Old Crow from the air
Pets are rare in the Yukon wilderness. Dogs, kept by most natives, are working animals. Although SnowGo's have mostly replaced dogsleds, dogs are still valuable hunting partners. They do not raise chickens or other animals for food.
The time came when the minister cooked one of his rabbits and the people were shocked. This is a society that survives on subsistance hunting and fishing. They eat meat. Yet, they do not understand the concept of raising an animal to eat it. If you care for an animal, if you domesticate it, you have a responsibility to it. To kill an animal you have raised for food is akin to cannibalism. Factory farms for cattle or chickens, to them, is as abhorrent as concentration camps are to us. I don't recall what the minister did with the rest of his rabbits but I know he didn't eat them.
Why Does This Matter?
This is part of the morality of the people endangered by Republican mania to develop ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) for oil. This is the culture that would be sacrificed so my neighbor can continue to power his multiple pickup trucks, motor boats and dune buggy. The Gwich'in are an unique people, different from you and me in ways we can never understand. They are a wonderful people and have a right to keep the lifestyle that gives them a gentle perspective on a harsh world. That lifestyle, of necessity, includes the unmolested Porcupine caribou herd.
other links:
Alaska Wilderness League
a story of the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska
World Wildlife Fund: Canada
Ever Increasing Entropy
tag: anwr, arctic national wildlife refuge
5 comments:
Yes, the Gwich'in are indeed mindfull of their caribou. Those oil leases to their entire 1.8million acres of land had near no provision for the protection of their now sacred caribou. Signed by all the tribal elders including the Sierra Club in-the-pocket posterchild Sarah James They tried 4 times, twice successfully, to lease their entire tribal lands for oil drilling from the mid 70s-1984. Sadly for them no oil was found. Last I heard in Canada the Gwich'in lobbied very hard and won to reduce the hunting buffer zone from the Dempster Highway to less than one mile. Why, when initially they totally opposed the highway going in at all? Suddenly it became apparent to some of the fellas its a lot easier, and great fun, plugging away at caribou from the back of a pickup! "Indian style", as they say. Beats stomping tundra anyday! Funnily enough Canada's 6000 Gwich'in (compared to Alaska's 700) have at times openly supported ANWR drilling. Not only that, the Canadian side of the border is riddled with capped and producing oil wells, on and offshore many on Gwich'in land. It doesn't say a lot for the Canadian Govs stance which is as hypocritical as the Gwich'in's. Sad our fuzzy eyed host didn't know this.
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