Alaskans: Fight for change! (Barrow: bankruptcy, school, tax)

[JessE86]

and what does all of this have to do with the original post ??

Me thinks we are a few light years off topic

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by JessE86

and what does all of this have to do with the original post ??

Me thinks we are a few light years off topic

Not necessarily. Some have mentioned that a change would be to return to the oil and other corporations, as well as the State of AK all the dividends, including PDF checks and such, and start from scratch as follows:

-No snow machines
-No chainsaws
-No generators
-No electricity, no clocks, no watches, no boilers, no furnaces, no libraries, no roads, no buildings, no present-day homes or houses
-No gasoline, diecel, etc.
-No motors of any kind, no outhouses, no buckets, no toilets
-No airplanes, no ATV's, no plates, pans, pots, spoons, forks, knives, no paper of any kind (including toilet paper, towels, etc.), no fishing hooks, snares, traps
-No barges bringing food and supplies in (no food from outside)
-No contact with civilization whatsoever, no weather reports, not shoes, boots, nails, gloves, hats, parkas, underwear, clothing, etc.
-No aluminum and fiberglass boats, nor boats that resemble other than Native boats and Kayaks
-No guns of any kind, nor ammo, powder, primes, shells
-No weapons of any kind other than Native original weapons, harpoons, etc.
-No cotton, no thread, no steel needles (nothing from outside)
-No zippers, no buttons
-No plastics in any form, not computers, no solar panels, no batteries (no electricity period)
-No candles, no matches
-No US money, no clinics, no help from outside

I am certain there is a lot more.

[NorthWord]

This is probably not the place to ask this, but my Anthropologist friends are missing:

How did you folks (your ancestors) make fire?
Snow, ice, gravel, animal products, etc. None of this stuff is conducive to fire-starting.

I'm not trying to be rude, but this has been bugging me for some time, and JessE seems to be up on his Eskimo culture and history.

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by RayinAK

Not necessarily. Some have mentioned that a change would be to return to the oil and other corporations, as well as the State of AK all the dividends, including PDF checks and such, and start from scratch as follows:

-No snow machines
-No chainsaws
-No generators
-No electricity, no clocks, no watches, no boilers, no furnaces, no libraries, no roads, no buildings, no present-day homes or houses
-No gasoline, diecel, etc.
-No motors of any kind, no outhouses, no buckets, no toilets
-No airplanes, no ATV's, no plates, pans, pots, spoons, forks, knives, no paper of any kind (including toilet paper, towels, etc.), no fishing hooks, snares, traps
-No barges bringing food and supplies in (no food from outside)
-No contact with civilization whatsoever, no weather reports, not shoes, boots, nails, gloves, hats, parkas, underwear, clothing, etc.
-No aluminum and fiberglass boats, nor boats that resemble other than Native boats and Kayaks
-No guns of any kind, nor ammo, powder, primes, shells
-No weapons of any kind other than Native original weapons, harpoons, etc.
-No cotton, no thread, no steel needles (nothing from outside)
-No zippers, no buttons
-No plastics in any form, not computers, no solar panels, no batteries (no electricity period)
-No candles, no matches
-No US money, no clinics, no help from outside

I am certain there is a lot more.

Your list is clueless. Before a single drop of oil came out the Almighty Pipeline every last item on your list was available in Alaska's villages. The discovery of oil in Alaska is not what brought any of those items.

What the pipeline actually did bring to Alaska was a population mostly made up of people who worship the Oil God. We didn't have that before, and if the oil dries up tomorrow it won't be snowmachines, gasoline, rifles and toilets that disappear from the Alaska... it will be these shallow people who chase the only the money that will be leaving.

I'll still have electricty, and will be able to live just exactly the same way I did before the oil at Prudhoe was discovered.

The question is where would you go, Ray?

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by NorthWord

This is probably not the place to ask this, but my Anthropologist friends are missing:

How did you folks (your ancestors) make fire?
Snow, ice, gravel, animal products, etc. None of this stuff is conducive to fire-starting.

I'm not trying to be rude, but this has been bugging me for some time, and JessE seems to be up on his Eskimo culture and history.

His ancestors were in Boston, so they were burning water damaged tea bales, or something like that. :-)

People in Barrow and all across the North Slope were burning seal oil, coal and driftwood. They started a fire using the same techniques that are used around the world.

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

Your list is clueless. Before a single drop of oil came out the Almighty Pipeline every last item on your list was available in Alaska's villages. The discovery of oil in Alaska is not what brought any of those items.

What the pipeline actually did bring to Alaska was a population mostly made up of people who worship the Oil God. We didn't have that before, and if the oil dries up tomorrow it won't be snowmachines, gasoline, rifles and toilets that disappear from the Alaska... it will be these shallow people who chase the only the money that will be leaving.

I'll still have electricty, and will be able to live just exactly the same way I did before the oil at Prudhoe was discovered.

The question is where would you go, Ray?

Floyd,

This is the original post (quoted)

As a native Alaskan, I hate to see what oil is doing to my friends, my family, and my home. The reality is surreal and eye-opening, and I don't want our children living this way.
Just because we had to live with it, doesn't mean we have to expose generations to come to the same punishments we had to endure.

siozen*****.webs.com

My point is as follows, and please notice that I am not trading insults as you seem to do when you post in this and other forums: It takes oil for the production of the electricity needed for the OP to use his computer and post here, and for every one of the things others and I have pointed or listed in response. And the same applies to you and me, as well as every person in this forum.

[JessE86]

FIRE : !! According to the native book Puiguitkaat, (pwe-weet-kaht) the oral testimony by all of the elders, (1981) fire was started by 'drilling wood' or by using flints which were carried at all times. Seal Oil lamps, not coal. were used extensively.

Pages - 497 -498 & pages 511 - 513

[NorthWord]

I know how to make fire, but I can't see the resources available to sustain a blaze up there.
Assuming you had spark from flint (where'd that come from), what would you use for tinder and kindling?
There's no tinder fungi up there that I know of, little driftwood renewal after the initial find was all burnt up. I can see the seal oil and coal/oil peat as a longer term fuel, but I just can't wrap my head around the initial firestarting process.

It just seems pretty barren. Thank God for Zippos. And lighter fluid.

[JessE86]

Well NorthWord there is a cotton like substance that grows up here, Also pussywillows abound, outside the village of point hope, there is major amounts of driftwood, which the Point catches each year, massive amounts of huge logs and such. I guess you just do not realize how many different types of resources are available up here. flint, shale is all over the place.

what is so amazing is what these people endured (happily) for over 3 thousand years with none of what modern society had (in that day).

those resources that you cannot imagine; are all over the place. Dried grasses, etc. if you would like I can post images of some of the huge pieces of driftwood that the point catches !!

I find it amazing that you can't figure out where they get 'flint' with all the minerals and rocks and mountains in this region

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by JessE86

well there is a cotton like substance that grows up here, Also ***** willows abound, outside the village of point hope, there is major amounts of driftwood, which the Point catches each year, massive amounts of huge logs and such. I guess you just do not realize how many different types of resources are available up here. flint, shale is all over the place.

what is so amazing is what these people endured (happily) for over 3 thousand years with none of what modern society had (in that day).

those resources that you cannot imagine; are all over the place. Dried grasses, etc. if you would like I can post images of some of the huge pieces of driftwood that the point catches !!

I find it amazing that you can't figure out where they get 'flint' with all the minerals and rocks and mountains in this region

Would there be enough driftwood and other woods available for heat, cooking, etc., and for the whole population, year after year in Barrow? Starting a fire with flint and such should not be a problem, but I would think that a few years later any sources of wood would dwindle. It takes quite a lot of years for a spruce and such to grow 20" in the interior of Alaska, and I imagine the same in Barrow. Cotton wood burns fast, but it does not produce heat comparable to spruce, or birch. It would eventually require moving inland to gather firewood, short distances at the beginning, and long distances as time goes by.

Lets say that you ask the question to the locals in Barrow. Would they agree with you, and go back to traditional lifestyles away from civilization and all the modern luxuries oil products bring? Also, would the Alaska Native corporations in the business of oil abandon their quest?

I would think that the opposite would happen. For example, in the interior of Alaska Native corporations are trading land with State lands for the purpose of attaining lands that hold oil deposits (in the Tanana Flats). I would think that Natives who are sitting on lands that have oil deposits are looking at it more as a financial benefit than not. It is very possible that more Native corporations will move the the business of oil and mineral production instead of away from it.