This is a touchy issue for me and I could go on ALL day. A few thoughts:
There is a much larger picture in at hand. A reservation was drawn by man and really was a forced cage for each individual tribe. When speaking on subsistence rights, (which I think the argument in a court of law will eventually lead to and why these people will get off with a shake of the finger) native people will eventually be able to say that they are partaking in a subsistence harvest wherever traditional subsistence harvest took place 300 years ago. For example, someone in a formally nomadic tribe living on the Rock could probably go shoot a deer by Jamestown and fight their way out of it by these standards. These laws need to be scrutinized and updated.
There is now a chunk of federal land the size of ND in northwest AK where people who do not live in the area are no longer allowed to hunt caribou. That is federal land owned by everyone who reads this; not reservation or tribal claims. They say it is because of subsistence preference. Locals in the north central and northeast part of the state are working to impose the same laws. It would make an area the size of Montana closed to caribou hunting for non-local users. No scientific backing, the AK department of fish and game opposes it saying the caribou are doing great, and a federal judge rules that subsistence rights are of upmost importance and allowed the ruling to stand. A law based strictly on malice towards “evil outsiders”. I won’t even get into the niceties that these evil outsiders provide to the villages annually.
Every year we still hear of reports of a half dozen musk ox or 20 caribou found dead on the tundra and filled with bullet holes. They find the guilty party, give them a trail in tribal court where they receive 20 hours of community service, and are hunting the next year. All the while bitching that the reason caribou numbers are down are because of the entitled people from the road system coming out to hunt (bulls only and less than 5% of the total harvest to boot). At some point, tribes have to decide on what their ethics really are and stick with them.
As far as traditional harvest is concerned, I don’t need to go too far down that road or it will ruin my day. It’s amazing how a traditional use SkiDoo 800 can be used to run down caribou and grizzlies in 6 feet of snow. Or a traditional use 22-foot Wooldridge with twin 200 hp mercs can be used to run down whales. No to mention weapons. I’m not saying it should be illegal; but tribes that hide behind “traditional use” so radical environmental groups who find this behavior offensive stand behind them are simply lying to themselves. Shit or get off the pot. I’ll leave it at that.
There has to be a time where everyone has to play by the same rules before it gets out of hand. These are shared resources that need to be managed properly for those in “the womb of time” as TR stated. I think there has to be something in place where tags should be available OTC for subsistence users. But if claiming that resource, a percent of government kick-backs (if claimed) need to be made unavailable. If you are harvesting an elk out of necessity for your family of 3, then why do you need the same amount of assistance as the family of 3 down the street that doesn’t harvest an elk (assistance is calculated based off necessity of family size). You cannot take from the taxpayers twice. It’s a fair trade off. And I’m not targeting natives, there are just as many white people (probably more) claiming these luxuries in AK as there are natives. I have several friends and coworkers who head off into the tundra with 100K worth of pickup/camper/trailer/ATV to fill subsistence tags and I let them know how I feel.
Eventually we all need to get on the same page and work together. Respect the native traditional harvest while natives respect and acknowledge modern convenience and don’t abuse the allowed harvest. There is a really good book called “Make Prayers to the Raven” written by an anthropologist who lived with the Athabaskan people in the early-mid 1900’s. There a a quote in that book that needs to be brought up every time the evil white man is cussed, IMO. When a young person mentioned to one of the village elders that he wishes he could go back to before the white men arrived, the elders’ response was “Have you ever had to eat Ptarmigan poop to survive the winter?”
