Not too long ago when I was visiting friends in Alaska, I had the opportunity to view a video made by a couple of Canadians who spent a few months following a herd of caribou on their annual migration from the Yukon territory to their calving grounds in northern Alaska. This film, Being Caribou claims that if the American government allows drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge, the caribou will die off and disappear. The film does have some good nature footage, showing some great scenery and impressive animal footage, but it falls flat in the end due to it's erroneous conclusion and it's overt America-bashing. It's also a "get rich quick" scheme designed to line the pockets of these two Canadians.
For those who haven't been paying attention this past year, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a 19 million acre area in the northeastern corner of Alaska. ANWR by itself is larger than 10 US states. All of it lies well above the Arctic Circle and it it virtually uninhabited by man save for the 220 Alaskan Natives who live in.Kaktovik.
There's oil under ANWR. Lots of it. Estimates run from 11 billion barrels to over 35 billion barrels. That oil would go a long ways towards reducing our dependence on foreign oil in times of mid-east crisis and the tapping of ANWR reserves should lower or at least stabilize domestic oil prices here in the US. This oil is inder the extreme northern edge of the ANWR and it's expected that less than 3% of ANWR will be affected at all by the oil extraction.
The so-called "problem" is that a large herd of caribou migrate into ANWR every year to have their calves. Now this isn't a problem for the oil companies, the natives or the caribou, but thousands of bunny huggers, tree worshippers and other eco-freaks are all up in arms. Granted few of these people have been to ANWR or will ever go there (there are no roads to take them in and no Starbucks for them once they get there) but they're still demanding that this "unspoiled wilderness" be preserved for the caribou, who will apparently all die if oil drilling commences.
Now this same tired old argument was made back in the 1970's when the Prudhoe Bay oil facility was set up to send oil down the Trans-Alaskan pipeline to Valdez. Since that time, the caribou herd in that area has actually increased by over 900%. Clearly the caribou aren't bothered by the pipeline there and it's doubtful that they'll be bugged much by another one in ANWR. And even if they are, it's not like they won't still have the other 97% of the reserve. And lest I forget to mention it, caribou aren't even close to being endangered. They are the most populous large mammal in Alaska and the Northwest Territories.
Enter the Canadians... grab hold of your wallets.
Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison went hiking after the caribou back in 2003. They spent 5 months following these animals up to ANWR (and they entered our country illegally in the process) and they filmed the caribou while spewing a running anti-Bush commentary. Then they came to Washington DC to lobby our Congress to stop American and native corporations from extracting the oil from this piece of American territory. Last I checked, our Congressmen and women were elected by Americans to serve American interests. There's no reason for a couple of Canadians to be asking them for anything. But these two Canadians are asking a lot of people for things. Their current goal is to try to get as many people as possible to buy their book and video. They're even asking people to help them reach Oprah Winfrey and Jimmy Carter in the hopes that these people will help tout their video and book. And they're on a tour across America, again selling their book and video along with other merchandise. They've got mugs and shirts and even coffee and their whole agenda seems focused on getting as many people to give them money as possible. Heck, you can't even attend a showing of their video without forking over a "donation".
And where does all this money go? well as near as I can tell, it goes into their bank account. Supposedly it helps cover the cost of their speaking tour and website maintenance but I suspect that it's really buying their groceries and paying their utility bills. As far as I can tell, neither of them work at real jobs any more and it appears that they're living off of these donations. Per their website, checks sent in are to be made out to them personally and they "regret that they cannot issue a tax receipt" as they "do not have charitable status in either the United States or Canada." But they promise to "maximize the value of every dollar you donate". I guess that means that they buy store brand macaroni and cheese at the grocery store instead of Kraft.
So in sum, what we have here is two foreigners panhandling for money in America by pointing to a problem which isn't a problem. (Even if it was a problem, it would till be an exclusively American matter.) And of course they promise to solve this problem if enough gullible Americans just send them money. Please. P.T. Barnum would love these two if he was still alive.
Now lest I be accused of Canada-bashing, let me state for the record that I like Canada and most Canadians that I've met. And Canada must like us as 75% of it's population chooses to live within 200 miles of our border. But these two snide and patronizing Bush-hating, no-job-having, caribou-hugging, panhandling socialists need to worry about what's going on in their own country and just stay up there north of that border. We Americans will take care of Alaska and the oil reserves that lie under American soil. And if the caribou don't mind, why should a pair of Canadians even care?
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