Trip to Utqiagvik gives visiting dignitaries closeup look at life in farthest-north Alaska

A day trip to Utqiagvik on Alaska’s North Slope capped an Anchorage conference last week that drew more than 1,000 participants representing communities ranging from tiny rural Alaska villages to diplomatic corps in European nations.

The annual Arctic Encounter Symposium featured panel discussions about climate science, defense and security, fisheries, national security, environmental health and other subjects, along with cultural events and an Indigenous fashion show.

The Saturday trip to Utqiagvik, tacked onto three days of meetings in Anchorage, was made by about 80 participants. Ferried around town on school buses, they visited the local heritage center, an internationally significant Arctic science research center and Iḷisaġvik College, currently Alaska’s only officially designated tribal college. They watched festivities at Piuraaġiaqta, Utqiagvik’s annual spring celebration. They stood on the sea ice and posed for photos under Utqiagvik’s iconic whalebone arch. They tasted muktuk, caribou stew and other Indigenous foods.

The trip to the nation’s northernmost community, the population, business and government center for the mostly Inupiat North Slope, did much to address the symposium mission of raising Arctic awareness, said Rachel Kallander, the symposium’s founder and executive director.

“I think there’s no replacement for being boots-on-the- ground,” Kallander said as the group was completing a tour of Barrow Arctic Research Center, which is operated by the science subsidiary of the Native-owned Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation.

“We have leaders from many countries with many different leadership perspectives and authorities with boots on the ground in a community, having real time discussions with the people who live here and the leaders who make decisions for this community and for the region,” she said.

North Slope Borough Mayor Josiah Patkotak was among the local leaders who briefed the visiting scientific leaders, entrepreneurs and ambassadors.

He went over the history of the borough and how oil development and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act shaped it. The discovery of the Prudhoe Bay oil field, he noted, was no surprise to the region’s Indigenous people – they had long been burning pieces of oil-soaked sod as heat sources, he said.

When the federal or state government makes policy decisions, he said, he and the borough have particular requests that reflect the North Slope’s history and challenges: “We have the right to participate in the economy, and we’re not an afterthought in whether rules and regulations come down from them.”