Tuesday, 22 November 2011 09:56
 |
| Photo courtesy Alaska Dispatch. |
While the battlefront may have moved from land to sea, the driving force -- resource development -- hasn't changed.
Neither has the unique position of Alaska Natives working through rapid cultural shifts, morphing in one generation from a subsistence-based economy to one based on cash while preserving their identity and values.
"I feel that we as a people again in Alaska, as indigenous peoples, are at another crossroads where we have tremendous opportunities that are coming up if we could take advantage," Itta told audience members just four days into a new phase of his life without the responsibility of running the borough.
'Tremendous amounts of money'
Itta's second term ended Nov. 15 when his successor, Charlotte Brower, was sworn in. For decades, he's watched and helped guide the resource-driven transformation of Alaska's North Slope. He's seen outsiders come in and use their businesses to absorb wealth extracted from the riches Alaska has to offer. Village corporations, he said, should learn from this. After all, there should be plenty of room for local business ventures to enjoy revenue that new developments generate.
"Tremendous amounts of money are out there," said Itta, pushing the village corporations to plan early to develop emerging industries and services. "'If we don't do it, you can bet somebody else will,'" he said, quoting Jake Adams, the longtime president and now board chairman at Alaska Slope Regional Corp., one of Alaska's most successful regional Native corporations.
Louisiana-based shipbuilder Edison Chouest is already in the process of scouting for partners and land in Alaska, Itta said. The company is building a specialized ice breaker in support of Royal Dutch Shell's oil exploration in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Its land search came to Itta's attention when Shell recently inquired about leasing borough land near Prudhoe Bay.
The Arctic's future will include oil and gas development, increased marine transportation and shipping, new fishing grounds and tourism. Itta expects the U.S. Coast Guard to increase its Arctic presence, and there's already talk about new, deepwater "mega" ports on Alaska's western and northwestern coasts, as well as the other side of the Bering Strait, Itta said.
"We need to recognize and be planning for those tremendous opportunities," Itta said, adding that Alaska's offshore oil needs to go somewhere. Fearing a shipping disaster, he and others oppose tankers moving the oil to market, preferring pipelines that connect into the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, the conduit for some 15 percent of U.S. domestic oil production.
"Somehow, someway, there's going to be a right of way," Itta said, noting that pipelines and local influence on coastal activities are important topics for state and national debate.
Former taxi driver and roustabout
Itta started his path to leadership some 40 years ago. By the late 1960s, he had finished serving on a Navy destroyer during the Vietnam War and had returned home to Alaska to find that he couldn't get a job that used his training as an electronic technician.
In the tumultuous civil righs era, which in Alaska included land claims, Itta found himself making a living behind the wheel of a taxicab. When the company owner mentioned that an oil company was looking for roustabouts in Prudhoe Bay, Itta had two questions: What's a roustabout? Where's Prudhoe Bay?
Both terms were unfamiliar to Itta, who would learn they simply meant the oil company was looking for laborers to work on Alaska's North Slope. Itta applied, got the job and soon found himself landing at a desolate airstrip, where the plane left him and a friend, who had also taken a job, awaiting their next connection. An hour and a half passed before the men heard the whirring of a helicopter, which, in short hops through clear patches amid ice fog, shuttled them to a drilling rig.
Not any drilling rig. It was the confirmation well of the discovery made by Atlantic Richfield Co. that Prudhoe Bay contained more than 10 billion barrels of oil. "They realized they could not take that oil anywhere without a pipeline and without settling the land issues. And the rest is history," Itta said.
That rig and others turned out to be an economic blessing for the people of the region, but they had to fight for their share. When residents wanted to form a borough, the oil industry tried to stop them, as did the state, Itta said. Eventually, the residents of Alaska's North Slope prevailed.
Today, the borough is buoyed with oil money, financially stronger than many communities.
"We on the North Slope are dependent now on oil and gas as we go into the cash economy," he said, noting that the transition occurred over a single generation.
The ability to adjust to change, though not always easy, is something Alaska Natives should commend themselves for, Itta said. Just imagine the "clash of a culture for profit and a culture that says no conflicts, and trying to merge the two over all of these years," he said. "Yet 40 years later, the challenges seem to be even more daunting, but I have faith we will continue to move forward."
Throughout his presentation, Itta reiterated that success would come if all levels of communities work together. Tribes, city governments and corporations have that duty to their people, their shareholders and future generations, he said.
"United we are strong. Divided or by ourselves, (we are) not real effective," he said.
Originally posted November 21, 2011