On this episode National Chief Perry Bellegarde reaches Gwich'in Grand Chief Bobbie Joe Greenland-Morgan in Inuvik, NWT to talk about the potentially devastating decision by the Trump Administration to open up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development. Known as ANWR, this Arctic refuge is 19 million acres of pristine wilderness, roughly the size of New Brunswick. It is also the calving grounds to the Porcupine Caribou herd, which has been sustainably hunted for centuries by the Gwich’in people on both sides of what is now the Canada-US Border. Gwich’in leaders have warned about the environmental damage that drilling will have in the refuge, including the very real danger that it will decimate one of the last large and healthy Caribou herds left in the Arctic, one which the Gwich’in people still rely on as a crucial food source, as well as being one of their central cultural touchstones.

A special thanks goes out to the Red Dog Singers of Treaty 4 territory in Saskatchewan for providing the theme music for this podcast.

The Ahkameyimok Podcast is produced in Ottawa by David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions.