Biden administration weighs establishing sacred Indigenous site in Arctic refuge after request from tribes

Gwich’in tribes have asked the Biden administration to establish an Indigenous sacred site in the coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where federal law calls for an upcoming oil and gas lease sale.

The tribes, who oppose drilling in the refuge, say they want to protect the Porcupine caribou herd that they hunt and consider a sacred part of their culture.

Iñupiaq leaders on the North Slope are pushing back, saying the request encroaches on their traditional homelands. They point out that the petitioning tribes are from Venetie and Arctic Village, communities located outside the refuge and far from the coastal plain.

The Iñupiaq leaders say the request could potentially limit development, preventing projects such as a natural gas pipeline or road that might one day benefit the Iñupiaq village of Kaktovik, the only community located within the refuge boundaries.

“It’s disrespectful and it should be denied,” said Josiah Patkotak, mayor of the North Slope Borough. “To meet the needs of our people we have to have a say over what happens over our lands.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is required to evaluate the tribes’ petition for sacred-site designation under an executive order established under former President Bill Clinton, said Andrea Medeiros, a spokesperson with the agency, in an email.

“We have not yet determined if the area meets the criteria” of the executive order, she said.

The Gwich’in tribes have identified 1.6 million acres as the Porcupine Caribou Herd Calving Grounds Sacred Site, according to federal records and correspondence. The exact dimensions of the land aren’t clear, but the sacred site is essentially the same size, and in the same area, as the coastal plain where drilling could one day be allowed.

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The Gwich’in tribes oppose oil and gas drilling in the coastal plain, in part to protect the Porcupine caribou that, historically, often calved in large concentrations in the coastal plain and nearby areas.

Galen Gilbert, first chief of Arctic Village Council, said that the Porcupine caribou herd is spiritually vital to the Gwich’in. The Gwich’in rely on caribou for subsistence hunting.

“For generations, the Neets’ąįį Gwich’in of Arctic Village and Venetie have clearly and consistently stated that we view the Porcupine caribou as sacred to our way of life,” he said in the statement.

“The site has been identified not only by 37 years of caribou collar data from the Bureau of Land Management but also by hundreds of hours of interviews with Gwich’in elders, tribal members, culture bearers, and hunters who shared their Indigenous knowledge and collectively identified this area as vital to our history, our culture, and our way of life,” Gilbert said.

The federal government and the Native American Rights Fund, a nonprofit law firm representing the Gwich’in tribes, declined to disclose the tribes’ petition for the sacred site. Representatives for the tribes did not respond to phone calls requesting the petition and further information.

The petition was submitted a little over a year ago to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Patkotak and Iñupiaq leaders in Kaktovik say they only learned about it in recent months.

Clinton’s 1996 executive order directs federal land-management agencies to accommodate ceremonial access to sacred sites by Native American or Alaska Native religious practitioners. It also directs the agencies to avoid adversely affecting the physical integrity of such sacred sites.

The battle over potential drilling in the coastal plain has intensified in recent years, after the Trump administration issued a small number of oil and gas leases to winning bidders in 2021. The leases were canceled under the President Joe Biden, who has said he opposes drilling in the refuge. The Biden administration asserts the lease sale violated federal law.

A 2017 law passed by Republicans mandates a second oil and gas lease sale in the refuge by Dec. 22 of this year.

It’s unclear if the sale will be held under Biden, but Trump, if elected, has promised to renew his efforts to allow drilling in the refuge.

Nathan Gordon Jr., mayor of Kaktovik, said the petition for a sacred site is “an intrusion on our right to take care of our own land.”

He said he has no ill will against the Gwich’in, he said.

“We’re not in it to battle other Natives, but there are people who use Native tribes to get their way and split their agenda,” he said.

The proposed sacred site is part of what the Gwich’in call the lizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit, or the Sacred Place Where Life Begins, said Merben Cebrian, the refuge manager, in a letter to Kaktovik leaders in May.

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The tribe’s identification of the site is based on the seasonal distribution of cows and calves of the Porcupine caribou herd, during calving periods in late May and early June, he said.

The agency recognizes the site as sacred to the Gwich’in, based on information it has received from the petitioning tribes, he said.

The agency also recognizes it is as sacred to the Iñupiat who have traditionally occupied the area, he said in the letter.

In a letter sent in August to Cebrian, Gordon and other Kaktovik leaders point out that the core calving grounds for the Porcupine herd have frequently been located outside the coastal plain.

“If the calving areas are to be listed as sacred sites, then why aren’t all calving areas sacred?” they wrote.

The Kaktovik leaders are asking the Fish and Wildlife Service for “documentation and verification that these lands are sacred” to the petitioning tribes, according to the letter.

“We are the ones that have occupied these lands for millennia, it is our footprints that continually cross the landscape,” the letter says. “It is our people that are buried here — how can you elevate an animal over the people of the land?”

“To designate more than 1.5 million acres as sacred because the caribou calved here ‘sometimes’ is not what (the executive order) contemplated and would be akin to cultural trespass,” they write. “The Kaktovikmiut are opposed to this designation and will fight it.”

Interior has taken actions to protect sacred sites before, such as at Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming.

The 1996 executive order defines a sacred site as ”any specific, discrete, narrowly delineated location on federal land that is identified by an Indian tribe.”

The agency hasn’t determined whether the identified site is a “specific, discrete, narrowly delineated location,” Cebrian said in the letter.

The Kaktovik leaders say in their letter that a 1.6-million-acre proposal does not represent a “discrete, narrowly delineated location.”

Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, an advocate of drilling in the refuge, supports the Iñupiaq residents on the North Slope who don’t want the coastal plain declared a sacred site, his office said in a prepared statement.

“Senator Sullivan will continue to work relentlessly to make sure those voices are heard throughout this process,” the statement said.

Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in a statement that she is “firmly committed” to protecting caribou.

She added, however, that this is “not an either-or choice.”

“I stand with North Slope Borough Mayor Josiah Patkotak and urge the Fish and Wildlife Service to reject this petition,” Murkowski said.

The office of Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola did not respond to a request for comment.

This story has been updated to add comments from Sen. Lisa Murkowski.