Once it's done, everything leaves. In both communities, life is demanding and subsistence gathering of game is an essential part of it. Arctic Village has no running water except at the school and a community laundry that also provides showers for residents. Homes are heated by wood stoves, and electricity arrived only in the late 1970s, when the tribe bought a diesel generator. Kaktovik has been more prosperous, thanks initially to its proximity to a military radar site and more recently its share of oil revenues distributed by the regional Inupiat government.
Most homes have some running water, and a sewer system for toilets is planned.
While the Gwich'in and Inupiat talk of their mutual respect for each other's views on developing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, there seems to be little contact or commerce today between the two peoples. The Gwich'in allowed companies to search for oil on some of their lands in the 1970s, but they firmly oppose drilling in the refuge. They can't understand why the Inupiat seem more eager to protect their traditional whaling areas from offshore drilling than to do the same for the caribou calving grounds on lands that are important to the Gwich'in. The Inupiat in Kaktovik say they are sympathetic. The caribou were going to be driven away.