In Alaska’s Far North, Two Cultures Collide

Each summer and fall, the Inupiat, natives of Alaska’s arid north coast, take their sealskin boats and gun-fired harpoons and go whale hunting. Kills are celebrated throughout villages as whaling captains share their catch with relatives and neighbors. Muktuk, or raw whale skin and blubber, is a prized delicacy.

But now, that traditional way of life is coming into conflict with one of the modern world’s most urgent priorities: finding more oil.

Royal Dutch Shell is determined to exploit vast reserves believed to lie off Alaska’s coast. The Bush administration backs the idea and has issued offshore leases in recent years totaling an area nearly the size of Maryland.

Those leases have received far less attention than failed efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but they may prove to be far more important. By some estimates, the oil under the Alaskan seabed could exceed the reserves remaining in the rest of the United States, though how much might ultimately be recoverable is uncertain.

Shell is eager to find out. It tried to make headway this summer, only to be stopped by an unusual alliance of Inupiat whalers and environmental groups who filed a suit in federal court.

They argue that noisy drilling off the Alaska coast could disrupt migration routes for the bowhead whales, making it impossible for the Inupiat to capture their allotted share of about 60 animals per year. A court hearing is scheduled for today to consider whether the company can move forward, though a ruling is not expected for months.

Native communities are not unalterably opposed to oil production — on the contrary, many rely on oil for their livelihoods. The North Slope Borough, a countylike governmental unit the size of Minnesota where most of Alaska’s 10,000 Inupiat live, gets the bulk of its $98 million budget each year from taxing onshore oil operations.

Native corporations also derive a large part of their business from serving the oil industry in Prudhoe Bay. Community leaders are caught between a desire to preserve traditional whaling and the economic necessity of permitting the oil industry to move into new areas.

“It’s a hell of a dilemma,” said Edward S. Itta, the mayor of the North Slope Borough, who is opposed to Shell’s drilling plans. “Without a doubt, America’s energy needs are way up, and something’s going to happen up there. It’s a way of life against an opposing value. This way of life has value; nobody can put it in dollars and cents.”

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