Text: Rachel Edwardson & Illustration: Chela Yego

Big oil in the Arctic

Text: Rachel Edwardson & Illustration: Chela Yego

As Iñupiaq people, we have fought to maintain our subsistence lifestyle and socio-economic structures for decades. I now have three children, and this summer we packed our three chest freezers full with food we harvested from the lands and seas.

Text: Rachel Edwardson & Illustration: Chela Yego

We share with family and elders, and trade across the North Slope with other households who collect subsistence foods from different areas or who have an abundance.

Text: Rachel Edwardson & Illustration: Chela Yego

Although they are largely undocumented in Western scientific language, subsistence economies  are incredibly complex. They are also sustainable.

Text: Rachel Edwardson & Illustration: Chela Yego

What’s not sustainable are cash-based economic structures underpinned by fossil fuels and the fiction of perpetual growth.

Big oil in the Arctic

Text: Rachel Edwardson & Illustration: Chela Yego