Harry: > My impression of the "vast wasteland" - the 90% of the ANWR - is that > no-one lives there, not even nomadic types. Even in summer the climate is > apparently pretty hard on everything.
Again, it depends on how you define "lives there". No one lived on much of the vast North American plains for much of the year. Yet many people moved across them and many died trying to defend their part of them - e.g. Little Big Horn. > According to the anti-oil drilling propagandists, the "local Indians are > against any new drilling". These "local Indians" are the Gwichin, who seem > to be somewhat distant from the proposed area. Also, they had no oil, as I > mentioned. So, being skeptical, I assumed that had they found oil there, > they wouldn't have been used in the anti-literature. There are various groups of Gwichin spread out from the Mackenzie Delta across the Porcupine Basin (e.g. Old Crow) and into Alaska. Some would favour, some might not. Much would depend on how effectively their land claims had been settled and, therefore, how much power they could exercise over oil and gas development and how they would benefit from it. To the best of my knowledge, all Gwitchin groups have settled claims. > On the other side, the oil companies say they will have no impact on the > environs of the drilling area. In fact, they make a mess wherever they > operate. However, the area of drilling is supposed to be about 2,000 square > miles - not a lot measured against the size of the ANWR - about 19 million > square miles. Even against the North Slope it isn't that big a chunk. The > Porcupine calving area - (Oops!) the Porcupine herd calving area - doesn't > seem to be particularly close to the projected drilling, but maybe they > spread out more than I realize. The Report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry (1977) gives the number of Porcupine Caribou as about 110,000. The herd may have declined somewhat since then, but as I pointed out in an earlier posting, it is protected by an international agreement and closely monitored. The MVPI regarded the integrity of the Yukon North Slope as absolutely vital to the health of the herd and argued in very strong terms that no pipeline should be built across it. Current pipeline planning from Prudhoe Bay to the Mackenzie Delta envisages an undersea pipeline, but that would raise enormous problems. > So, that leaves only one thing. What animals live in the Porcupine Basin? > Maybe Lawry will find his imaginative trip is closer to the truth than he > thinks! Rats. I don't know if theys still do it, but one of the most important and joyous traditions of the people of Old Crow was summer ratting in Old Crow Flats, a vast swampy area north of the community. Lest we turn Lawry's imagination loose again, "rats" are muskrats, valued for their fur. Ed
