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Lynn Lau
Northern News Services
When an elderly gentleman approaches wanting to buy two $2 raffle tickets, she cajoles, "Here, take three for $5." Already tearing off the third ticket, she says "I'm making you a deal."
 At the age of 23, Elaine Alexie is a powerful young voice in the struggle to protect the Porcupine caribou. - Lynn Lau/NNSL photo |
It's hard to imagine it now, but this outspoken 23-year-old activist from Fort McPherson used to be a quiet person who kept her opinions to herself.
Two summers ago, Alexie found her voice. Ever since then, she's been using it to speak out for the protection of the Porcupine caribou, a herd on which the Gwich'in have relied for generations.
Since the late 1980s, the Gwich'in have been lobbying the U.S. government to protect the herd's Alaskan calving grounds from oil and gas development. In Alexie, the movement has a youthful new voice.
Millennium Trek
Growing up in Fort McPherson, Alexie was the second youngest of eight children born to Robert and Dorothy Alexie. She spent much of her childhood at her parent's camp on the Peel River, where she developed a lifelong attachment to the land.
She always knew about her community's concern for the caribou herd, but she was never actively involved in the lobby efforts until two years ago.
That summer, Alexie was a 21-year-old, taking some time off school to figure out what she wanted to do for a career. She was working at the tourism information centre in Dawson City, Yukon, when Liz Wright, then the chair of the Tetlit Gwich'in Renewable Resource Council, contacted her to see if she would do the canoe-portion of the Millennium Trek. The journey by Mackenzie Delta Gwich'in to Arctic Village, Alaska, was a lobby effort to garner media coverage of the fight to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge "1002 lands."
"At first, I was really kind of reluctant because I was worried that eventually we would have to get up and talk," Alexie says. It was the idea of a free canoe trip that eventually enticed her to join the Millennium Trek in August 2000. After five days of paddling Alexie and the other youth paddling on the Millennium Trek stopped near Old Crow, Yukon. There, they were to meet with international media at a campfire talk. Although she was shy, that night on the shore of the Porcupine River, she spoke up.
"This is where it all came together for me," Alexie says. "If I really cared about this issue, what happens to the caribou, and our people, this is the time I need to say a few words." She was only speaking before a handful of strangers, but the experience made a lasting impression on her. "I felt empowered and I felt good about it," she says. "I got out what I wanted to say."
American Tour
When the summer was over, Alexie started working at the Gwich'in Renewable Resource Board in Inuvik. Her boss, executive director Peter Clarkson, who is also the mayor of Inuvik, saw her potential as a spokesperson and worked to recruit her for the Last Great Wilderness Project, a slide show presentation and lobby campaign with U.S.-activist and photographer Lenny Kohm.
"Peter kept calling me, working on me for five months and I kept saying 'No, no.' Finally after New Year's he phoned me and said Elaine, 'Please go. I desperately need a person.'
"I said 'OK, OK I'll do it for you.' "
Clarkson booked the tickets that day for the trip to Washington, D.C.
When Alexie arrived in the U.S. capital in February 2001, Kohm picked her up at the airport with urgent news.
"He said, 'I don't want to tell you this but we're having a reception at the Canadian embassy and they're expecting you to talk in one hour," Alexie recalls. "I was terrified."
Kohm whisked her to the embassy, where she had only a few minutes before she was scheduled to speak before the crowd. She used the time to call home.
"I was almost crying on the phone," Alexie recalls. "I said, 'Mom, I'm scared as hell. I don't want to do it.' She said, 'Elaine, you're going to have to talk sometime or later. In order for you to be relaxed about it, tell them you're nervous. Take your time, don't rush, think about what's important for them to hear.' I said, 'Mom! How could you say that?' "
When it was Alexie's turn to speak, she did as her mother counselled. She spoke about why the caribou are important for the Gwich'in, and how her ancestors depended on the caribou for survival. "It was hard at first but then it just flowed out of me," Alexie says. "I was surprised I talked quite a long time."
The World Beyond
In all, Alexie spent a month in the U.S., her first time so far from home. With Kohm's travelling show, she toured Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, speaking before crowds of 12 to 900 people. She found she had a talent for public speaking and she was invited back by groups who heard her speak.
In June, she went back to Washington, D.C., as a student intern for The Wilderness Society, and in August, she was invited to the World Youth Leadership Jam in San Francisco. There, she met 30 other young activists from around the world.
After her exposure to the environmental activism, Alexie decided to return to school. She already had a year of general sciences behind her from the University of Calgary. In September 2001, she enrolled in the environmental sciences program at a smaller school with a fitting name -- the University College of the Cariboo in Kamloops, B.C.
With her first year finished, Alexie is picking up speed. Next month, she heads to Finland for the Arctic Council Women's Conference, and on Aug. 19, she's off to South Africa, where she's taking part in the Indigenous Environmental Network conference. At the end of August, she's taking part in the Walk to Washington campaign with the Caribou Commons Project.
In her role as the Gwich'in Community Project co-ordinator, Alexie is travelling to Gwich'in communities to drum up support for the lobby effort that will see activists trek from Seattle to Washington, D.C. During the tour, Alexie will hit states whose senators have supported drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Asked if she ever wished she had her old life back, living quietly at home in Fort McPherson, Alexie shakes her head. "I've grown in so many ways since I first started this," she says. "The hard things I went through, the people I've been exposed to."
The caribou issue is just one small part of the larger conservation puzzle, Alexie says.
"Even in my short lifetime of 23 years, I've seen lots of changes to the land. Now is the time we really need to do something about it. When I have a family, I don't want to be told that I can't breastfeed my children because the fish is toxic, the caribou is toxic. These are the foods that sustained our ancestors."