Shishmaref, the tiny outpost on a besieged barrier island near the Arctic Circle (besieged by climate change AND the international media) is very dear to my heart because I spent childhood formative years there and have old friends there (and relatives there, through my Inupiaq stepdad).
The issues of climate change/oil drilling and spilling/lobbying in DC/ecological devastation/Alaskan colonization by outsiders/indigenous culture and economic/social/environmental justice, historic and current traumas, and renaissance/empowerment of Alaska Native groups are not black and white issues but very gray, (or grey, for the British spelling); indeed, these issues blend into a vast, churning gray sea of mud (or crude oil spill, or thawed noxious fumed-methane spewing permafrost, if you will...)
and are a big part of my novel Flight of the Goose.
However, what is crystal clear - or clear as ice - is that Native Alaskans are wresting back control over their own destiny, territory and resources even as all these are being threatened with new cataclysms, and like any groups on Earth, do not like to be patronized by outside groups or individuals... even those with good intentions.
(For more on Shishmaref and climate, a very good HuffPost article here).
And from another village a bit north of Shishmaref, Point Hope, this excellent opinion piece in the Guardian (by Othniel Art Oomittuk Jr. )
