ANWR: The Last Call of the Wild

IT SEEMS TWO ELEMENTS REQUIRED IN COMBINATION to shift the debate over oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic Refuge to the front burner are a U.S. president named George Bush and some manner of energy crisis. Just over a decade ago, Bush pèremade a big push in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, which had sent shivers up America's spine regarding the long-term availability of OPEC's massive oil reserves, to have the Refuge declared fair game for substantial subsurface exploration. Opposition from environmental groups, a split Congress and a simple lack of time frustrated his efforts. The issue was moved off the stove altogether during the Clinton administration, but now, less than a month into the tenure of Bush fils,it is back — and boiling hot. "Deeply concerned" that the latest energy crisis was "spreading beyond the California borders," George W. Bush said last Monday that he would grease the skids to allow the oil and gas industries to explore and exploit domestic fuel sources. He named Vice President Dick Cheney to head a task force. Its charge: to "encourage the development of pipelines and power-generating capacity in the country." The question, Bush said, is "how do we find more energy supplies, how do we encourage conservation on the one hand and bring more energy into the marketplace." His answer? "A good place to look is going to be ANWR."

ANWR (pronounced, fittingly, An-WAR) is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the same 18.9-million-acre tract in the northeast corner of Alaska once coveted by George H. W. Bush — and all other past, present and future oilmen. George W. Bush's rhetoric on Monday was so remarkably like his father's a decade ago that it seemed, at a blush, as if nothing had changed on the ANWR front — that, merely, an engagement was being renewed.

ANWR is an important, passionate, at-the-barricades issue to the Bushes, and this should not surprise, since both the present and former president, as well as Dick Cheney, have been, in previous careers, oilmen. Big Oil has lusted after this parcel for more than three decades, ever since the biggest oil strike in U.S. history — an eventual 10 million barrels — was made in 1968 at Prudhoe Bay, just west of ANWR.

While there is an unmistakable aspect of déjà vu to this week's initiatives by a president named Bush, some things have, indeed, changed in 10 years. The biggest have been advances in cleaner oil exploration and drilling technology. But drilling is still far from a green activity.

And so the nut of the Arctic Refuge controversy remains precisely what it was the last time a man named George Bush weighed in: There may be a lot of oil in ANWR. Do we retrieve it?

I went up there when this was last seen as a pressing question. I wanted to see what the place was about. I was on a trip packed with tree-huggers and debate, while countenanced during the fortnight, was, to be candid, never very heated.

I kept a log and, in reviewing it now, I'm astonished at how relevant it seems to the present. Add a W to the President's name and this is, essentially, the issue — as it was, as it remains. There are a few updates and asides in the following account, flagged as such.

The dateline, then, is FAR NORTHERN ALASKA. The time is latest spring one decade ago. In terms of the Arctic Refuge, this is only yesterday.

WE FLEW NORTH FROM FAIRBANKS IN AN OTTER. Travel by Otter is extraordinary; the plane seems to trundle, and you wonder that it stays aloft. Hills rolled slowly beneath us, and great peaks came into view up ahead. Great clouds, too. By the time we reached the south slope of the Brooks Range, the summits were socked in. We were forced to land at Arctic Village, and wait out the weather. This was fine with me, because Arctic Village is part of the ANWR controversy, and the layover afforded a chance to get a sense of the place.

Louie G. John was a leader among the village's 120 citizens. The townsfolk were Gwich'in members of the Athapaskan Indian group, which numbered — and still numbers — 7,000 and is scattered throughout several villages in Alaska and northwestern Canada. John spoke softly but passionately of his people's involvement with caribou and thus with ANWR: "For thousands of years Gwich'in have hunted caribou, even back in nomadic times when we would follow the herd. It's part of our culture. For us, opposing development is like fighting for our lives. The caribou is our spiritual identity, not just our food.

"The calving grounds — our grandfathers told us never to bother that special place in May and June. They said, 'Even a mosquito can kill a caribou calf when it's just born.' We learned that the place was sacred land. Now they want to develop this place, and this could kill caribou. We would be in a bad situation. If the caribou die, it's like part of our body is missing."

There are 182,000 head of caribou in the Porcupine herd, North America's largest. In a typical year, these migratory animals inhabit the coastal plain of ANWR during their sensitive late-spring calving period. This coastal plain has come to be known as the "1002 Area," phrased "ten-oh-two" in An-war-ese. It was so named in 1980 when Congress designated ANWR a refuge. The bill stipulated a strip of coastline 104 miles across Alaska's north shore, and 34 miles inland to the foothills of the Brooks Range (a total of 1.5 million acres), as the "1002 Study Area." By the way, this is the last 104 miles of Alaska's 1,100-mile northern coast that has not already been developed by Big Oil. Congress set aside this ANWR northernmost sector as an oil-potential testing ground, these tests to be conducted by the U.S. Interior Department. Then Congress put a stipulation on the stipulation: No matter how great the 1002's store of oil, no development could proceed without further approval.

What Congress was saying, in short: "Let's see what's there, but don't touch it till we say so."

In the mid-'80s Interior conducted a study that concluded the caribou herd could decline by as much as 40 percent if the "core calving areas" within the 1002 Area were invaded by future developers. In 1987 the oil-potential report finally came out, and Interior changed its tune — big time. The department now said there were no "core" calving areas and that it had been an "error" to project a 40 percent caribou decline. Interior's new recommendation was: Develop the whole coastal plain, because an oil strike could produce 600 million to 9.2 billion barrels [a figure revised upward, by the year 2000, to 14 billion barrels]. Even though Interior admitted the chances of such a strike were only 19 percent — one-in-five odds — the oil industry took heart and the Indians grew worried.

In 1988 the Gwich'in called for a ban on development in the calving grounds, and subsequently sued Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan, charging him with ignoring their civil rights. They pointed out that Interior's 1987 Environmental Impact Statement on the 1002 Area made little mention of Gwich'in subsistence claims. In their suit, the Gwich'in claimed an inherent right to their archaic lifestyle, and asked that a new assessment be done on the cultural aftershocks of development. [The Gwich'in, subsequent to my visit, lost their lawsuit — but stand willing to file another now that the fight is rejoined. "With the election of Clinton, there was no need for another (suit) during his tenure," said Bob Childers of the Gwich'in Steering Committee during an interview from Anchorage on Friday "But, now, we certainly are not unwilling to go to court again if the White House tries to advance its cause administratively, as it seems intent on. The issue, for us, remains precisely the same: that this is more than just an environmental question, it's a human rights question. Do we really want to chase the last of these indigenous cultures out of their homeland? That's the question we want to put in front of people — through education, or in the courts if we have to."]

Foul weather grounded our Otter on the gravel runway of Arctic Village for eight hours, which gave us a chance to feel the town's aloneness. Like all communities north of Fairbanks, it's connected to nothing, reachable only by air. Arctic Village is huddled against the Brooks Range, and its outermost dirt road encloses the town like a moat.

Finally, the drizzle stopped, the clouds began to lift. As our plane took off, I overlooked Arctic Village from the sky a final time. In the few seconds available, I tried to count the houses — 30, maybe 35, on five intersecting dirt roads. Suppose the caribou herd is diminished. Only a very few people are impacted by this. The federal government estimates a many-hundred-billion-dollar prospect beneath the 1002. And yet we're being asked to take into account the objections of a very few people. Eminent domain cases cause discomfort every day.

But the Gwich'ins' isn't a typical eminent domain case. Theirs is an important request. If our society is unable to allow them their eternal culture, just as we may be incapable of allowing the caribou their traditional birthing ground, then what does that say about us? Recalling other Indians, recalling the buffalo, maybe there's reason to worry about that answer.

Immediately upon leaving Arctic Village airspace, we flew north into ANWR. As the Otter sailed through a gap in the rugged Brooks Range, it crossed the Arctic Divide. All waterways now ran north. Soon a stream appeared in the notch below. It quickly developed rapids, and at this point the plane banked, circled thrice and landed smoothly on the gravel shore. We had arrived at our point of embarkation, the headwaters of the Hulahula River.

The Hulahula? A hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle?

Indeed. The story goes that Polynesian whaling ships once got stuck in the Arctic Ocean ice at the mouth of the river, and to keep warm the sailors danced the Hula. Make of that what you will. I can confidently testify only that it's a cold, rippling river in late spring, a river whose surrounding beauty is the equal of Bali Hai.

I asked: How many people see this place?

"I'm getting more people wanting ANWR trips each year," said Bob Dittrick of Anchorage, our chief guide. "They want to see it before it's developed. But even so, we're not talking about a ton of people." Dittrick was — and still is — one of a dozen outfitters who lead ANWR trips, each of them bringing perhaps 50 visitors to the refuge per year. Even when you add the 200 wealthy game hunters who come in search of sheep or caribou, you still have fewer than 1,000 visitors annually. Although conservationists stress that the federally owned Refuge belongs to all Americans, it's hard to dismiss the criticism that it's an elitist park, used primarily by rich, well-traveled, college-educated L.L. Beaners. Susan Alexander, a representative of the Wilderness Society, admitted, "We'd have a stronger argument for the park as a people's resource if it were more accessible. But then, it wouldn't be what it is — America's last true wilderness."

It is indisputably a wild and natural place. From where we stood, we saw no tracks anywhere in the tundra, no hiking trails into the mountains. There were no campsites on the opposite shore, no sign that anyone was here but us.

We awoke the first morning to find our dishwater frozen in its pail — a strange thing to find, four days before the summer solstice. But by noon, we were hiking into the mountains in T-shirts. We walked to a ridgetop high above the river, then down into a valley floor of tussocks. The place was idyllic, save for the tussocks, which are tufted mounds of grass that give way under your feet, trying their best to sprain your ankle. Although I'm a tussock-walking novice, I reached the valley ahead of the others and noticed something white disappear behind the far cliff. I made my way through the valley and 'round the corner. There, on the back slope of the mountains, were 200, maybe 300 snow-white Dall sheep. They seemed of greater heft than Lower 48 bighorns I had seen. They were grand.

All afternoon I followed the migrating sheep higher into the mountains, then over a saddle between two snow-covered peaks. I was joined on this walk by Robert O. Blake, a retired career diplomat with the U.S. Foreign Service. The patriarch of our trip at an undiminished 68 years, Blake, of Washington, D.C., and Bar Harbor, Me., held vice presidencies with two national environmental organizations. A fervid outdoorsman, he had climbed in the Alps and in the Himalayas. And yet he said, "I've never seen so many sheep. I've rarely seen such beauty. There's one thing that bugs me: Because no one sees this, the oil interests can portray it however they like. One congressman referred to ANWR as 'a wasteland.' Now look around. Do you see a wasteland? Just look!"

I asked: But won't these mountains be untouched by development in the 1002 Area, up by the coast?

"Yes, the mountains themselves will remain," said Blake. "But when you talk about the Arctic Refuge, you talk about a complete, self-sustaining ecosystem — the last one we've got. Certain aspects of the higher ground are dependent upon aspects of the coastal plain. These sheep, for instance, could be impacted, even though they rarely venture out of the mountains."

Blake's not wrong. As we'll soon see, there's evidence that deleterious effects to large wildlife have extended south from the Prudhoe Bay oilfields. The Dall sheep population of the western and central Brooks Range is declining, possibly due to activity in Prudhoe. Even with advancements in production techniques and technology, few would contend that drilling would have no impact, or that the impact could never extend beyond the immediate area.

Two days after the sheep walk, Blake and I were again hiking in the mountains. It was cold and foggy as we trudged up the first inclines. Then, as we came to a ravine that split two ridges, the sun came out. We crossed a mild incline, then ascended a shale hillside and crossed a valley that looked like the one Julie Andrews waltzed through in "The Sound of Music."

We were aware now of peaks to our left and right, but a stubborn cloud lingered before us, hiding something. We came up over a large boulder field and then the cloud grew wispy and parted, revealing the realm of Mount Michelson. On either side were strong snow-covered shoulders, and between them the wide Esatuk glacier rolled up toward the summit. All the clouds gave way suddenly, and to the west was the dense, thousand-peaked Brooks Range, all white and pale blue. This was a top-of-the-world view. I felt woozy, although I was standing on solid rock. I'd never seen such a breathtaking panorama.

I thought of how lonely this northernmost range in the world was. So few of these thrilling mountains had been visited by man, fewer still had been climbed to their summits. So few of them had names, even. Perhaps a half-dozen people reach the top of Michelson each year, and Michelson — the range's fourth highest peak at 8,855 feet — is a relatively famous mountain. I gazed in absolute silence, and thought about the loneliness. It's a desolate place, ANWR.

Next morning, the Hulahula River was transformed. After the initial freeze, we had enjoyed four mild days, and this had spurred the glacial melt. Overnight, the river had turned mocha in color and was raging high. Our rafts picked up speed, and we were soon floating between foothills instead of mountains. Then we were departing the foothills, and Alexander shouted to the others in our raft, "We've just crossed into the 1002 Area!" As if on cue — as if to say, "Here we are, in the 1002, where we solicit your support" — there were suddenly 200 caribou far up ahead, browsing on the eastern hillside.