Here in Alaska, we are blessed with the natural elements that people travel from all over the world to experience. For me, it is not difficult to connect with creation here in Southeast Alaska. Snow-topped Mount Roberts looms outside my office window at the Douglas Community United Methodist Church while the Gastineau Channel flows below.
For the Gwich’in people in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, connection with the land, its wilderness and creatures is not just a feeling or an option: it is life. The Gwich’in culture and spirituality is deeply rooted in the Arctic wilderness and its creatures, especially the Porcupine caribou.
Gwich’in people are so interdependent with the Porcupine caribou that they have a myth that the Gwich’in and the caribou share a piece of each other’s heart. Each spring, on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Porcupine caribou give birth. The Gwich’in call the birthplace of the caribou, “the sacred place where life begins.”
There is hope and momentum to preserve and protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. President Obama announced a recommendation for permanent wilderness protection for the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in January 2014, which was transmitted to Congress through the Comprehensive Conservation Plan in April 2014.
Congress now has a scientifically-grounded document to inform their future decisions affecting this sacred space. In January 2015, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) introduced “The Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act” (HR 239). This proposed legislation would designate 1.5 million acres of wilderness along the coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a component of the National Wilderness Preservation System. Such a designation would protect the refuge against oil and gas development, preserving its pristine, fragile ecosystem from the roads, pipelines, and oil derricks that accompany such exploration.
I am writing because I am concerned that Congress currently holds the power to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration by drilling. The coastal plain is believed to be rich in oil, and for decades oil companies have sought to drill there. Oil exploration and drilling could devastate the Porcupine caribou herd, thus devastating the culture, spirituality and traditional source of sustenance of the Gwich’in.
As a United Methodist and a pastor, I believe in the God of relationships, of diversity, of love, of justice, and of harmony. It is time to speak up for the protection of the harmonious relationships that have been lived out by the Gwich’in people, the creatures, and the Arctic land for thousands of years.
On Sunday, April 24, my church shared with the YEES KU OO Dancers in an act of repentance for our treatment of native peoples and celebration of new life together in Indigenous Peoples Sunday that was paired with Creation Justice Sunday.
The Native Alaskan dancers shared their sacred songs, stories and dances with us. The beating of the drums and their loving presence invited us to share in the Spirit with them in sacred space. We then shared in the telling of the first creation story in Genesis when creation is made in God’s image and called “good.” In that story, humans were called by God to be responsible for and to be in harmonious relationships with God’s good creation.
Together, we celebrated our interdependence with, and our mutual responsibility to care for all of creation. We celebrated our relationships with each other and remembered that as a part of God’s creation, our joys and our sufferings are interdependent. Archbishop Desmond Tutu popularized the South African concept for this interdependence, “ubuntu:” my happiness is your happiness, my suffering is your suffering.
The spiritual, moral and ecological significance that the Arctic has for Gwich’in people and the creatures there, thus, is of significance to all of us. We must care for this piece of creation, since each of us are pieces of creation.
All of life is interdependent; thus, we are the Arctic. I ask you to join me in lifting up your voice and heart in solidarity with the Gwich’in people to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
• Rev. Melissa Engel is the pastor of Douglas United Methodist Church in Douglas
