Editorial | Wildlife | Culture
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The Gwich’in call themselves the People of the Caribou. For thousands of years, this animal has dominated their traditional diet of wild animals and plants. According to recent estimates, 75% of the village’s diet is composed of wild foods. More than 100,000 caribou of the Porcupine Herd (the eighth-largest herd in North America) pass through Arctic Village territory every year, but they depend on an ecosystem based on frigid winters, and those winters are changing.
Charley Swaney and other Gwich’in hunters are concerned about new patterns in caribou migration and declining herd numbers. They constantly monitor the landscape and its animals and their movements. “We may not have much,” Swaney said, “but what we have is out there.”
