The Inupiat who live here still hunt whale and seal for food. Boats jut from the snow along the small airstrip, which turns out to be a sandspit sticking out into the frozen sea. During the day, the only sounds come from dogs barking outside their houses and the occasional snowmobile or pickup crossing the village. At night, the northern lights play in the skies above, pale-green sheets of fire shooting up through the heavens. The Inupiat believe oil revenues and land-rental fees from oil companies will raise their living standards.
Oil is really important for our young people, for education and health care.
Kaktovik, like many of the native villages in northern Alaska, bans alcohol by law. We have real nice people here before alcohol, but it really destroys families. If the social impact of drilling is unpredictable, so too are its effects on wildlife. Wildlife-management experts are concerned the winter activities of oil companies could disrupt the denning of pregnant female polar bears along the shoreline. Musk oxen could be driven from their riverside habitats, where oil companies come to find gravel and freshwater.