James Gilbert

If they live the traditional way, they are not going to bother about alcohol and drugs. That's why I never touch alcohol and drugs. I am a traditional person - there is no place for alcohol and drugs in the life of a traditional person. "

James Gilbert outside the Arctic Village home of Kenneth Frank.

See James Gilbert play a traditional Gwich'in game

Late in the summer of 1919, the James Gilbert was a boy so small he could not brace his .22 rifle against his shoulder. So, as his father watched intently, Gilbert cradled the stock of the rifle beneath his arm pit, took careful aim at his target, and squeezed the trigger.

The young caribou in front of him fell to the ground, mortally wounded. It was the first of many caribou Gilbert would provide to his family and his people over the next eight decades.

"Me and my father were happy, joyful," James Gilbert speaks in Gwich'in on a summer day in the 89th year of his life as Kenneth Frank interprets. "We were like a father and son, playing together."

Gilbert was born in the country of the Sheenjek River. "I was trained as a young man to be a hunter. I was brought up in the cultural way; brought up in a nomadic life."

His father taught him the traditional crafts needed by the Gwich'in of old to survive. He learned how to make snowshoes, sleds; even bow and arrows. He learned how to make clacking tools, which made him sound like a caribou walking. He learned to use these tools so that when he came for the caribou, he looked and sounded to them like just another one of their own kind.

When Gilbert grew up, he married a traditional woman by the name of Mary, who also knew how to make tools, and traditional games. She added to his skills by teaching him hers.

Today, these skills are being lost. Gilbert has taught some of what he knows to Kenneth Frank, but still believes that he himself is the only person left in Arctic Village who knows all the old skills.

"This whole country here is Indian land. On top of it, it should be an Indian way of life. That's why, for a long time, I've been thinking about this - so I can get a message out to the other people - to let them know how much I think about the people and the land. I am very concerned. Just a few of my kinship and other relatives are practicing the culture. All the land here has a history, all the places have a name. Even our own people need to learn the culture, the Gwich'in way.

"We are only learning western ways right now. We need to go back, and learn the cultural way. Today, alcohol and drugs are hurting the young people. That's why it is very important they learn the traditional way of living. If they live the traditional way, they are not going to bother about alcohol and drugs. That's why I never touch alcohol and drugs. I am a traditional person - there is no place for alcohol and drugs in the life of a traditional person.

"I live for 88 years and never take a drink, or a drug. If a person doesn't take alcohol and drugs, that person will live a long life."

Gilbert is glad Arctic Village has a law against bringing these substances into the village. "This is the reason it is kind of stable here in Arctic Village," he says, adding that the majority of his relatives do not drink. One day, he hopes, all alcohol and drugs, including marijuana, will be completely shunned by the Gwich'in.

Despite his old age, Gilbert's mind is sharp. While pain in his legs causes him to use a cane, he none-the-less has the good health to walk all about Arctic Village. Although small, the community is spread about on both sides of a creek. Sometimes, going back and forth, he walks for miles.

He credits his longevity and health to the fact that he has lived by his Gwich'in culture.

Gilbert has always been a leader. He served for 14 years as the Chief of Arctic Village. It was under his leadership that a school and store were first founded in the village. When it came time for the school to open, Gilbert mushed a dog team down to Fort Yukon to pick the school administrator and teacher.

In those early days, there had been no store in the community and so, "to make the community a better place," Gilbert started one.

Even back then, as he brought these modern institutions into the village, Gilbert was working to keep his own culture strong. "Me and Isaac started a Gwich'in dance group in 1940," Gilbert explains. "That dance group is still performing today."

With Mary he raised 12 children. Gilbert taught them his traditions, and took them hunting, fishing, and trapping. Recognizing that there were slow moments out in the country when youngsters grew bored, Gilbert brought along a violin and guitar for his children.

"We go way up in the mountains," he remembers. "Those kids sure make a lot of noise with that violin, and that guitar! I'm glad I brought these instruments along. Today, those kids travel all over the state, playing violin and guitar."

In her later years, Mary went blind. Gilbert stayed at her side, and did everything he could to make certain that his wife led as normal a life as possible.
"I took care of her for a long time," he recalls. "It was a lot of responsibility. We would still go out to our fishing place. She would still cut fish. She would still cut ducks. She did a lot of things." Mary died in 1983.

Gilbert expresses great concern for the porcupine caribou herd. It is the caribou which has given his people life. The people still depend on caribou, he stresses.

For many years, the Gwich'in have successfully resisted efforts by the State of Alaska, Alaska's Congressional delegation and the oil industry to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, calving grounds for the Porcupine caribou, to oil exploration and development. Development is also supported by the Iñupiat of the North Slope Borough and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, who believe that with proper controls, development can take place without harming the caribou.

Gilbert fears otherwise. He does not want to see any development in the calving grounds. "Because of the caribou, we have a lot of trouble with the legislature, and with industry," he states. "Caribou are very important to the Gwich'in people - as important as all the farms and ranches are to the people in the south. If, for some reason, something destroys the caribou, we are going to be like poor people. We will be poor in spirit. We will be poor in body.

"Here, now, with the caribou, everything is good."

Other human activities threaten the Gwich'in hunt.

Gilbert tells how, when the caribou migrate from the Arctic Slope through the mountains into the places where the Gwich'in hunt them, they are led by a group who act much like scouts. At the head of this group is a caribou who is like an elder in that it knows the country, and the different valleys leading through the mountains. These caribou look for the safest route to lead the others through.

Knowing this, it is the tradition of the Gwich'in to let this group of caribou pass by undisturbed. Even if has been a long time since the people have had fresh meat, by traditional law no one is to shoot any member of this group until all have passed by. Once it has passed, those caribou which follow can be hunted as much as is necessary. They will not turn away, but will continue on the same route as their leaders.

However, if any of the leaders are shot before they pass by, they will turn back, and take another route, away from the Gwich'in. Then, the hunt can prove to be hard and difficult.

While this is a Gwich'in law, it is not a law followed by sport hunters, who travel into the country of the caribou by airplane, who can reach and detour them long before they get to the Gwich'in. "They disturb the migrations," Gilbert says, "they get in the way of the migrations."

Gilbert councils all hunters, both without and within the village, to respect Gwich'in law, and to let the lead caribou pass through undisturbed. Even researchers, scientists working for government agencies, can frighten this lead group, and turn their path away from the Gwich'in.