The Sacred Place Where Life Begins: A New Rhetoric of Arctic Homes

The rhetorical documentary The Sacred Place Where Life Begins (2013) draws on the voices of Gwich’in women to address more explicit environmental concerns, oil drilling on the coastal plains of the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The opening shows a map of this corner of Alaska, highlighting it as one of America’s last and greatest wildernesses, but it is also the homeland of the Gwich’in people. Gwich’in women powerfully articulate what they will lose if the U.S. opens this area for drilling. The Gwich’in homeland includes parts of Alaska and Canada but more importantly, it overlaps with the range of the Porcupine Caribou. The Gwich’in rely physically, culturally, and spiritually on the porcupine caribou herd, so much so that their t-shirts read, “Caribou is Our Life.” Oil drilling in this Arctic Refuge coastal plain will threaten this herd because that is the site of the herd’s birth and nursing range. Because they rely on the caribou for their life and culture, for the Gwich’in, the area is “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins.”

This short film takes the time to provide evidence for this threat. According to research, oil drilling in this critical caribou calving habitat drives away female caribou and calves and diminishes calves’ survival rates. Opening the coastal plain of the refuge to drilling would have tragic consequences for the Gwich’in, who are inherently connected to the caribou. Shots of caribou carcasses emphasize this connection. For Gwich’in women such as Sarah James, drilling means “drilling into our hearts and our existence.” The film also draws on legal evidence to make its point. Because the caribou and Gwich’in people share this symbiotic relationship, drilling in the refuge also violates the United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. According to the Declaration’s Article 8, section 1, “Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right to not be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture.” Because drilling will disrupt the caribou on which their culture and livelihood rely, it also violates this article.

The documentary provides a short history of this movement, showing news footage and articles to substantiate the tribes’ fight for their culture. The Gwich’in have fought this drilling since 1988 and now gather every two years to protect the coastal plain. Gwich’in women highlight the multiple ways the tribe uses the caribou for food, clothing, shelter, tools, and medicine. As Kay Wallis of Fort Yukon explains, “As the caribou go, so will the Gwich’ in go.” Their responsibility is to protect the caribou habitat.The rest of the documentary gives voice to these Gwich’in women, who each provide reasons why the caribou should be preserved. In the first segment, several women demonstrate the relationship between the caribou and Gwich’in people. Footage of the caribou accompanies each assertion about how the caribou sustain them. The next section draws parallels between women as life givers and the caribou. For the Gwich’in, the caribou are like children who must be nurtured instead of slaughtered. Velma Wallis of Fort Yukon, Alaska asserts, “As women we have the fundamental role to speak out on behalf of mother earth. There’s been enough destruction. It’s time for healing. It’s time for women’s spirituality, and it’s time for women’s connection.” Images of the April 2010 BP oil rig explosion and spill in the Gulf of Mexico highlight the dire consequences of doing nothing. In the next sections, women are designated the keepers of traditional knowledge and the protectors of the Porcupine caribou herd. Because the caribou can’t voice for themselves, it is the duty of the Gwich’in women to speak for them, they say. Darlene Herbert of Fort Yukon puts it bluntly, “You cannot put your oilfields there. That’s where caribou go to breed.”

Ultimately, as Charlene Fisher of Beaver, Alaska explains, they are stewards of the land. For her, “as an indigenous person we’re always looking to protect our land. We are bound by these lands, so the refuge is almost like a border to us. We were always taught to be careful, to give back to the earth. Don’t take too much. Protect the land.” Protecting the caribou also provides a way to honor ancestors and provide hope for the future. A poster asks, “Will the caribou go the way of the buffalo? Or will you save our Arctic way of life?” Photos of stacked buffalo bones illustrate their horrific history. “All we’re asking is to make sure we have that one little area, the sacred place where the caribou give birth to their young. Keep that place protected for all time. To fight for this future, they reach out to the world and offer suggestions for change to protect the refuge. “This is our home. This is our land,” they declare. Although requests for viewers to sign petitions and write to Congress so they will vote for the Arctic Wilderness Act end the film, the Arctic as home serves as the strongest argument to stop drilling.

Screwball Dance

Screwball Dance

blinds open

earrings fly

safety pins fall

I fall

skirt splits

staples mend

not

Katherine Hepburn

not

Bringing Up Baby. 

Celebrating the Arctic as Home in Vanishing Point (2012)

The observational cinema verite documentary Vanishing Point (2012) follows the journey of Navarana K’Avigak, a Greenland Polar Eskimo to her ancestral Canadian Inuit home in Canada’s Baffin Bay. Vanishing Point contrasts Navarana’s two worlds: HerUummannaq, Greenland Arctic indigenous populations and those of her ancestor Shaman Qidtlarssuaq’s Canadian Inuits on Baffin Island. To highlight this contrast, the film draws on both the landscapes and populations of Navarana’s Greenland Arctic home and her ancestral Canadian Motherland. Vanishing Point takes its time revealing the values each group demonstrates in response to the seemingly lifeless landscapes of these Arctic communities.

We first gain access to Navarana’s Greenland setting from a massive sled pulled by at least twenty dogs. The journey is accompanied by the sound of drums and strings, yet the snow and ice of this Arctic scene at first seems untouched by the modern world. But then the dogs get stuck in water when the ice breaks. A dog yelps and breaks the music accompanying the sled’s race across the frozen sea. Greenland Eskimos struggle to correct the sled, building a path for the sled while also lamenting the changes in the ice and snow caused by Climate Change. Shifting glaciers and ice are changing their way of life. The repercussions of modernity have entered even this isolated place. As the narrator of her own story, Navarana connects this Greenland home to its Canadian roots as a response to the sled-driven hunting trip that opens the film.

To illustrate differences between these two settings, Navarana joins a hunting expedition in Greenland and compares it to a similar hunt in Canada. Her descendants followed their Shaman to Greenland on a multi-year journey of discovery in the 1860s. Old photographs document the migration. According to Navarana, these newcomers changed the way the Greenland Arctic Eskimos lived, bringing new tools and new ways of doing things. Yet in Greenland, Navarana’s people still follow the old ways with no snow machines and motorboats. They have decided not to use them and live as they used to as long as they can, using dogs and themselves as their engines.

The changing climate, though, is making this vow more difficult for them. They now must use sleds as bridges across water between ice sheets. The ice is scary now because it has grown so thin in places. More snow is causing it to melt faster.  Because the ice is thinner, hunters don’t go far from their homes. They tell Navarana, “It didn’t used to be like that. There used to be good ice…. The sea used to freeze through October. We don’t see that anymore.” Now they set up camp on a set of rocky hills, putting up tents and covering their sleds to prepare for the first part of the hunt. The whole family participates, catching hundreds of Auk birds in handheld basket nets, collecting them, killing them, and storing them in sealskin hides after crushing them beneath their feet. Men, women, and children feast on raw bird flesh after their work is completed. The rest of the birds will be collected months later for wedding feasts. The modern world enters here only in relation to their Brooklyn branded clothing and modern sunglasses.

This traditional hunting trip is contrasted with that of the Canadian village of Navarana’s ancestors. Here there is very little snow on the ground, and hunters stock up in grocery stores and travel by snow machine and four wheelers to the hunting grounds. Navarana remarks on how much food comes from the “South” in this store. They no longer have working dogs in this village, only pets. Gasoline and sugar serve as their fuel. When they reach a rocky shore, they also set up camp. But here they use motorboats for their hunt. There is no sea ice. There used to be hundreds of kilometers of ice everywhere, but not anymore. Polar bears now must search for food on rocks.

The first hunt is actually a fishing expedition. They drive out on their boats and catch huge salmon they dry on the rocks near camp. They fry bread and feast. As Navarana tells us, “Moving changes you whether or not you are forced to go.” According to Navarana, “Living in the Arctic means living with change.” The next part of the hunt is for the narwhale. They herd the whales together with their motorboats, calling out orders on their radios. Navarana wonders how they catch anything with so much noise. They shoot a whale almost immediately before harpooning it and attaching a rubber balloon. The hunt is quick and easy and ends in a feast. They prepare the rest and carefully save the tusk for cash.Navarana’s experiences in Canada remind her that Canadians and Greenlanders share many things: love of family, desire that children learn and succeed, and sustainable hunting practices. But many things have been lost, as well. Back in Greenland, Navarana joins a more traditional whale hunt that illustrates these losses. They float silently in kayaks instead of noisily herding whales with motorboats. They harpoon the whale first, targeting its route with hide balloons and using the rifle only at the end to finish it off. Here hunters are committed to the old ways, not because it’s tradition or looks pretty but just because it makes sense. This whale also has a tusk, and, as in Canada, they work together to prepare the meat. They have good meat to take home, and some to sell to support their families. As Navarana explains, “Some ideas have been forced upon us…. I have seen so many changes in my life. As the world melts under our feet,” we must find the best way for our journey. “By choosing new ways, what do we gain, and what do we lose?” These questions provide a warning answer to the query repeated throughout the documentary, “Have you ever wanted to travel to new lands and meet new people?” Vanishing Point begins to illustrate the importance of this greater indigenous role. In order to protect the Arctic landscape and caribou, we must recognize and celebrate it as home, not only for wild nature but also for the people who live there.

Being Caribou: Where Life Begins?

Being Caribou (2005) concentrates primarily on the arctic as home for the caribou rather than the indigenous Gwich’in the herds support. But its frame at least begins to align the survival of the caribou with that of the Gwich’in people. As Salma Monani suggests, “Because Being Caribou is a film that combines encounters with wild animals and wilderness adventure with an explicit political agenda, and because this political agenda also pays homage to the Native Americans embroiled in the battle of the Refuge debate, the film provides insight into the potentials and problems of contemporary wilderness discourse within the adventure–nature film categorization” (102) For filmmaker Leanne Allison, the icy landscape is like a rhythm, alive and vacant without the caribou. Her filming of her and husband Karsten’s journey with the porcupine caribous is meant to not only document their migration but also to provide arguments against drilling in the Arctic National Refuge. Oil drilling will hurt the herd, they explain.

Although most of the documentary focuses on this husband and wife team’s struggles to become caribou, the opening and closing connect the herds’ wellbeing to the Gwich’in people they sustain. Randall, a Gwich’in elder from Old Crow along the Porcupine River speaks for the caribou and for Gwich’in culture dependent on their survival. For Randall, there is a spirit in all living things. The Gwich’in and the caribou share elements of this spirit. The caribou look after the people, so the people care for the caribou, he explains. Randall also opens Leanne and Karsten’s journey by interpreting Leanne’s dream of a flowing river. He can read when the migration has started because his world is so integrally connected with that of the caribou.

During the central part of this film, we see Leanne and Karstan’s efforts to follow the caribou. They ski through rough snow and climb steep ridge while carrying 60-80 pound backpacks. But, as Leanne explains, they are “trying to be caribou, not being caribou.” Along the trail they note multiple challenges to the caribous’ survival: bears wolves, foxes, and even insects. But humans serve as the most dangerous adversaries for the herds. Anthropocene climate change has already diminished the herds. Oil drilling in the refuge will destroy them. The caribou are protected in Canada, but in the Alaskan refuge where they birth and nurse their calves, their habitat is still unprotected. This documentary is meant to sway Congress to vote to protect the Arctic Refuge.

Yet because their journey ends where it began, with Randall, the Gwich’in representative, the power of circular journeys and an indigenous worldview proves stronger than a white Canadian nature film. He shows them they are part of a bigger circle that’s continuing for the caribou. They all hope it will always continue. Unsurprisingly, Congress does not respond well to the film. The response is disappointing and ignites their biggest fear that the calving grounds will be drilled and the caribou herds will decline. It is only when the Gwich’in voice again enter the film that hope for the caribou returns, for their survival means the survival of the Gwich’in and their home.

After watching a Gwich’in protest outside the capital building, Karstan realizes success won’t come from the top down. They must work from the bottom up by giving voice to the indigenous people who live with and for the caribou. As Randall explains at the end of the film, “We need to talk about life. That’s what the elders taught us. To respect life and accept all its forms: plant life, animal life, fish life, bird life, whatever. The Gwich’in people respect everything.” Although the film provides beautiful scenes of caribou and their journey, it is the words of Randall that prove the most convincing argument against drilling. It will destroy the Gwich’in homeland. Although Monani asserts that Heuer and misrepresent native peoples and “do[] little to subvert consumerist longings to desire for adventure in wild places and maintains classist hierarchies” (112), it at least broaches the Gwich’in worldview and, perhaps, the caribous’ only chance for survival.