Native Experience - TV script / Episode 1 "Losing the Land"

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1	00:02:00:00 00:02:02:00 <C001> Prudhoe Bay 1967
2	00:02:09:17 Prologue MONTAGE Archive footage (Alyeska) Prudhoe Bay 1967, Winter	V/O #1: On Alaska’s dark and frozen tundra, in a place called Prudhoe Bay, nature has challenged mans ingenuity, as he seeks to harness its unknown wealth. Oilmen have searched for oil here on the North Slope since the 1930’s, never hitting a major find. Since the latest lease sales in 1965, almost all the major oil companies have tried again and failed. With every hole that turns up dry, the oil companies’ will to continue diminishes. One by one, they abandon their expensive quest, leaving a dwindling army of freezing and disenchanted roughnecks to pack up and leave. Then on Boxing Day 1967, a rig operated by Atlantic Richfield and Humble Oil hits natural gas, the pressure of which indicates a major oil find. This was to have been their last hole before abandoning exploration – instead they discover oil and put Prudhoe Bay on the map. Within 15 years, this oilfield would become the largest in North America, quenching a quarter of the nation’s thirst for oil. Over a hundred thousand men would come to Alaska to build the facilities and pipelines, the greatest civil engineering project in the history of America. Some would make their fortunes and leave, others would stay and make Alaska their home – and for the Inupiat Eskimos who had lived and hunted here since time immemorial, life would never be the same again…
3	00:03:40:09 TITLE SEQUENCE 00:04:00:21 <C002> NATIVE EXPERIENCE 00:04:03:19 <C003> Episode 1 00:04:04:22 <C004> Losing the land	MUSIC (Signature) “Affairs of Importance, Part 2”
4	00:04:09:11 Fade up from Black MONTAGE Prudhoe Bay / Kuparuk (winter) 00:04:11:22 <C005> Prudhoe Bay, Alaska 1999 Opening shot – flare at Kuparuk Rologon crew drive to pipeline	(Wind FX) 00:04:23.10 Sync dialogue - Rologon Driver: (talking on radio) ”137 – 680” Control center: ”Yeah, go ahead!” Rologon Driver: ”This is Murphy with APC Installation, we’ve got a gas pipeline here, a 6”, at a 1R pad, we need to re-insulate” Control center: ”OK, sounds good” Rologon driver: ”Thank-you sir!”’
5	00:04:42:05 Montage Rologon crew driving and preparing for work	Weather report on radio (off camera) (Note: temperatures are in Fahrenheit) ”Forecast for the North Slope to the Brooks Range tonight, partly cloiudy from the pipeline west, patchy fog, patchy light snow near the crest, east winds 10 to 15 miles per hour, with lows zero to 15 and highs 15 to 30. This is KCB53 national Weather Service in Barrow, everybody have a nice evening and a good weekend, God bless”
6	00:05:09:08 Montage Maintenance crew reinsulate pipeline	V/O #2A: For nearly four decades the North Slope oil industry has tackled the challenge of human survival with military precision. The men who work here are equipped with clothing, machinery, vehicles and buildings – brought here from all the corners of the world, that they may labour without freezing or starving to death. Today’s working conditions here in the oilfields of the high north, are on a par with any workplace in industrial America. Everything is shipped in, and almost nothing is left behind – the Tundra merely a theatre of operations, in which man may think he has triumphed over nature.
7	00:05:48:08 Mix to Sea ice off Point Barrow 00:05:51:18 <C006> CHUKCHI SEA, BARROW, ALASKA May 1999 Whalers establishing whaling camp on sea ice.	(MUSIC) 00:05:58:20 V/O #2B: The Inupiat Eskimos know better – in the 10,000 years that they have inhabited the North Slope, they have learnt that nature is a merciless master, one which no man can tame. Only the will to survive, and the skill to do so, can begin to even the odds. Here no man can exist alone – the shifting seasons and the migration of the animals, dictate that survival is a communal endeavour, as dependent on the proven ingenuity of the forefathers, as the might of industrial technology, which may fail when it is most needed. Long before the oilmen arrived, the Inupiat Eskimos were venturing out onto the sea ice in pursuit of the Bowhead whale.
8	00:06:42:08 MONTAGE Whalers at ice edge	(MUSIC – “Keep on whaling” ) (1st verse) (00:42) I was born into tradition, I've been whaling since I was nine, And my father he's a captain, been that way since the start of time. All winter long we're preparing for when that spring sun comes around And all the women sew the new skins, to make our skin boat sound. (Chorus) (00:20) Keep, keep on whaling, paddle that umiaq true, Keep, keep on whaling, let that big old whale come to you.
9	00:07:44:14 INTERVIEW 00:07:47:06 (+6:00) <C007> GEORGE N. AHMAOGAK SR. Whaling Captain, Barrow	Interview #1 (00:23) George Ahmaogak, Whaling Captain, Barrow The people up here are... very close to the land and the sea that they occupy up here. They have done that for thousands of years and eh, they have a longing for it, they have a belief in it and, and they live off of it … …they have a spiritual feeling with it eh, if you will and eh, the feeling eh, that belong here.
10	00:08:08:19 Montage early exploration (archive film) 00:08:31:15 Graphics (MAP) <C008> Siberia Alaska Prudhoe Bay Canada 00:08:59:10 Graphics (MAP) <C009> Prudhoe Bay Valdez	MUSIC continues under start of sequence (guitar instrumental) 00:08:12:11 V/O #3: Within a year of Humble Oil’s discovery, all the major oil companies that held North Slope leases, had brought their drilling rigs back to the banks of the Sagavanirktok River. One by one, they struck oil, and by 1969, it was clear, that Prudhoe Bay was becoming a major oilfield. The oil companies hoped that North Slope crude could be shipped to refineries in Asia and the lower 48 states, directly from Prudhoe Bay. In the autumn of ‘69, an unladen icebreaking oil tanker, the Manhattan, made a test run to the Beaufort sea, where it became trapped several times in the ice, eventually suffering damage to its hull. The idea of shipping oil from the North Slope was abandoned. The oil companies opted for the only viable alternative – a 800 mile pipeline linking Prudhoe Bay in the North, with the ice-free port of Valdez in the south. The pipeline would have to cross three mountain ranges and over 800 rivers and streams – over lands on which Alaska’s Native peoples had lived and hunted for thousands of years. Initially, neither the oil companies nor federal government expected the issue of Native land ownership to stand in the way of America’s greatest construction project.
11	00:09:29:09 Interview 00:09:40:00 (+6:00) <C010> MORRIS THOMPSON	Interview #2 (00:25) Morris Thompson President & CEO, Doyon Regional Corp 1985-2000 There were planes flying north out of Fairbanks every 3 minutes to get the material into Prudhoe to help develop that field... And there was this economic ...development that we’d never heard of taking place in Fairbanks. And off on the side there was a small group of people scratching their head and saying: But wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute here! Uhm, Shouldn’t we determine what rights to land Alaska native people had?
12	00:09:53:22 Montage Oilfield archive aerial, Noatak River stills archive	V/O #4: The oil companies announcement of their plan unleashed a conflict with the Native population that had been building up for many years. In the hundred years preceding the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska’s Natives had seen the gradual settlement of the Great Land by outsiders. In the last half of the 19^th century, Alaska was settled by golddiggers, homesteaders, Yankee whalers and missionaries. Here - on America’s Last Frontier, outsiders came in pursuit of open space and nature’s riches. The arrival of Christianity and the gradual Americanisation of the new territory brought many changes to Native Alaska – English became the dominant language, and the foundation for a cash economy was laid. Until the second world war, Alaska was a quiet backwater in the American economy. The sheer size of the territory, and the limited number of both Natives and settlers, ensured that the initial impact of settlement on the Native population was limited. The first settlers lived under conditions similar to the Native population, supplementing their limited supplies from the outside by living off the land.
13	00:11:09:09 Interview 00:11:10:08 <C011> WILLIE HENSLEY	Interview #3 (00:27) Willie Hensley ... In our dialect we have a word inuuniaq means “trying to live” and that’s basically what we did... all of our life was engaged in basically surviving... Everybody had to do their share and if you didn’t of course, you know, other people had to do it, so it wasn’t good to be known as someone who didn’t carry your load, you know.
14	00:11:38:09 MONTAGE Whalers at ice edge	MUSIC – (“Keep on whaling” ) (2nd verse) (00:42) The sun comes back in the springtime, and the lead is opening too, On the spring-ice life is simple, out on the great "siku", The ocean lead filled with diamonds, the crew is quiet, the ducks fly by, Any time now the whales are coming, say a prayer to clear your mind. .
15	00:12:19:23 Interview	Interview #4 (00:43) George Ahmaogak In the old days, they didn’t have hardly any western food, if you will, they were living eh... the traditional subsistence way of life. Uhm.. And harvesting whatever caribou, fish and polar bear, and so forth, and at times that food wasn’t eh.. plentiful, and, and almost near starvation... then they’d go out to the sea and harvest this whale which would bring a lot of food and muktuk and, and meat, and especially blubber to be able to be able to keep them warm during the cold winter months, because in those days they didn’t have no coal, no wood, no natural gas, and, and all they had was blubber to burn and to eat on, and the bowhead whale... was enough to feed everybody, the community!
16	00:13:05:xx	MUSIC – (“Keep on whaling” ) (3rd verse) (00:42) Then all at once, right before us, a great bowhead whale appears, I placed that iron behind the blowhole, with one roll that whale disappeared The next moment seemed a lifetime, then he floated belly-up, "We catch a whale!" yelled our captain "Lots of meat, lots of muktuk!" 00:13:44:09 (Eskimos on ice cheer succesful whaling crew)
17	00:13:47:xx Interview	Interview #5 (00:33) George Ahmaogak Since this has been going on for thousands of years, eh... our culture is eh... tied to this great marine mammal, all of our traditional dances, our songs, uhm... our language and so forth, is tied to this great marine mammal. It's very important that we maintain our subsistence way of life –our subsistence whaling, eh to eh continue our way of life – eh.. and never let it end - if it ends, then you know our culture will start falling apart.
18	00:14:20:10 (C/U Arnold Brower Sr.) Whaling crew heave whale onto ice	Whaling crew (off-camera): ”One, two, three, heave!” MUSIC – (“Keep on whaling” ) (Chorus) So keep, keep on whaling, and paddle that umiaq true, Keep, keep on whaling, let that big old whale come to you
19	00:14:50:00 Mix to stills archive shots	V/O #5A: Beyond the establishment of schools and health care, the federal government extended few rights to the Native population, during Alaska’s first 60 years as an American territory. As the number of settlers grew and new towns were established, the Natives had neither voting rights nor representation, and unlike the settlers, the Natives were not allowed to stake their claim to the land – land on which they had been born. With the passing of the citizenship act in 1924, Alaska’s Natives became US citizens. And with the Indian Reorganisation Act for Alaska in 1936, the federal government went some way towards recognising the tribal governments. Gradually, the two cultures were approaching each other – on American terms.
20	00:15:36:22 Interview 00:15:37:16 <C012> RICHARD FRANK	Interview #6A (00:08) Richard Frank the loyalty to be part of the United States citizens that was something else that was eh, recognised by Alaska native people.
21	00:15:44:19 Stills, Native soldiers,	V/O #5B: When the US entered the Second World War in 1941, many Alaskan Natives served their nation in the armed forces.
22	00:15:53:04 Interview C/U portrait of Richard Frank in US Army Airforce uniform mix to: Richard Frank (SYNC)	Interview #6B (00:xx) Richard Frank I served in the tail end of WW2 in South Pacific and ... In the air-force, United States Army Air-Force ...there was a lot of negative things that I experienced in the military life. Such as being called a chief, because I was an Indian, a chief was a very respected person that serve our community and I got into fist fights regarding that being called a chief because I wasn’t a chief…. (Guitar music fades under interview)
23	00:16:23:15 Montage stills and archive film Archive film A-Bomb explosion 00:17:49:xx (+10 secs) Graphics (poster) <C013> WARNING Radioactive materials have been found on refuge lands beyond this sign DO NOT ENTER	(MUSIC) V/O #6: Many Americans – native and non-native alike, did not return from the battefields of Europe. As the war in the Pacific dragged on, few realised that it would end with a show of force, which would shape the future of mankind. The ultimate force of creation itself, unleashed over two Japanese cities, ending one war and heralding the next – the Cold War, in which Alaska, with its close proximity to the Soviet Union, would assume strategic importance. The Arctic lay between the two new superpowers, and during the fifties, the American Arctic – Alaska – remained the last frontier, from which radar and bombers could penetrate Soviet airspace. By the end of the decade, over 65,000 US servicemen would be stationed in Alaska, at missile sites, on military bases, and on the DEW-line - a chain of early warning radar stations spanning across the Arctic to Southern Europe. Since before the war, the US military had dominated exploration and scientific research in Alaska – first with the quest for oil in the Naval Petroleum Reserve – later, with a series of sinister experiments, in which the land, the animals and the Native population were exposed to radioactivity. Several decades would pass before government agencies would admit the extent to which Native land had been contaminated with neither the knowledge nor the consent of the Native population. The early experiments met with little opposition, until, in July 1958, Edward Teller, the father of the Hydrogen bomb, arrived in Alaska to unveil his plans for Project Chariot - a plan to build a deep water harbour in North West Alaska by exploding five hydrogen bombs Negotiations in progress between the US and the Soviet Union to ban testing of thermonuclear weapons, would bring the US military tests in Nevada to an end – Project Chariot would allow the US to continue testing under the peaceful banner of the outwardly civilian Atomic Energy Commission. The wilderness site selected by Teller and his team for their experiment was at Cape Thomson, just 30 miles from the Native village of Point Hope. That the region had no use for a deep water port, the creation of which could contaminate hundreds of square miles of the Inupiat Eskimos hunting grounds, deterred neither the scientists nor most of Alaska’s business and academic community, who saw Project Chariot as an exciting source of revenue for the territory.
24	00:19:06:08 Interview 00:19:11:15 <C014> DENNIS J. TIEPELMAN Alaskan ICC leader	Interview #7 (00:18) Dennis Tiepelman, ICC, HA sequence # 14 Project Chariot ... really changed the people’s attitude as to what other people can do to you... for somebody else to say they’re gonna build a deep-water port by nuclear explosion, because nobody is there just really changed people’s attitudes that. Hey who do they think we are! I mean we don’t exist?
25	00:19:23:20 Montage stills archive 00:19:38:xx <C015> ARCTIC RADIATION PROBED 00:19:49:xx <C016> PROJECT CHARIOT STILL ON	(MUSIC) V/O #7A: The community of Point Hope was enraged at the arrogance of Project Chariot, and was determined to oppose it. Howard Rock, an Inupiat artist and writer from Point Hope, took up the cause and founded the Tundra Times, a nationwide newspaper, which over the next decade would become the voice of Native Alaska – bringing Native opposition to injustices such as Project Chariot to its readers throughout the state. As the potential impact of Project Chariot became clear, Native Communities across Alaska united in their opposition, which lead ultimately to the abandonment of the project. In the meantime, Alaska’s growing white population were tired of being governed as a territory by a congress in Washington in which they had no representation. They wanted their own state government and a new star on the nation’s flag. When a referendum was held to decide the question of statehood, the Native population was still unfamiliar with the American system of voting, and many did not participate.
26	00:20:26:03 Interview 00:20:27:19 (+6:00) <C017> JOE UPICKSOUN	Interview #8A (00:08) Joe Upicksoun ... we didn’t understand the, the white man’s concept of land. We always felt that we owned it ‘cause...
27	00:20:34:23 Montage Travelling shot, Fairbanks 2^nd street Archive film, Statehood 1959 Aerial shot, Colville Delta (Woods Camp)	V/O #7B: The white population, including the thousands of military personnel stationed in Alaska who were also entitled to vote, constituted the overwhelming majority, by which the campaign for statehood was won, (MUSIC – Stars & Stripes) and in 1959, Alaska became the 49^th State of the union. (MUSIC – horn) The Statehood Act gave the newly formed state government the power to select 103.000,000 acres of land for public ownership, and its selections focussed on lands for parks and wilderness reserves – and lands which previous federal government research had indicated as potentially oil bearing. – land which the Natives had traditionally used and occupied
28	00:21:23:21 Interview	Interview #8B (00:37) Joe Upicksoun Sure, we may not have a community here or there but we had our hunting sites and hunting camps, our fishing camps, we were considered nomads because we went where the game was. Eh, this is in contrast to what I say about the Europeans and the Anglo Americans. They are economic nomads. They go where the money is and leave when it’s gone. But we are here... Forever!
29	00:21:58:00 Montage Archive stills, Anchorage earthquake 1964	(MUSIC) V/O #8A: On the morning of March 27th 1964, communities across Southern Alaska were awakened suddenly by an earthquake. Seismic activity is common all around the Pacific Rim, but this tremor lasted five minutes. Amongst the worst hit was the city of Anchorage – streets were ripped apart and many downtown buildings were destroyed. The earthquake exposed the developing state’s subservience to the forces of nature, forces for which the leaders of the growing urban communities were unprepared. It was a public emergency, which also underlined Alaska’s need for its own economy to support urban development on the Last Frontier.
30	00:22:43:xx Archive film Oil lease sales, 1965	(SYNC) 1965 Oil lease sales Auction leader: ”Seventy-two million, two-hundred and seventy seven thousand (dollars)...”
31	00:22:47:06 Montage Archive film Oil lease sales 00:22:53:17 <C018> $2,000,000,000 NATIVE LAND ROBBERY	(MUSIC) V/O #8B: When in 1965 the State government held lease sales for oil exploration on the North Slope, it was met with protests from Natives who saw the lease sales as robbery of their ancestral lands. For a century, the natives had faced the threat of losing their land; now the threat had become a reality. The bidding for leases continued, and within a few hours, the promise of oil wealth in the Alaskan Arctic had made the State of Alaska 900 million dollars richer, and thousands of acres of Native land had been lost forever. With the lessons from Project Chariot fresh in their minds, Native leaders realised the need to join forces to oppose the exploitation of their homelands.
32	00:23:21:xx Interview	Interview #9 (00:34) (MUSIC fades in at end) Willie Hensley ...you know, native people never looked at the land in terms of, of ownership. We lived, we looked at it in terms of using, using of it and eh, and, and the western system was in terms of control and personal, private property. And eh, so that was one of the difficulties in trying to rally our own people was that because we had been here for ten thousand years nobody ever thought that we wouldn’t have the use of it, you know, in the future!
33	00:23:46:07 Montage Eskimo hunter Archive stills	V/O #9: Had the lease sales taken place 20 years earlier, the Natives would have been ill prepared to muster opposition. For the first Russian fur-traders, and later for the American settlers, Alaska had been an easy land to colonise. Not only were the Native people few in number, they comprised many different ethnic groups, separated from each other by different languages and cultures – and often by enormous expanses of uninhabited land. They would share a common fate, but as yet they had no common identity. Until the 1940s, Alaska’s Natives remained isolated from each other. Ironically it was the American churches and US government, that brought them together. Like the American Indians in the lower 48 states, Alaska’s Natives were the responsibility of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which established schools and hospitals throughout Native Alaska. In the post-war era, the BIA decided that Native Americans should have the opportunity of further education. For the next three decades, young Natives would leave their villages to attend BIA boarding schools in other parts of America.
34	00:24:58:xx Interview 00:25:01:10 <C019> WILLIE HENSLEY	Interview #10 (00:25) Willie Hensley ...if you wanted to have a high school education or if your parents insisted on it then you had to leave ‘cause you had to go a thousand miles, or more, to south east Alaska. Or, in some cases, all the way to Oregon or Oklahoma - and they were Indian schools. ...it was a scary time for kids... because in many cases, this was their first time away from home. And of course also very lonely time too. People would get homesick.
35	00:25:24:xx Interview 00:25:26:11 <C020> JOE UPICKSOUN	Interview #11 (00:13) Joe Upicksoun ...when you are being sent out to high school you’re going to an institution where there is total absence of love. Pa- parental love.
36	00:25:37:xx Interview 00:25:42:18 <C021> RONALD BROWER	Interview #12 (00:27) Ron Brower ...It was truly a cultural shock it’s a, you know, when you’re taken out of an environment that you’ve grown up in and you’re put into a total alien place you don’t know how to speak the language... Your diet is changing, your language, your clothing and your manners... We have to eat with forks and spoons instead of our hands... we’re being acculturated to be Americans.
37	00:26:06:xx Interview 00:26:21:20 <C022> GARY HARRISON Traditional Chief, Native Village of Chickaloon	Interview #13 (00:26) Gary Harrison It didn’t teach me the fear of God, it taught me the fear of the God-fearers... If they could teach us their side of their history, and their...religious aspirations.., then we wouldn’t know our own history, so they could then... say..eh.. assimilate us easier, better, faster, and then maybe we wouldn’t understand that we were the original people from the land
38	00:26:34:xx	V/O #10: The BIA schools gave this young generation an insight into the world outside their village – they learnt that they shared a common fortune with other Native Americans whom they had met at school. When the need for unity amongst Alaska’s natives arose, this younger generation had already established the fledgling network from which unity would grow.
39	00:26:55:xx Interview 00:27:08:14 <C023> MORRIS THOMPSON	Interview #14 (00:34) Morris Thompson Because of the distance in communication and because of lack of communication our cultures mistrusted each other... And it was bringing together ... all of those various cultures and various people, and having us become friends and observe each other and, and making life long friends, that those alliances were formed in the late 50s and early 60s and then that moved right into the Native Claims Settlement Act movement which started in 1966 with many of the people right out of those boarding schools.
40	00:27:28:xx	V/O #11: Whilst leaving home to attend boarding school was a cultural shock for many Natives, it did give them a good education. Away from their villages, they became exposed to the wider political debate taking place in America – which by the 1960’s inevitably lead them to ask questions about their rights as Natives.
41	00:27:47:xx Interview 00:27:59:18 <C024> WILLIE HENSLEY	Interview #15A (00:25) Willie Hensley I was always curious what eh, the source of the law was that a foreign country ...could come and stick up a flag on land that was already occupied... ...There were something over 400 treaties between American Indians and the federal government eh, with many different provisions at, and under our constitution, that was the law of the land.
42	00:28:12:xx Interview	Interview #16A (00:14) Joe Upicksoun ...We believe ...the Alaska natives had aboriginal title... possession, of all of the lands in Alaska. ...Our aboriginal title had never been extinguished up here in the Arctic.
43	00:28:26:xx Interview	Interview #15A (00:XX) Willie Hensley ...I also researched the Russian eh, presence in Alaska and its relationship to the native people and also the treaty of cession? between the Russians and the US. And then of the whole range of laws that had been passed eh, subsequent to that, and including the statehood act, that permitted the territory of Alaska to become a state back in 1959. ...I discovered that, under our law, there had never really been an extinguishment of the underlying native title which was a, a requisite under American law.
44	00:28:52:xx Link	(MUSIC)
45	00:28:56:xx Interview 00:29:06:05 <C025> JOE UPICKSOUN	Interview #16B (00:25) Joe Upicksoun ...Eh, United States supreme court invested in congress alone, in congress alone, the power to extinguish aboriginal title and they said that no third party has no power to convey any lands without any statutory authorisation.
46	00:29:22:xx Interview	Interview #17 (00:28) (Music fades in under clip) Willie Hensley And of course with that understanding eh, I was a little bit like a bat out of hell in terms of trying to convince our own people that we needed to take some kind of action to claim the land if we were going to protect it, to secure any part of it, because in our country it they had spent essentially 200 years taking land from native American people and we were going down that same road unless we’re able to stop.
47	00:29:50:xx	V/O #12: In 1966, Native leaders from all over Alaska met in Fairbanks and founded the Alaska Federation of Natives. The AFN would be the organisation through which the Natives would unite in the fight for their ancestral lands. In 1967 - just months before oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay - the Natives filed their first claim with the US courts. The fight for the land had begun. Through the network of friendships established at the BIA schools, it was the young generation of Natives that would lead the lands claims campaign. This was a new role for young Natives, who had traditionally been subject to the authority and wisdom of their elders.
48	00:30:34:xx Interview 00:30:37:24 <C026> EUGENE BROWER Whaling Captain, Barrow	Interview #18 (00:29) Eugene Brower ... For a small group of people to have this settlement responsibility created friction and ane- animosity among relatives if one got to be over the other one, where in the past it was normally the elder that rule and the elders that rule the younger ones now it’s reverse role where now the younger people are starting tell the older folks what to do.
49	00:31:02:08 Elder (Ruth Nukapigak, Nuiqsut) Prepares whale blubber	00:31:10:19 V/O #13: The elders have a special status in all Alaska’s Native cultures. In the Native world, the annual cycle of survival dictates that experience of hunting, knowledge of the land, and the skills of providing for the community are of vital importance. Such knowledge takes many years to acquire, before it can be passed on to the next generation. As custodians of the culture the elders enjoy a position of respect and authority in each community.
50	00:31:38:xx Interview 00:31:43:03 (+6:00) <C027> RICHARD FRANK	Interview #19 (00:21) Richard Frank ... You had to earn those rights like... being a successful hunter and honouring the animals, honouring the land, the water and the plants once you establish that... what you were taught you teach the following generation, and that system went on and on and on.
51	00:31:58:xx Subsistence life Lena Jones cutting dried meat Barrow whalers on ice Archive film Willie Hensley at 1968 meetings	V/O #14: During the 50’s and 60’s, Native Alaska faced new challenges, challenges which demanded more than subsistence skills and an understanding of the natural world. Through their education, the younger generation had both the political awareness and the fighting spirit necessary to face these challenges. In the late sixties, the young leaders travelled the Native communities to rally support for their ideas, and to convince their people, that they had a right to the land and that they now had a political voice, which would soon be heard throughout the United States.
52	00:32:31:xx Interview Cutaway to Archive stills Rights demonstrations, Southern USA 1960’s	Interview #20 (00:20) (MUSIC – horn, under cutaways) Morris Thompson We had massive uprisings of minority people in the lower 48, basically in the south. Wanting voting rights, wanting the ability, greater ability to have eh, employment and jobs and that sensitised, I think, Americans to the minority people living within their continent. Eh, including the Alaska native community.
53	00:32:51:xx	V/O #15: The fight for the land was gaining momentum. By 1968, even Congressmen in Washington had begun to understand, that Alaska’s Natives had a valid claim to their land, a claim which demanded a political solution.
54	00:33:04:xx Interview 00:33:12:01 (+6:00) <C028> DAVID S. CASE Lawyer specialising in Native Law	Interview #21 (00:48) (Music fades under clip) David S. Case Lawyer specialising in Native Law In America the claims of native people are based on ...common law, the law of our history that native people were here first and that eh, they therefore have a prior claim to the exclusive use and occupancy of the land. And that claim is worth something. You can’t trespass to it. If you, if you trespass on the exclusive use and occupancy of native Americans you can be taken to court and made to pay. Eh, so native American claims of exclusive use and occupancy eh, have to be extinguished before you can have legal ownership or development of the property.
55	00:33:50:19 Montage Archive film, oilfields 70’s archive still – Charles Etok Edwardsen 1970	V/O #16: By the end of the sixties, the oil industry was attracting a growing number of outsiders to work in Alaska. As the oil companies expanded their exploration efforts, their estimates of the size of the oilfield continued to grow – and the Inupiat communities of the Arctic Slope - under the leadership of Charles Etok Edwardson, decided that the time for action had come.
56	00:34:15:xx Interview 00:34:32:02 (+6:00) <C029> CHARLES ETOK EDWARDSEN	Interview #22 (00:27) Charles ”Etok” Edwardson I had made a 93.000.000 acre claim along with the north-west Eskimos... because I felt that in the, in the disguise of, of state leases we were being invaded by the oil industry... and we charged the secretary of interior, Stuart Udall, to put a land freeze until that this issue is resolved by Congress.
57	00:34:42:xx 00:34:43:19 – 00:34:49:19 <C030> ALASKA LANDS FROZEN	V/O #17: The land freeze was imposed - preventing both government or industry from selecting title to any land in Alaska, until the Native Claims were resolved. The pipeline consortium had not expected such delays. At a price of 100 million dollars they had bought 100,000 pieces of pipe in Japan. Without a solution to the Native Land Claims, the oil companies were unable to secure the right-of-way to build the pipeline across Native lands. For six years, 550,000 tons of steel pipe would lie in waiting on the dockside. America would have to wait for the oil...
58	00:35:19:22 Interview 00:35:23:06 (+6:00) <C030> MORRIS THOMPSON	Interview #23 (00:20) Morris Thompson Tense times... Suits were filed, projects were stopped, great amount of anxiety between the native community and the non-native community. We were accused, at the time, of halting development, of injuring the state’s eco- economy, of wreck ing the economy and eh…So, a lot of tension created over that settlement...
59	00:35:41:xx 00:35:54:08 (MAP) <C031> NORTH SLOPE REGION 00:35:58:02 (MAP) <C032> Prudhoe Bay Oilfields 00:36:00:14 (MAP) <C033> National Petroleum Reserve NPR-A	V/O #18: Throughout Alaska, the Natives were organising themselves along regional and ethnic boundaries. Native associations were established, each claiming the right to the lands in its region. The North Slope region was the home of the Inupiat Eskimos, their ancestral lands included the Prudhoe Bay oilfields and the National Petroleum Reserve – lands already taken by the state and federal governments. In August 1971, the Arctic Slope Native Association filed its claim to the lands of the North Slope.
60	00:36:14:xx Interview	Interview #24 (00:10) Joe Upiksoun And when we did Wow! The department of the Interior’s solicitor’s office said ”Wow-ee, they have something here!”
61	00:36:23:09 00:36:25:13 – 00:36:29:13 <C034> OIL IMPACT STIRS ESKIMOS 00:36:30:08 – 00:36:34:18 <C035> NATIVES EYE MINERAL RIGHTS 00:36:35:06 – 00:36:39:18 <C036> NATIVES STIR POLITICALLY	V/O #19: Faced with a multitude of claims from Native associations and tribal governments, Congress recognised that if it did not reach a legislative solution, the question of Native land ownership could occupy the court system for decades – delaying the pipeline and the development of the oilfields indefinitely. Although the courts could award the Natives compensation for lands lost, US law expressly excluded the possibility of returning land to Native ownership. Congress however, could pass a law awarding both compensation and land ownership, though such a law would likely extinguish all future Native claims to land in Alaska.
62	00:37:03:23 Interview 00:37:08:00 (+6:00) <C037> DAVID S. CASE Lawyer specialising in Native Law	Interview #25 (00:18) David S. Case Lawyer specialising in Native law I mean, that was the goal of these se- any native settlement is, in the US and maybe any place, is to extinguish the native claim, so that the majority society can eh, eh, take the land. That’s, that’s one of the purposes of these settlements.
63	00:37:20:23 00:37:27:14 – 00:37:31:14 <C038> NEW LAND BILL IN PROCESS 00:37:32:21 – 00:37:36:21 <C039> CLAIMS BILL DISAPPOINTING 00:37:38:06 – 00:37:40:03 <C040> SURVEY:’WE WANT MORE LAND’	V/O #20: In the autumn of 1971, Congress began to draft proposals for a settlement bill – based upon a combination of awarding the Natives title to some of the land, and paying compensation for lands lost. The Natives were quick to reject the first proposals - they wanted more land...
64	00:37:40:15 Interview	Interview #26 (00:16) Joe Upiksoun We weren’t about to have western civilisation running roughshod over us, no, we, we were very adamant in saying; ”This is our land, you’re on it, your rent is due and it has not been paid yet!”
65	00:37:55:10 Anchorage 4^th Avenue, winter Still – Richard M. Nixon 1974 00:38:08:08 – 00:38:12:01 <C041> CLAIMS VOTE EXPECTED TODAY	V/O #21: With a looming energy crisis and an increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam threatening President Nixon’s hopes for a second term in office, he had more on his mind than Native Alaska’s lands claim – the Natives’ window of opportunity was about to close.
66	00:38:12:06 Interview Archive still – AFN leadership 1966	Interview #27 (00:21) Willie Hensley ... it was... a comment on the leadership of that particular time and the fact they all recognised that eh...if we didn’t get some sort of a settlement we were doomed to lose it... maybe we had one real shot at getting, you know, a settlement that was going to be meaningful to our people and, and we stuck together.
67	00:38:32:04 00:38:33:01 – 00:38:40:01 <C042> CLAIMS BILL SAILS THROUGH	V/O #22: On the 17^th December Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA as it would soon be known. The following day, at a special convention of the AFN in Anchorage delegates vote 511 to 56 in favour of accepting the settlement, with the Inupiat Eskimos of the Arctic Slope voting against.
68	00:38:54:00 Interview	Interview #28 (00:10) Joe Upiksoun We were the only association that told President Nixon to veto that bill - there wasn’t enough land.
69	00:39:04:24 00:39:09:03 – 00:39:14:03 <C043> NIXON PENS BILL INTO LAW	V/O #23: Arctic Slope Native Association is bound by the majority vote, and as AFN accepts the settlement, the delegates hear an address by President Nixon....
70	00:39:14:13	Archive soundtrack (00:24 – to fade start) (taped address) President Richard M. Nixon: I want you to be amongst the first to know, that I have just signed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. This is a milestone in Alaska’s history, and in the way our government deals with Native and Indian people; it shows that institutions of government are responsive. <Audio fades>
71	00:39:32:11 Interview	Interview #29 (00:19) Willie Hensley I think there was a mixture of emotions there eh, we fought so hard with so little resources to try to get that settlement that it was with some relief that, that bill actually got signed...
72	00:39:48:21 Link Northern Lights Dancers (AFN 1998)	(MUSIC – sync)
73	00:39:55:11 00:40:13:xx (Graphics) <C044> ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ACT 00:40:14:xx (Graphics) <C045> December 1971 00:40:16:xx (Graphics) <C046> 12 Native-owned Regional corporations 00:40:18:xx (Graphics) <C047> Over 200 Village corporations Alaskan Native Dancers, AFN 1998	V/O #24: Congress awarded Alaska’s Natives a collective settlement of 44 million acres of land and almost a billion dollars in compensation for lands lost. Congress had decided that it would not be existing Native institutions such as tribal councils that would receive and manage the settlement. Instead, ANCSA created 12 regional corporations and over 200 village corporations to manage the lands and capital on behalf of the Natives. All persons born before the act was passed, and who were at least 25% Native would receive 100 shares in both their regional and village corporations. In most regions the Native Association – which had lead the fight for the land - became the regional corporation. ANCSA had given these corporations the capital with which they could create a Native stake in the economic development of Alaska which the oilfields soon would bring.
74	00:40:54:00 Interview	Interview #30 (00:50 Willie Hensley ... none of us had any business experience to speak of ...at all, and yet here we were getting saddled with, in effect, one of the most complicated institutions in this country. We had to learn about stock, we had to learn, you know, how to conduct eh, annual shareholders meetings. We had to learn to eh, sniff out investments and, and, and make decisions about what kind of enterprises to invest our, our capital in which we had fought so hard to get. And, and so, and here we were; people who, in many cases, had just a grade school education or maybe no education at all, who had just their common Inupiaq sense to help guide them and we started from there.
75	00:41:43:03 Aerial archive Prudhoe bay, early 70’s	V/O #25: With the lands claim resolved and the way for the pipeline open, the State and Federal governments could resume their selection of hundreds of millions of acres of land, and the oilfields could continue to grow. But ANCSA extinguished all Native claims to land in Alaska – future generations of Alaskan Natives would have to share the land allocated them under ANCSA.
76	00:42:08:19 Interview	Interview #31 (00:26) Willie Hensley Well, of course we all felt it wasn’t enough. I mean, when you consider the fact that eh, we occupied literally all of Alaska. On the other hand, we didn’t exactly have control of the Congress either... ...securing one acre of Indian land out of the Congress back in those days was an almost impossibility and we got over 44, we got about 44 million.
77	00:42:34:xx Interview	Interview #32 (00:11) Charles ”Etok” Edwardson We were, against our own political will, forced to participate in the Alaska Native Land claims, to get a few square inches of land.
78	00:42:46:xx Interview	Interview #33 (00:05) Willie Hensley I think we would have accepted almost anything to get the land.
79	00:42:52:xx Interview 00:42:59:10 (+6:00) <C048> JIMMY STOTTS	Interview #34 (00:24) Jimmy Stotts ...The lands that we gave up eh, was a lot, lot more than the 5 million acres... Not to mention that we’d lost the eh, the opportunity to select the lands that the, the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field is located on. 5 million acres probably represents... ...between 5 to 10% of the actual land eh, that exists on the North Slope.
80	00:43:18:xx Interview	Interview #35 (00:18) Morris Thompson The, the fact that we would get all of Alaska was never in the cards... ...We had very few friends at that time. And yet, we got the largest settlement in the history of the US. Could it have been better? Of course. We wish it was, but you deal with the hand that you get dealt you.
81	00:43:36:xx	(MUSIC – “Keep on whaling” ) (4th Verse – 00:42) But these days things are different, and our land is changing fast, There's a quota on our whaling and we're drifting from our past, Where the oilmen rule the tundra, where the government rules the sea Will Inupiaq still be whaling in the next century?
82	00:44:25:xx	V/O #26: Alaska’s Natives fought for their land because they believed that land did not belong to man, but that man belonged to the land. In fighting for their land, they were forced to assume the white man’s standpoint – and claim the land as theirs – pursuing their fight according to the white man’s laws and values. In the white man’s eyes, the Natives won 44 million acres. In Native eyes, they lost their claim to all of Alaska, and were paid off with land and money, which they could only manage in the America way – the white man’s way. Within a few years some of the ANCSA corporations would make their fortune in the developing resource industries of Alaska, whilst others would face economic disaster. Disappointed by the settlement, the Natives of some regions would find new ways of regaining control of their lands and harvesting an even greater share in the oil wealth – with which they could create a standard of living and social welfare hitherto unknown here in Native Alaska. But what change would this wealth and power bring? And how would change affect the traditional way of life, the preservation of which had been the purpose of the fight for the land? It had taken the white man, several thousand years to progress from a hunter-gatherer culture, to an industrial society – the Natives of Alaska were making the same journey in but a few decades... And they had yet to discover if the land had been won or lost...
83	00:46:01:xx 00:46:04:06 <C049> (Dedication) This film is dedicated to the memory of the Inupiat leader, Eben Hopson Sr.	(MUSIC – “Keep on whaling” ) (Last chorus – 00:20) Oh keep, keep on whaling, and paddle that umiaq true, Keep, keep on whaling, let that big old whale come to you. Let that big old whale come to you.
84	00:46:38:07 CREDITS (ROLL) Lighting Cameraman ADRIAN REDMOND Sound Recordists HELENE A. SOUTHERN HANNE SØNNICHSEN Production Assistants NIELS BAK SARAH-JANE HØGH REDMOND Editor ADRIAN REDMOND Production Manager HANNE SØNNICHSEN Assistant Producer HELENE A. SOUTHERN Narrator ADRIAN REDMOND Title music P. HOPE / J.W.MEDIA MUSIC Ltd. ”Keep on Whaling” performed by CRAIG GEORGE Incidental music CARL ULRIK MUNK-ANDERSEN JESPER HENNING PEDERSEN Post production sound ADRIAN REDMOND Additional Archive Material THE NORTHWEST ARCTIC BOROUGH ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE COMPANY THE ANCHORAGE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND ART SHELDON JACKSON COLLEGE, SITKA, ALASKA THE ALASKA MOVING IMAGE PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION THE TUZZY CONSORTIUM LIBRARY, BARROW Archive Researcher HELENE A. SOUTHERN The producers wish to thank the following for their support in the making of this programme NANA REGIONAL CORPORATION ARCTIC SLOPE REGIONAL CORPORATION ALASKA ESKIMO WHALING COMMISSION BARROW WHALING CAPTAINS ASSOCIATION THE NORTHWEST ARCTIC BOROUGH MAYOR’S OFFICE THE NORTH SLOPE BOROUGH MAYOR’S OFFICE NSB DEPARTMENT OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT STATE OF ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES MARITIME HELICOPTERS, HOMER, ALASKA ERA HELICOPTERS, ANCHORAGE, ALASKA KBRW AM-FM, BARROW THE ALASKA FEDERATION OF NATIVES RHONDA & MIKE FAUBION TINA DALY & ROBERT DILLON INUIT CIRCUMPOLAR CONFERENCE, NUUK ALASKA AIRLINES NATIVE EXPERIENCE produced by CHANNEL 6 TELEVISION DENMARK for THE HOME RULE GOVERNMENT OF GREENLAND Department of Information / Tusagassiivik Written and directed by ADRIAN REDMOND NATIVE EXPERIENCE ©2001 Channel 6 Television Denmark
END	00:47:31:21 Duration 45:31:21	END OF PROGRAMME