For generations, the people of Elim have subsisted off the forests and waters of north-west Alaska: hunting caribou and bearded seals in the late winter, gathering bird eggs and wild greens from the tundra in early spring, and fishing the salmon run in the late summer.
The Iñupiat community of 350 people lives on one of the state’s most productive and biodiverse fisheries, an inlet of the Bering Sea called the Norton Sound. They refer to their land as Munaaquestevut, or “the one who cares for us”.
“We depend on the land to put food on the table, to keep our tribe healthy. We have a subsistence economy with a cash overlay,” said Emily Murray, a resident of Elim and vice-president of Norton Bay Watershed Council, a non-profit tribal organization focused on regional water quality.
“We’ve been doing this for generations upon generations.”
Now, an intensifying global competition for critical minerals and the priorities of a new administration threaten to put their land, their fishery and their lives at risk, members of the community say.
This summer, the Canadian mining company Panther Minerals is set to start exploration for a uranium mine at the headwaters of the Tubuktulik river, adjacent to Elim’s land. David Hedderly-Smith, a consultant to Panther and the owner of mining claims for the property, has said the site could become the “uranium capital of America”.
The people of Elim have opposed the mine since last May, when Panther Minerals announced its intention to apply for exploration permits. In interviews, they said they feared for their health, and spoke of the cancer and contamination that followed uranium mining on Navajo land in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
“If [the river] becomes contaminated, it will have an impact on the whole Bering Sea. That’s the way I see it,” said Johnny Jemewouk, a resident of Elim.
Last summer, Elim successfully pressured the Bureau of Land Management, which manages a small portion of the claim, to deny Panther Minerals’ exploration permit on the land. In December, a regional tribal consortium passed a resolution “categorically” opposing the mine.
However, Alaska’s department of natural resources (DNR), which manages most of the land, has so far refused Elim’s requests for a consultation – and brushed aside over a hundred comments from the community over plans for the mine. In October, they granted Panther Minerals a four-year exploration permit, which will allow the company to start drilling wells and taking uranium core samples this June.
Elim has appealed against the permit. But with time running out, the community has gone one step further, protesting against the mine using the largest international forum available to them: the Iditarod, Alaska’s grueling annual sled dog race, which passes through their village on its way to Nome.
As musher Jesse Holmes approached Elim’s checkpoint and the 1,008th mile of the race, more than 70 students and community members waited for him in the Arctic night. They held signs saying “Protect our future”, and “Keep the uranium in the ground.”
It was their chance to tell the world what their way of life means to them.
“I want to protect our future,” said Paige Keith, an eighth-grader from Elim. “If they go through with this, it’s going to affect our animals and our water. I want to help try to stop the mine.”
‘A race for resources’
As global competition for critical minerals intensifies, the Trump administration is eyeing Alaska.
An executive order issued on Trump’s first day in office calls on the US to “fully avail itself of Alaska’s vast lands and resources”. The order was applauded by the state’s mining industry.
The order reversed a number of Biden-era protections for Alaskan land, opening oil and gas drilling in the Arctic national wildlife refuge and ending restrictions on logging.
Several of these reversals put the administration at cross purposes with the Native communities that subsist off Alaska’s land. For example, one of them enables plans for a mining access road in Alaska’s Brooks Range, which a tribal network has called “one of the biggest and most destructive” projects in the state’s history.
“We’re in an age of green transition. We’re looking for other forms of energy. And, with the new administration, there is this push to mine domestically,” said Jasmine Jemewouk, an activist from Elim.
“It’s a race for resources and they’re looking at Alaska.”
The coming years are likely to see continued conflicts between Alaska’s powerful mining industry and Native communities – especially as the US seeks to onshore its critical mineral supply chain. And while Panther Minerals’ exploration permit is up to the state of Alaska, and not the federal government, advocates and community members said the Trump administration may further embolden Alaska’s DNR to brush aside Elim’s concerns. Alaska’s governor, Mike Dunleavy, has welcomed Trump’s executive orders, saying: “Happy days are here again.”
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“The current administration in Alaska is very industrial extraction driven,” said Hal Shepherd, an attorney and water rights advocate based in Homer, Alaska. “Trump and Dunleavy basically are partners in developing Alaska.”
“Our current governor is pretty much a typical Republican. If it ain’t nailed down, sell it,” said Robert Keith, president of the native village of Elim.
Alaska’s DNR did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Lack of consultation
In interviews with local media, Hedderly-Smith, the project’s consultant, has said the people of Elim have “been misled and they’re spreading mistruths”, regarding the dangers of the uranium mine.
Robert Birmingham, Panther Minerals’ president, did not respond to queries regarding Elim’s health concerns, saying the company had yet to finalize its mining plans and could not comment.
“We are positive about the uranium opportunity in Alaska, as it has been underexplored,” he wrote, and said the company would “continue outreach and the conversation with the Elim community” once its plans were finalized.
Hedderly-Smith has also said the company would “like to be friends” with Elim if it develops the mine. But while Birmingham said the company had made an attempt to contact Elim in early 2024, Keith, the president of Elim, said that Panther Minerals had never come to their village or attempted to contact the community since they first applied for the permit.
For Elim, the plans for the mine raise a history of state and federal failures to safeguard native communities from the harms of mining. In 2008, the community successfully rallied against another Canadian company, Triex Minerals, which had started to explore for uranium near their village. While organizing their opposition, the students of Elim researched the effects of uranium mining elsewhere in the US.
They taught the community about the example of the Navajo, and the cancer risks and health problems that came after they allowed uranium mines on their land.
Should a mine be built in Elim, Panther Minerals has said it would probably use in situ leaching to extract uranium – a technique said to be less disruptive than conventional methods to mine the material, including those used on Navajo land. Shepherd and the community, however, have said that the project’s proposed use of groundwater threatens to contaminate the fishery and ecosystem.
Keith said the community had a reason to be cautious about government promises. Closer to home, he gave the example of Moses Point, a fishing village next to Elim which hosted a military airfield during the second world war. The military had buried or left a lot of material at the site, he said, including thousands of drums of high-octane fuel.
“Most of those people where the concentrations of drums were, including my mother – the majority of them survived or died of cancer,” he said. “So we’re kind of sensitive.”
Jasmine Jemewouk, the activist, added: “What they’re not realizing is that the community bears the burden. Whatever they leave behind, whatever is contaminated in the process … We’re not being consulted at all.”
Her grandfather, Johnny Jemewouk, agreed. He said the time to act is now.
“People, the way I see it here, they don’t realize what the future holds for them once they start getting sick. Either they start getting sick, or the food they can’t eat, or the water they can’t play in,” he said.
“When that starts taking effect, they’ll want to say, ‘let’s do something.’ But that’s too late.”
