life as a subsistence hunter and fisherman, and on this trip he wanted to catch fish, and lots of them. Old John appeared frozen solid and deep, though he first wanted to test the ice by walking toward the center of the lake, listening for tell-tale cracks. The lake is not a huge lake and he quickly returned, reassured that all was OK. Then, we began work.

First, we took an ice auger and began drilling a hole, not an easy job as the ice was several feet thick. We accomplished the task in about ten minutes, but that was just the beginning.

“Fun isn’t it?” queried Kenneth. “We’ve got only seven more to go.”

Our goal was to suspend a 70-foot-long net—with leaders—beneath the ice, and to do so, we needed a number of holes oriented in a straight line, which we completed in about an hour. We then took a pole about 12-feet long, submerged it beneath the ice, and began pushing the net from one hole to the next.

At first the effort was demanding but soon Kenneth had the method worked out and within half an hour, the net was suspended so that it was about a foot beneath the lower surface of the ice. If the net had touched the ice, it might have frozen to the ice, making it difficult to draw in when the net was next examined.

That afternoon, we returned to Arctic Village as northern lights danced over head, though it was only about 4 p.m.

Next day, Kenneth and I returned and pulled in the net—along with about 200 pounds of mostly white fish, but not all.

“Look at this,” said Kenneth, “We’ve got a couple of huge lake trout, and we’ll have them tonight.”

Such recollections are some of the memories we always enjoy sharing each time we visit, and that is generally quite often. As well we share memories from summer school teaching programs we both worked in and about a trip we made together down the Chandalar River, to the Yukon, and then 300 miles up the Porcupine River to Old Crow, Yukon Territories. What an adventure that was, stopping at various summer fish camps.

As well, we shared recollections of the one winter Janie and I lived in the Arctic near them and all the wonderful times we had in the evening.

Truly, Kenneth and Caroline are a wonderful couple, caught up like many of their contemporaries in a struggle to preserve their subsistence way of life, and we hope they succeed. In a small way we’ve attempted to help them preserve that style of life, describing as best I could the merits of their culture for many publications (See our Gwich’in Indian Page). In several of those stories, most notably for Christian Science Monitor and National Wildlife, we’ve pointed out that when oil companies say the Central Caribou has expanded, despite massive development at Prudhoe, they’re not providing all the information. In short, they’re not telling the truth!

We continue to think about our wonderful times in the Arctic and thank Kenneth and Caroline for befriending us—and for their persistence these last few weeks trying to find out just where in the world we are. Sometime we wonder the same thing, and it’s our good fortune to have friends who help to provide some grounding. Allow these photographs to augment my words and to graphically suggest what life in the Arctic is like—tonight, this fifth day of November.

Bert Gildart: We meet wonderful people along the road, all sorts of interesting people. But sometimes we meet people whose lives we admire and with whom we seem to share many similar experiences.

Such was the case two days ago when we were camped in Quebec’s KOA. Near us was a couple in one of the few Airstreams we’ve seen along the road, in this case a 34-foot Classic.

The owners were Bob and Nicole, and I introduced myself with a copy of Airstream Life, which I thought that they—as a Canadian couple with Quebec license tags—might appreciate. They said they’d heard of the magazine and were hoping to find a copy.

Both Bob and Niki, as she says her American friends call her, had just recently retired; he from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and she from a government position that worked with specific Native American tribes. I have always admired the RCMP and told Bob that when I was a child, I used to tune my radio to Sgt. Preston and Yukon King. Almost immediately our rapport grew, and we discovered in a round about way that we knew people in common, and in far flung places.

Once Bob had worked in Old Crow, Yukon Terriotry, and it is one of the several Gwich’in Indian communities in which Janie and I had once developed many friends as interim teachers. To renew friendships, several years ago Janie and I had boated from Circle, Alaska, 100 miles down the Yukon River to Fort Yukon.

From there, we had replenished our gas supply, and, in our Johnboat, continued our journey, linking at Fort Yukon with the Porcupine River. From there we traveled for over a week and for 350 miles through both the Alaskan and Canadian wilderness to reach Old Crow, Yukon Territory. At the time, I’d been there gathering a story for Christian Science Monitor and was delighted to chance upon a huge gathering and delighted with the open friendly cooperation of the Gwich’in. We attempted to join them in their various dance ceremonies.
Just three years ago, Burns Ellison, a writer friend, and I had also taken this same boat and traveled from Fort McPherson just off the Dempster Highway but on the McKenzie River, to Aklavik, located not far from the Arctic Ocean. We reached this far-flung village by boating down the Peel Channel of the McKenzie River.

The river system there was a maze, and there is definitely a place where the newcomer should have a GPS. But more significantly, it was also a place where Bob had worked, and we talked about all these things.

Last year I wrote about these experiences for several boating magazines, and Bob and I discussed mutual acquaintances and the adventures and misadventures each of these areas had once provided for the RCMP. Areas around the Peel River, for instance, served as the setting for the Mad Trapper, who killed several other trappers as well as a member of the RCMP who was attempting to question him about improper trapping techniques.

Eventually the RCMP tracked the man to an area just north of Old Crow, and here, they were forced to kill him. The incident was made into a movie and starred Charles Bronson.

The same area also back-dropped a misadventure for the RCMP, for it was here between Fort McPherson and Old Crow that a patrol perished in the brutal cold while on a routine patrol—in -40° temperatures! Members of the RCMP have always, it seems, endured hardships, and usually emerged victorious. But not this time, for all (five, I believe) perished when they lost their way. That was about 1920, and the group has become known as the Lost Patrol.

But these were broad interests that we shared, and my familiarity, of course, was more through books, while Bob’s familiarity had been acquired through the history of the agency directly involved. As a member of the RCMP, he has certainly experienced hazards, and probably more than some of his contemporaries, as his specialty was drug control.

On a more personal note, Janie and I, Bob and Nicole, share common anniversaries, for we were all married in the spring of 1991. We’ve all had wonderful children from other marriages, and now grandchildren.

And of course, we both cherish our Airstreams, and while Bob and Nicole are now full timers, we are out but six to eight months of each year.

We promised to stay in touch and we believe our paths will cross again. And, I must mention, that before departing, Bob gave Janie and me a tie pin, one of the ten he’d been given as a retiring RCMP member, and that is only given to retirees to do as they will.

We’d be hard pressed to explain just how flattered we are.

Sarah James, embodies Power of One

Native activist Sarah James leads Alaska’s ‘Caribou People’ in defense of their way of life north of the Arctic Circle

© Bert Gildart | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

ARCTIC VILLAGE, ALASKA(map)- In this tiny Alaskan town of 120, north of Anchorage and the Arctic Circle, beyond the imaginary line where summer days and winter nights become endless, Sarah James, a Gwich’in Indian leader, is rolling in cash - $130,000 to be exact, a 2001 grant from the Ford Foundation.

Even though the foundation is not connected to the Ford Motor Co., it sounds as though it’s an unlikely pairing. Ford products devour oil and gas; the Gwich’in (pronounced guh-WHICH-in) depend on caribou for everything from their meals to the gloves that keep their hands warm.

Ostensibly, then, they are rivals when it comes to the future of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), home to the Porcupine Caribou upon which the Gwich’in depend. Adjacent to Arctic Village, the refuge is coveted by petroleum companies and guarded zealously by activists like Ms. James.

Last November, the foundation awarded James a fellowship as part of its Leadership for a Changing World program, a group of 20 outstanding but little-known national leaders.
According to information from the Ford Foundation, the annual awards go to those who have “addressed a range of social problems and have skillfully achieved support of groups ranging from grass-roots organizations to government officials.”

James, however, attributes the honor to her simple “common sense,” a gift she believes she has received from the land - and a grounding she’s used to defend the ANWR.

CaribouHeads

“I grew up on fish and berries and Porcupine River caribou,” says James in her sometimes-hurried English. “When you got to think about where food comes from, you know mighty quick that you can get by on very little and still have darn good life. It’s just common sense.”With legendary modesty, James says she’s not sure how she was picked from an imposing list of 3,000 nominees, and insists that others are better educated. But she’s always had a vision of helping her people mobilize around a cause.

Ambitious, perhaps, for a woman who heard little English until age 16, and grew up toiling with nomadic parents in their search for fish and caribou. Some of James’s earliest childhood memories are of wandering the cold, forested land with her parents in the 1940s as they traveled with dogs, lugging their winter supplies. In spring, they left their small cabin to travel the Yukon, Porcupine, and Salmon Rivers, sometimes using boats framed of birch and covered with hides of moose or caribou, heading upriver, where James’s father would hunt.

Because of her family’s lifestyle, James did not attend school until she was about 10. Six years later, the Bureau of Indian Affairs sent her to an Indian boarding school in Oregon. “I had to study from time I got up till time I go to bed,” she recalls.

She graduated from high school in 1967 at age 21, and took a job in San Francisco as a typist.

After two years, she returned to Arctic Village - today a Gwich’in community consisting of a cluster of about 40 cabins, a school for 50 children, a water tank, a gigantic freezer for preserving meat, a community center, and a tiny, beautiful Episcopal log church.

James quickly learned how to publicize Gwich’in concerns, typing hundreds of letters and helping form the Gwich’in Steering Committee, a grass-roots organization devoted to preserving caribou.

Along the way, James began speaking out for other groups of natives. Before long, her simple, direct approach was attracting national recognition.

In the 1990s, she traveled to Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, speaking for the underprivileged and the hardships they endure - and, as always, the caribou. Simultaneously, she began appearing on television programs, including a CNN telecast, the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, and the CBS Evening News.

Late in the decade, she led several gatherings to the steps of the US Capitol, crusading for caribou and for preservation of the ANWR. She and the Gwich’in who accompanied her to Washington have tried to clear up concepts that they believe petroleum companies misrepresent.

In their mythology, the Gwich’in - spread among 17 villages, extending to the McKenzie River in the Northwest Territories - were derived from a heart shared with caribou, so each will always know what the other is doing. Little wonder many refer to the Gwich’in as “People of the Deer,” or simply as “Caribou People.”

As James explains it, the Porcupine Caribou herd needs the arctic refuge for calving, a life cycle forged more than 100,000 years ago. According to the Gwich’in, the coastal plains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are the core and sacred birthplace of the herd, the vadzaih googii vi dehk’it gwanlii - or “sacred place where life begins” - and this wild nursery must remain intact.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Despite their regal appearance and the odd fact that both males and females grow antlers, caribou are best known for their annual migration, which, in the case of the Porcupine Caribou herd, often extends more than 1,000 miles - from the Arctic Ocean almost to Whitehorse, Yukon Territories. Migrating herds can travel in the tens of thousands, and when they move, the land itself seems to pulse.

Biologically, caribou seek the north slope of the Brooks Range for a variety of reasons. They need an area far enough from mountains to be safe from bears and wolves, and they need a place where winds blow consistently to reduce insects.

Bloodwart, rich in food value for young caribou

The Gwich’in also say that caribou need an area where vegetation is lush, and, according to James and most biologists, the caribou’s core calving grounds host one of the richest concentrations of vegetation on the North Slope.

The oil companies say that the Central Caribou herd, which calves near Prudhoe Bay, has expanded its numbers despite drilling. That, James admits, is true. But she insists such expansion is “only part of the story.”

James says the untold story concerns geography. In the area where the Porcupine herd calves, the Brooks Range is separated from the Arctic Ocean by about 15 miles. Not so just to the west, where the Central Caribou herd calves. There, as you proceed from east to west, the Brooks Range sweeps to the south, so much so that the mountains are separated from the Arctic Ocean by almost 100 miles.

While the Porcupine herd, according to James, is about 130,000 strong, the Central herd numbers but 25,000. “When trucks and big rigs disturb caribou in Central herd, those caribou can move ’cause they got all that 100 miles of room north of mountains where grass is green and wind still blows. But our caribou got only around 15 miles - with five times more animals.”

James says that if oil giants drill into the core calving grounds (called the 1002 Area by the oil companies), the Porcupine herd must move to areas less ideal - areas where “there’s bears,” says James, “away from Arctic Ocean. They move from those good strong winds. They move back to area where’s there’s many bugs. They move to area where there’s not so much of that good green grass…. They don’t die right away. But undernourished young die in winter, when times get tough. That’s what biologists with fancy degrees say. But you don’t need PhD to know that, just common sense.”

Although most petroleum companies claim they can drill in the refuge without consequence to the caribou, most Gwich’in - and many independent biologists - disagree.
Biologists emphasize that although the Porcupine Caribou population is large, drilling would reduce the herd size. If that happens, caribou might choose new migration routes, completely bypassing this international group of villages established initially to intercept the herd.

Stephen Frost Transforms Butchering into Art

James insists the Gwich’in people need those caribou. Adjusting a pile of caribou antlers, she explains that each family in Arctic Village harvests about 15 caribou a year, as the animals migrate to and from their refuge. As in the days of old, the Gwich’in use every single part of the animal.

The Gwich’in position on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has set them at odds with Inupiat Eskimos, who have the only community actually within the 19-million-acre refuge. The Inupiat believe that money they stand to receive from commercial oil drilling in a 1.5 million-acre portion of the ANWR will help lift them from subsistence living.
Both sides have lobbied Congress vigorously.

With a shrug of her shoulders, James says she’s not completely against opening a portion of the refuge to drilling. She says that in 20, maybe 30 years, science might create technology sophisticated enough to extract oil without harming the caribou.

“But it’s not there now!” she exclaims. She also fears that if oil companies do drill in the arctic refuge, they’ll keep most of the profits for themselves, and they won’t hire locals - a habit that James says makes her people feel worthless, and may account for some of the tribe’s social problems, such as high rates of alcoholism and suicide.

Standing in a graveyard, pointing to a flower-strewn site, James recalls how, in 1998, her 17-year-old niece took her own life. “Too many of our young people want to get to Fairbanks, where there’s drugs and alcohol. They’ve lost touch with the land, and that’s when we lose our pride.

“I’m proud to be Gwich’in,” she continues. “But we’ve got to keep telling that to the young. Maybe one day they’ll believe again.”

Over the years, some have heard her words clearly. Evon Peter, the 25-year-old chief of Arctic Village, says he’s benefited from her leadership. Faith Gemmill, current director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, agrees, and adds that James helped groom her for the position.

Both of these young leaders have made trips to Washington with James. And both have testified on behalf of their people’s needs, relying on James’s guidance. In this way, they have helped James fulfill a mandate of “skillfully building a consensus by mobilizing grass-roots organizations.”

Because the sight of the tundra teeming with caribou remains an important vision for the Gwich’in, James also plans to use Ford funding to help with gas payments (about $4 per gallon) required to transport youngsters upriver to distant camps. There, she hopes, they’ll marvel at the caribou, gain pride in their roots - and perhaps gain a taste for grass-roots activism in defense of their way of life.

Or maybe they’ll learn to resist the temptations of a more “civilized” lifestyle.

“When I’m on the land,” said one young man who had recently been placed on parole for drug violations, “I really do great. It’s where my grandfather used to take me.”

Perhaps James has “mobilized” yet another young person, but she plans to do more. She’s definitely a woman with a well-defined mission in service to her people.

And if common sense can be considered a discipline of deeds underscored with care and love, then James may be ready for her PhD.

Gwichin Kids

© From National Wildlife Magazine: Above timberline, above Arctic Village, Alaska—120 miles above the Arctic Circle—my wife, Jane, and I watch with Kenneth and Caroline Frank, a Gwich’in Indian couple, as the first caribou of the season return from summer calving grounds located along the Arctic Ocean. Though Kenneth is a hunter, he restrains himself. Customarily, the Gwich’in permit the first caribou of the season to pass so they won’t turn tail and alarm the closely-trailing major herd. “We should wait,” says Kenneth. “There will be more in a day or so.”

For Kenneth and Caroline—and for all the Gwich’in—the return of the caribou is a major event. For many of this most northern of all Indian tribes spanning two nations in about 13 different small villages, the return means that stomachs will be full when it is 70 degrees below zero and game is not moving. But there is more. Now, when the caribou return, the migration is cause for even more celebration, for it means the Gwich’in have thwarted another year of attempts to undermine their way of life. If petroleum companies have their way, they will construct oil rigs in the precise area where members of the Porcupine Caribou Herd have always calved. The Gwich’in are firmly united in their denunciation of these efforts by oil companies and say so in a variety of ways that represent their concerns for themselves and the caribou…

That’s the way I began my story for National Wildlife magazine, and now, several years later, I stand by my convictions that there needs to be one place left in the world where natural processes regulate rather than ones imposed by man. If it means I have to pay more at the pump for gasoline to enjoy the travel I so thoroughly cherish, so be it. Higher prices may prompt us as a nation to do some of the things we should have done 30 years ago during our first national energy scare. But all is not lost. This current energy crisis might prompt us to develop bio fuels, purchase small cars (which Janie and I have done for times we’re traveling in Montana, our home state), improve further hybrid vehicles, and explore alternative sources of energy. It might prompt us to insist that our government become involved in the Kyoto Accord. It might prompt us to drive 55.

But to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and convert it into another Prudhoe would be a travesty. And I say this not as someone who has never stepped foot in the refuge, rather as one who has backpacked (A Christian Science Monitor story) through the entire refuge, floated its rivers, and stood in awe and watched as thousands of caribou streamed across cold, Arctic rivers. As well, Janie and I once served as teachers in many of the Gwich’in Indian communities, and we have a real soft spot for all the people of these most northern of all Indian (not Eskimo) communities.

Several years ago I flew over Prudhoe Bay on a photography assignment for The Wilderness Society. The flight was an eye opener; sprawling beneath like the filaments in a spider web was a dense interlay of pipes. From these conduits forming the Pipe Line, statistics show oil spills on average of ONCE A DAY.

Biologists working for the oil companies say the Central Caribou herd has expanded, implying that oil pads and dericks are good for caribou. What they don’t say is that in the area of Prudhoe Bay, the Brooks Range sweeps to the south, creating a seperation between the Arctic Ocean and the mountains of about 100 miles. This seperation provides the Central Caribou herd with room to move, so its no wonder that herd has not been troubled. But such is not the case in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where the Brooks Range holds firm at about 30 miles from the Arctic Ocean. Here is where the Porcupine Caribou herd gathers each summer to calve, and “Here,” as Sarah James (Another Christian Science Monitor story “The Power of One”) of Arctic Village says, “the caribou got no place to go.”

If we were to tap oil in the refuge, we coudn’t have it at our pumps for another 10 years, and most believe the supplies are limited. Wouldn’t it be a shame to eliminate one of the world’s last totally wild places in exchange for some unknown quantity of oil? I want to maintain my life stye as an adventure travler, and if I have to pay more to do so, then I’ll sacrifice elsewhere.

Standing United

Hurrah for the Gwich’in, who stand united in their determination to save the Arctic Refuge from development.