Marc John Morry has been hunting caribou around Anaktuvuk Pass since he was a child. But in the summer and fall, most of the land around the village has been off-limits to hunters like him.
That’s because residents were not allowed to use four-wheelers in the majority of the roadless Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, which surrounds the village. But last month, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced it would restore off-road-vehicle access to the park for subsistence.
Residents have been advocating for that change for decades..
“This is life changing,” Morry said. “Now that we're able to access the lands, we can learn ourselves and relearn what our ancestors taught us about certain areas that always have caribou.”
The Trump administration has been working to give hunters using off-road vehicles more access to protected federal lands across the country. However, the National Park Service officials said this action is specific to subsistence hunting in Gates of the Arctic and does not apply to sport hunters.
And it comes after decades of back and forth on the issue.
Before Anaktuvuk Pass became a permanent settlement about 80 years ago, the Nunamiut people were semi-nomadic and moved throughout the Brooks Range in search of caribou, their main food source.
“We heard many stories from our elders about hunting grounds that we weren't able to access, which they remember before we even formed a community,” Morry said.
The federal government established the Gates of the Arctic around Anaktuvuk Pass when it passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The law allowed subsistence hunting by residents using snowmachines, motorboats and other traditional transportation methods, but it didn’t mention ATVs.
Then, in 1986, the park interpreted the law to ban hunts on ATVs because they were not used traditionally. Lillian Stone, the city mayor of Anaktuvuk Pass, said the ban created invisible boundaries for residents relying on hunting for survival.
“It was like we were prisoners in our own land for 40 years, where before that it was — we could hunt anywhere, we could travel anywhere,” Stone said.
Susan Mekiana-Morry, the city vice mayor, said the ban didn’t just affect food gathering. Residents also couldn’t use the land to gather animal skins for making traditional clothing, tools and masks.
“We were deprived of our way of life, our culture, our heritage,” she said.
In the decades since, residents and local leaders have been advocating for ATV access to the park for subsistence — but without progress.
“We felt like it wasn't getting anywhere, and we weren't getting the answers that were needed,” Stone said.
Local Native corporations exchanged lands with the Park Service in the late 90s, making about 125,000 acres within the park available for subsistence ATV hunts, National Park Service spokesman for the Alaska region Scott Claggett said. Still, access remained limited.
“The people of Anaktuvuk Pass were limited to just 1% of the park’s 8.45 million acres for subsistence purposes,” Claggett wrote in an email. “Secretary Burgum’s decision last month vastly expands subsistence hunting access to indigenous peoples.”
A year after local leadership traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with the Interior Department, Interior Sec. Doug Burgum visited the village in May to announce the decision to restore ATV access to the park.
“No one knows or cares for this land more than the people who live here,” Burgum wrote in a social media post.
Claggett said that in the next six months, the Park Service will consult local communities to establish the new rule and consider any necessary protections for vegetation, cultural sites and wildlife. He said local subsistence hunters should contact the Gates of the Arctic for current information on using ATVs while the regulatory process is underway.
For Kristen Morry, an Anaktuvuk Pass hunter and a mother of two, the announcement means that she will be able to teach her children how to hunt and process the meat to continue the Nunamiut traditions.
“I have no words for what just happened, because it just makes me really emotional,” she said. “I'm excited to be out there and to no longer have to worry about when we have to stop, because I'm out there year-round.”
