Seen from an aerial view, engineers reinforce the sea wall on August 10, 2023 in Utqiagvik, Alaska. Located along the Arctic Ocean, Utqiagvik is the northernmost settlement in the United States. Formerly known as Barrow, the town of nearly 5,000 people is mostly populated by indigenous Iñupiat. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
The harvesting and sharing of the bowhead whale is at the heart of Iñupiat culture and needs to continue, said several speakers at a reception hosted by U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) on July 30.
Sullivan held the gathering and a strategic meeting as the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (EWC) prepares to ask the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to renew Alaska’s subsistence whaling quota for six more years.
He said, “We have so many cultures who are respected and we want to make sure the practices of these cultures, like the Alaska whaling captains and our leaders, can continue to do what they’ve been doing for thousands of years. And that is (to) hunt bowhead whales in a sustainable manner.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) spoke in support of the hunt, and said she has helped bring whale meat to town, riding on the back of a snow machine “with Arnold Brower there as my whaling captain who was making sure we went faster than the polar bear that were watching us.”
Eskimo commission Secretary Herbert Kinneeveauk III, who is Iñupiaq and from the village of Point Hope, said subsistence whaling has deep roots. “Our past people, they relied on the whale for survival. And today we still rely on this whale in 2024.”
Eskimo commission Chairman John Hopson Jr., Iñupiaq, is from the village of Wainwright. He looked back to 1977 when the international commission placed a moratorium on Inupiat subsistence whaling because “commercial whalers had over harvested our whales in the 19th and early 20th centuries. And in the 1970s, scientists didn’t know how to count the bowhead whales. Our elders taught them. And that’s how the IWC knows and understands there are about 20,000 whales as we speak today.”
Hopson emphasized that the subsistence harvest differs from commercial activities. “It is food we feed our bodies. It is food we feed our community and it is food we feed with our hearts and our culture and our spirits. We managed our subsistence harvest long before Alaska was part of the United States and before the United States was part of the International Whaling Commission. We didn’t do this because someone told us to, but because we are tied with the land and the sea and the animals that give themselves to us for generations to come.”
Hopson said Inupiat stewardship of the bowhead includes working with the U.S. Coast Guard to protect the whales from ship strikes and pollution from commercial ship traffic that is increasing in Arctic waters. And, he said, “the North Slope Borough’s bowhead population study and health research program is recognized internationally as state-of-the-art, thanks to their hard work. Just as EWC’s bowhead whale harvest management program is recognized internationally as a gold standard in wildlife management and marine conservation.”
Eskimo commission Vice Chairman Crawford Patkotak, Iñupiaq, of Utquiagvik, said the moratorium imposed in 1977 turned Iñupiat culture on its head and threatened the strong sense of community whaling fosters.
“When you’re going to go after (a whale in) a boat, well, you got to work together. There’s no other way. There’s no other choice. And so looking at how our people were able to come together, work together, harvest a big animal like that, and feed the community for a year and beyond, that’s the dividends. …we have a story to tell. It’s an amazing story of resilience, of overcoming some of these devastating things that happened to our people and we would not like to see that happen to anybody,” Crawford Patkotak said.
North Slope Borough Mayor Josiah Patkotak, Iñupiaq, of Utquiagvik, said, “But what’s unique about this is that we eat, sleep and breathe it every single day.”
He said although the spring hunt is only a few weeks long, it’s ”something that we grow up preparing for on a year-round basis.” Boats are made of bearded seal skins harvested in July and caribou tendons hunted in August and September. “We do the preparations in the fall time and in the winter time to actually make the skin boat. And all the while we’re working on our weaponry and our gear.”
Eskimo commission members, representatives of the North Slope Borough , and senior leaders at the State Department and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration took part in the strategic meeting and reception. Sullivan said in a prepared statement he hosted representatives of more than 20 countries at the reception.
A quota for the number of whales that can be taken is set by the international commission, which is meeting in late August in Peru. It will decide whether to renew strike and catch limits for Alaska and Russia for 2026-2031.
In 2018, the Eskimo commission was assigned 93 strikes, which are allocated among 11 Arctic Alaska villages. The commission’s objective is to (a) ensure that the risks of extinction are not seriously increased by subsistence whaling; (b) enable aboriginal people to harvest whales in perpetuity at levels appropriate to their cultural and nutritional requirements…and (c) maintain the status of stocks.
The International commission also voted to allow an automatic extension of the quota if criteria are met to ensure no harm to the whaling stock, need for the harvest hasn’t changed, and countries are complying with hunt timelines.
Those criteria have been met, said several speakers at the reception.
Assistant Administrator Janet Coit for NOAA Fisheries said gaining renewal of the harvest from the International commission is “a top priority for the Biden-Harris administration, honoring our commitment to the Alaska Natives who depend on whaling for their culture, for their subsistence, (and) to the Macaw tribe and the state of Washington. That is so very, very important to us. But there is no daylight between our position in the Biden-Harris administration and what you’re hearing from our congressional champions.”
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