Caribou Rising: Defending the Porcupine Herd, Gwich-'In Culture, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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Summary: love and courage in Arctic Alaska
Review: The fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has weighed heavy with me for some time now. One of my first reactions to the disaster of November 2 was to buy and read Subhankar Banerjee's "Seasons of Life and Land," a true masterpiece, including not only his own magnificent photographs of ANWR, but also helpful and fascinating commentaries by a number of environmentalists and scientists and other thoughtful visitors to the region. Rick Bass's "Caribou Rising" is a perfect companion to Banerjee's book. At base it is a travel memoir, in which Bass shares the experience of his visit to the Gwich'in community of Arctic Village, his impressions of the residents, and especially his joining some Gwich'in hunters on an expedition in search of their sacred, life-sustaining caribou. "Nature writing" in general is not a genre that impresses me much; but Bass's account of this up-river journey in a questionable boat with his finely drawn hosts is truly fascinating. (Bass is frankly a hunter and a carnivore. Those are issues that tend to divide environmentalists. Hopefully we may look beyond them for now to the very important values that we share.) Interwoven in this memoir are two major strands. First is that of the folly of the Bush/Cheney project to drill for oil in the coastal area of ANWR, the breeding ground of the Porcupine caribou herd, and the ignorance, arrogance and selfishness of that project's supporters. Bass, writing before October 2, argues eloquently that whatever this project might gain for us is despicably little, while what it will destroy is inestimably great. Even more important, though, is his other great theme, the integrity and well-being of the Gwich'in people, and the preservation of their culture. Since the Pleistocene they have been the people of the caribou. So dependent are they on the hunt of the caribou for everything important in their lives, that it seems true to agree that they and the caribou are one. Already as a result of global warming, the caribou population is under great stress. The intrusion of Dick Cheney's friends into the breeding ground in ANWR seems likely to make the caribou's persistence in this region highly doubtful. And if the caribou disappear, so does the ancient love and life of the Gwich'in. It is terrificly inspiring to read Bass's words on all the Gwich'in are doing to defend themselves, the caribou and the land, at home in Alaska, in Washington, and around the world. This story is not over; and it touches every one of us.