The Inuit sit on billions of barrels of oil

  

After a decade of legal wrangling and spending $4.5bn, this year Shell Oil was given permission to begin exploratory drilling off the coast of Alaska. But many in the local Inuit community are concerned it could have a devastating impact on one of their main sources of food - the bowhead whale.

Marie Casados shows me the contents on her freezer. Inside there's whale meat, muktuk - frozen whale skin and blubber - a selection of fish and a polar bear foot, which looks like a human hand. She describes it as a real delicacy. But it's more than that - this is her food supply for the winter.
Fishing and hunting are central to the Inupiat way of life - archaeologists have found evidence of humans hunting whales in the area dating back to as early as 800BC.
"We are the oldest continuous inhabitants of North America," says Point Hope's Mayor Steve Oomituk. "We've been here thousands of years."

 Marie Casados and her prized polar bear foot

Oomituk shares the fear of many in the small community - population 800 - that offshore drilling by Shell could destroy the food chain that they rely on for survival. Over 80% of the food eaten in Point Hope is caught by the people themselves.  They worry that it will disrupt the migration routes of the marine mammals, driving them away from the coastal waters where they can be reached by hunters.
"Their proposed Arctic drilling is right in the path of the animals' migration routes," says Oomituk.
"We live in a cycle of life that hasn't changed for thousands of years. We know where the animals are coming. We know when they are going north, when they are going south, this is our home, our land, our identity as a people."
But Oomituk recognizes that, like every other American citizen, he is dependent on fossil fuels. He heats his house with diesel, he drives a vehicle that needs petrol.

Shell estimates that the Arctic as a whole holds around 30% of the world's undiscovered natural gas and 13% of its yet-to-find oil. This amounts to the equivalent of 400bn barrels of oil - 10 times the total oil and gas produced to date in the North Sea.

Jobs are also a major concern in this poor community. As mayor, Oomituk appreciates that many people would benefit from a new local employer.

"You want jobs for the people, you want the economy to come up, but do you want to sacrifice your way of life to have that happen? To endanger a way of life that's been here for time immemorial?"
So the proposed drilling poses a real dilemma for the Inupiat.

Mayor Oomituk wants to preserve the old traditions

The kids want pop,chips and hotdogs . They are being absorbed into the modern world

 

The community still gets most of its food from hunting and fishing in the coastal waters

Whale bones litter the site of the "feasting ground", where they gather to share out the whale meat

Many parts of the animals are used by the Inupiat

 

Imported food - like these New Zealand apples - is incredibly expensive

Locals fear an accidental oil spill could destroy their local food chain and way of life

A third of Point Hope's population are school-aged - how will offshore drilling change their future?

In Point Hope, some people simply don't have enough to eat. Lining up at a soup kitchen, where chunks of deep-fried king salmon and caribou stew are dished out to hungry locals, Patrick Jobstone says he'd be grateful to get any kind of job.

The Inupiat - Inuit who who live in northern Alaska - are allowed to catch 10 bowhead whales a year. Once caught, the whale is cut and the first eight boats to harpoon the whale after the hunter receive shares. The main whaling crew divide the head between them.
Once the whale is butchered, the meatless skull is returned to the sea. Traditionally the Inuipat believe the skull will "dress itself again" and become another whale. The whale's flipper is pickled and offered to the elders.

He has been looking for work ever since he came out of prison for drink and drug-related offences, and is struggling to support his wife and child. For Jobstone, a job with Shell would be an answer his prayers. He is already being trained in clearing toxic waste in anticipation of any new job opportunities and hopes to be taken on as one of Shell's spill response team.

"If they have jobs I will work for them no problem," he says. But he too is concerned about pollution.
"If an oil rig spilled and made a mess of the ocean, how am I ever going to eat a whale that's not contaminated? Crude oil stays on the bottom of the ocean," he says.

The bright orange areas show where Shell has leases - the right to explore for and extract oil

Pete Slaiby, vice-president of Shell in Alaska, accepts that oil spills are a concern. "There's no sugar-coating this, I imagine there would be spills, and no spill is OK. But will there be a spill large enough to impact people's subsistence? My view is no, I don't believe that would happen."
On the other hand, he argues that oil extracted off the coast of Point Hope could make a big difference to America as a whole.

The issue of offshore drilling has long been controversial in the US. A congressional moratorium on offshore oil or gas drilling was implemented in 1981. In the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, Republicans such a vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin called for an end to the ban, with the slogan "Drill, baby, drill". At the time, Barack Obama opposed it. Once elected however, he partially reversed his earlier campaign promise and allowed drilling in some offshore areas, including the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska.

"It could mean a significant step in the journey to energy independence of the United States," he says.

Slaiby says that the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline, which has supplied the United States with oil extracted on land for 40 years, is beginning to run low.
"We're seeing a decline, year-on-year of 6%. For us, keeping the Trans-Alaskan pipeline going is in our national goals."

It's a familiar dilemma that has been played out time and time again across the world - should a community prioritize economic development over environmental protection? This summer for the first time, the Point Hope tribal council met representatives from Shell, including Pete Slaiby, in the Point Hope town hall - a dilapidated wooden geodesic dome fashioned to look like an igloo.

Afterward the locals were emotional, but resigned to the onset of the drilling.

We need to get all the information and make sure it's done properly, said Peggy Frankeson, executive director of the tribal council who was at the meeting.

"We're the caretakers of the animals and the land and we need to make sure that our culture is able to carry on for the next 10-20,000 years," she says.

In the event, Shell was unable to extract any off-shore oil this year. First of all, drilling was stalled when a massive chunk of ice - 30 miles (48km) long and 12 miles (19km) wide - appeared to be heading towards their ship.

In 1958, Edward Teller, the inventor of the H-bomb, visited Point Hope to promote a plan to use the atom bomb in the creation of a deep water harbour, 30 miles (48km) south of the village.
Villagers were told that the explosion was so precise it would be able to create a harbour in the shape of a polar bear. The firepower used would have been 160 times larger than Hiroshima.
It never went ahead because the community refused to move out of their homes for the period of the blast, which clashed with the whaling season. Because of this, many of the older Inupiat still refuse to shake hands with white people.

Later, Shell began drilling on two sites but was prohibited from extending wells into petroleum reservoirs by the US Coastguard after a huge dome designed to contain any spill broke down under trials.

The area is now iced over until next year, and the people of Point Hope have been granted a stay of execution, or a frustrating delay, depending on your point of view. Next year, Shell will be back to start drilling again.