Recent stories on CNN.com and in the LA Times paint heart wrenching scenes on the plight of many families in rural Alaska this winter.
The coldest winter in five years brought an early freeze to rivers used to ship fuel and other supplies to remote areas. More fuel than usual had to be shipped by air, making it even more expensive than usual. Some Alaskans are paying $1,500 a month just to keep their homes warm.
For communities that live on what they can gather or hunt, the scarcity of fuel hits hard because it limits their ability to use snowmobiles to go to where they can get food. One family with children reported that there had been no food in the house for three days. The children were surviving on their school's lunch program.
CNN reporter Mallory Simon quoted one rural resident as saying, "The life out here has always been hard, it's just that its a lot harder now."
A major goal of the Bering Strait Project is to provide a way for native communities in remote areas of Alaska, Canada and eastern Siberia to access affordable energy, health care and job training. Building surface transportation infrastructure that connects New York and Chicago to Moscow and Beijing across the Bering Strait would easily bring these benefits and more to the people living along the route.
David M. Rubenstein, a co-founder of the private equity firm Carlyle Group, recently advised Native Americans, including Native Alaskans, that they should lobby the Congress for a program in the pattern of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Western Europe following World War II.
Speaking to a meeting of Native American leaders on the day before President Obama's inauguration, Mr. Rubenstein said that the economic stimulus, which was then in its formative stage, represented a unique opportunity to receive federal assistance.
"There is never going to be another opportunity where you can get so much money so relatively easily as you are going to have in this stimulus package," Mr. Rubenstein said. His advice was for members of his audience to go to Congress and lobby hard to see that their communities benefited from the legislation being crafted at that time.
The stimulus bill, now called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is meant to stimulate the economy of the entire country. Lobbying for spending in remote communities on the basis that this is going to help stimulate the national economy may be a hard sell. Yet, it is clear that these communities urgently need the attention of the nation at large.
In addition to meeting urgent immediate needs, a more long term impact in serving rural Alaska communities would be for the United States to set a national goal that, working together with Canada and Russia, it will build surface transportation infrastructure connecting metropolitan areas of North America to those in Asia and Europe. This would be a project to benefit local communities, the countries involved, and the global community at large.
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When dealing with populations on tribal lands --- well meaning outsiders do well to tread carefully and with meaningful altruistic investment.
ReplyDeleteFaith communities, extended families, ethnic groups and others stay on their ancestral lands and in their communal territories for numerous and varied reasons. Before endeavoring to reach out for multi-national tribal building, the question begs, “…just how much change do Alaskan indigenous populations want?” Genuine research aimed at helping tribes articulate what they want for the long term and how they can sustainably achieve hoped for goals are necessary.
Many times well intended developers (altruistic outsiders) focus on their agenda for the population rather than the target population's agenda for themselves.
An evocative study into the mindset of the inhabitants, such as a look at their history, their way of life, their beliefs, what they expect in life and how they go about fulfilling their expectations; have to be considered, examined, and utilized before the Project ever begins. After all, this project is for the sake of the advancement of humankind. And likewise, before any foreign governments are invited to the development table, the Alaskan tribal councils have to know what the concrete impact will be as a result of the endeavor in the coming years. The native population should be armed with a clear 10-20 year plan for their future well before a transportation czar or land developer's agenda take precedence.
The Bering Strait Project ought to be ready with significant resources to assist in the development of a long-term, sustainable growth and re-orientation plan for the Native Alaskan tribal land it touches. Without that there is no meaningful altruistic investment --- it’s just land development and business as usual.
George Koumal submitted the following comment by email.
ReplyDeleteTim, your article is timely and the information you give on the life in Alaska arctic communities is accurate and much needed for people in lower 48 to know. You make reference to LA Times article on the misery of current Alaska winter. I read that article and made comment on it to all people in our Organization, here and in Russia. To know that a widow in her sixties, living in a small village of Tuluksak in Alaska is forced to make the choice between spending money on fuel to heat her house or spent that money to buy food, is nauseating. Is this Alaska, part of the United States and is it really the year 2009? Senator Lisa Murkowski made this comment: What our country as a whole has been seeing for the past year or so, is nothing compared to the economic conditions in many of our Native communities for over 100 years! Jim Stimpfle from Nome tells me that gallon of gas cost $4.93 -$5. If that would be the cost of gasoline in Tucson, I would buy a horse or ride a bicycle.
The situation like that is not only in Alaska but it is common over the entire 6.7 million square miles of the Arctic regions on all three continents. It is simply one gigantic Nowhere which cries for connection to the Somewhere and the 21st Century World, and The Bering Strait Project is the answer. The Project will require help from the Governments but I see such help as an investment rather than gift modeled on Marshall's plan. Please do remember that the Arctic is a region with tremendous Natural wealth: energy minerals, hydroelectric power potential and all the metals on the Table of Elements are there to be developed. This wealth is on the land the people there own. They could become investors and participates in the effort to make the intercontinental railroad via Bering Strait a reality. It would mean, as in the case of TVA, jobs, job training, education, health care access, electric power availability in reasonable cost, it will simply bring the 21st Century to 15.5 % of the Northern Hemisphere dry land mass. (that is over 10% of all dry surface of this Planet) The development of the Arctic at the start will concentrate on Energy, minerals but industry and commerce will follow. How many people know that the largest cabbage and lettuce in the World are grown in Wassila Valley, home of Gov. Palin, just a stone throw to the North from Anchorage. And it is done in open air, taking advantage of long daylight of the arctic summer. Can you imagine what large scale Greenhouse farming, based of low cost energy and the long summer days can do to that region economy? You would be able to ship vegetables and flowers via railroad and ships to the markets all over the world.
I believe that US Government investment in the development of the Arctic would be best investment uncle Sam has ever made, surpassing the TVA, the Panama Canal and the Interstate Highways.
Best, George Koumal
George Koumal also submitted this comment by email in response to Kitty Wojcik's comment above:
ReplyDeleteTim: The lady is right. To make The Project reality will have to be done in full cooperation with native population of the Arctic, not only in Alaska but on the other side of the Bering Strait as well. It is also correct that the Native communities are concerned about preservation of their way of life and there is nothing within The Project plans to make that impossible. The people calling the Arctic their home will be able to maintain their customs and their life styles and be an integral part of the 21st Century at the same time. If you read James A. Michener novel Alaska (chapter XII-The Rim of Fire), the problem of integration of Alaska Native people into American mainstream is well addressed and with some sensitivity. The Native people of the Arctic should have advantages and conveniences of 21st Century available for taking at their discretion and have the freedom to live according to their traditions at the same time. I do believe that both can be achieved in harmony.
I see realization of The Project as the culmination of a long process of recognizing Alaska as part of the United States with full rights of the State of the Union. Recognition of rights and customs of the Alaska Native population is part of this process. Since the US assumed responsibility for Alaska on October 18, 1867, Washington had a problem even with what would be the name for the new territory. Remember, Alaska had a difficult time to become a state: "That ice box will never have enough population to warrant statehood." Alaska was America's blind spot, and sometimes I feel that it still is. That has to change and the intercontinental railroad is the herald of this change.