Living on Thin Ice. Steven C. Dinero
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NVVTG (which, as noted, includes both Venetie and Arctic Village) would be independent of the Doyon Native Regional Corporation, and Doyon would have no obligation to the government (Arnold 1976: 200). In the words of Alaskan Gwich’in community leaders (Arctic Village Council 1991):
Our system of self-regulation and self-determination is based largely upon self-respect and self-esteem, which allows us to then work for the common good of our village … Our leaders believed ANCSA was a trick to “ripoff” the land from Native people. We feel we were right in our decision to stay with the way we know best, our Indian way (38).
While “rip off” may not necessarily be the right term to describe the ANCSA settlement, it is true that the settlement was not fully resolved at this juncture. Years later, the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous February 1998 ruling (not 1988, as reported in Stern 2005: 48), determined that while the Nets’aii Gwich’in did hold the land in perpetuity, the reservation lands were not completely under Nets’aii Gwich’in jurisdiction when it came to certain conditions (i.e., the reserve is not “Indian country”). The tribe cannot, for example, levy taxes on non-Native outside interests such as private contractors operating on tribal lands.
Moreover, throughout the early 1970s and thereafter, following the building of the oil pipeline out of Prudhoe Bay, it also became increasingly common to suggest that the “traditional” Alaska Native was now on the verge of “extinction,” about to be replaced by the business-savvy, “oil age,” materially oriented capitalist (Jorgenson 1990; for an alternative perspective, see Haycox 2002: 283). This sentiment has been suggested in such popular literature as John McPhee’s Coming into the Country (1977). The image of the “Brooks Brothers” Native (see Kollin 2001: 168–69) has also been reinforced by academics who suggest that capitalism began taking hold in Alaska Native communities with the creation of ANCSA, if not before, fostering an achievement orientation that supplants an ascriptive culture and facilitating the development of a new class structure that includes the creation of an “Alaska native bourgeoisie” (A. Mason 2002).
By the late 1970s, Arctic Village, if not the Nets’aii Gwich’in in general, had changed a great deal when compared to only twenty years earlier, despite efforts to opt out of ANCSA and to maintain control of the land and its resources. New oil-related job opportunities on the North Slope, as well as new “income” provided by the permanent fund annual payments, which had also been created by the oil industry, all served to bring new wealth to the community and with it, new spending behaviors (Nickelson 2013). New buildings, such as a communal laundry (see chapter 4), were added to the existing log housing, church, and school
Caulfield (1983) cites several of these changes, including “the availability of limited wage employment opportunities and government transfer payments, changes in resource distribution, the use of new technology such as high-powered rifles, outboard motors, and snow machines, changing demographic patterns, and resource competition” (101). The preponderance of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) on village roads occurred during this period as well, lending to greater geographic dispersion of village residences away from the old village center, especially in the direction of the airport (now known as the Airport Road) and the mountain (now known as the Mountain Road). A large peeledlog Community Hall, perhaps the most notable building in the village, would not be added until 1988.
Concurrently, the Nets’aii Gwich’in leadership increased its efforts to exercise greater power, particularly in relation to the federal and state governments. In large part, this was due to an increasing perception among residents that outside interference and control (seen most clearly, perhaps, in the proposal developed at this time to conduct exploratory oil and gas drilling in the ANWR, the traditional calving ground of the Porcupine caribou herd) were directly endangering their subsistence lifestyle and culture. Indeed, the Nets’aii Gwich’in began to see themselves as a “state within a state” in the early 1980s (Lonner and Beard 1982: 107) as they sought control over outsider access to the community, its lands, and its resources.
The Nets’aii Gwich’in leadership sought greater centralized control of village resident behaviors as well during this time. The Arctic Village Council—elected annually and comprised of a First and Second Chief, six members, and an alternate (“Village Focus” 1991)—took on the increasing role of providing moral, as well as legal, guidance. Historically, the chief acted as a representative, chosen by the group for his knowledge and courage in hunting and conflict with neighboring tribes (Osgood 1936: 129). In this regard, the new leadership model was not unlike the Nets’aii Gwich’in’s traditional model, in which large groupings of bands (of ten to fifty unrelated families temporarily organized for major functions such as hunting, warfare, or trading) were led by administrator-style leaders, who “directed rather than participated in all major tasks” (Slobodin 1981: 522).
In essence, then, two trends began to emerge during the post-1970 period. First, Western elements of “modernity” arrived in Arctic Village, in the form of new technologies, values, and lifestyles. Second, political activity heightened in the village and broader community, as the Nets’aii Gwich’in struggled to fend off outside political control of their lives, while exercising social control within the community itself. While the Alaskan Gwich’in community underwent great change since European contact and especially since World War II, the Nets’aii Gwich’in of Arctic Village clearly remained just that—strong and proud members of the Gwich’in people. This sense of Gwich’in identity and purpose stemmed from the internal strength of the people and their rich history and culture, as well as from their ability to socially and politically mold newly imposed Western-style values and systems to further their own purposes. Perhaps this is best revealed by the voluntary adoption of a Western innovation—community planning—as a vehicle through which to perpetuate traditional Nets’aii Gwich’in values and ideals.
By the late 1980s, the community had changed in innumerable ways, and the village was, to a great degree, unrecognizable when compared to conditions just two or three decades earlier. Yet, one may still question whether, and to what extent, the village itself was by this point functioning as a single entity with one voice, one identity, one direction. This issue will be taken up in detail in chapter 4, but before doing so, I digress in the pages that follow by addressing how two primary institutions, the Church and the school, played a central role in the ongoing social and economic evolution and development of the Nets’aii Gwich’in community. As will be quite evident, these two institutions together both reflected and formulated the early years of growth and expansion in Arctic Village. Without a doubt, the impact of their role can be felt to the present day.
CHAPTER 2
Episcopalianism Comes to Nets’aii Country
Gwich’in Christianity has become a way to affirm and embrace the old ways and the new ways, without losing cultural cohesiveness and solidarity. The Gwich’in are brilliant theologians. Gwich’in traditional culture is much closer to Christianity and Jesus than the dominating culture—Christian or not.
— Rev. Mark MacDonald, Bishop of Alaska (2001)
It is impossible to separate the settlement of the Nets’aii Gwich’in at Arctic Village from the concomitant arrival of Episcopalian Christianity to the region. What is significant and must be kept in mind here is that, unlike other aspects of imposed colonial culture, the Christian Church remains exceptional in the community as an institution that, despite its White European origins, is still largely loved and embraced by most, though not all, community members. The reasons, I contend, for why the Church in specific and Christianity in general are able to enjoy this exceptional status are rooted in their history and in how they came into the community from the outset.
In this chapter, I set out to look at the history of Christianity’s arrival to the Yukon Flats region, specifically Arctic Village. However, this religion’s appearance cannot be separated from a significant and charismatic figure in village history, Albert E. Tritt—nor, as one of the founding fathers of the village, can Tritt’s role be overstated. Yet, those who saw him as a role model—in terms of his position as both