With oil over $120 a barrel, rural Alaskan towns are paying 11 times the national average for heating fuel, electricity and gasoline, and are expecting worse. "If we had to go to the store and buy everything, we'd probably be on food stamps by now if we didn't have our land and sea animals," North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta told the Associated Press' Steve Quinn. "More and more our take home pay is going to be spent buying gas to go get caribou, to go get fish, to go to our camps and gather our food."
Quinn reports on how these villages are responding by returning to traditional practices: fishing, trapping, tanning hides and hunting. With winter two months away, some are abandoning homes they can't afford to heat.
Barrow, AK whaling captain Jacob Adams told Quinn, "We could be going back to dog teams if we can't afford the cost of gas for subsistence hunting."
Set as favorite
Email This
Hits: 138
Comments (0)
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide commentsWrite comment
Show/Hide comment form
.gif)
