American Indian Culture and Research Journal

INTRODUCTION Glacier ice, earthquakes, tidal waves, avalanches, volcanic eruptions, and massive storms formed the Gulf of Alaska coast, the traditional homeland of the Alutiiq people. Native people have prospered in this region for more than seven thousand years, in spite of natural and social disasters. On 24 March 1989, the Exxon Valdez accidentally released eleven million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska. After the spill, images of dying sea birds and dead sea otters filled the media, fueling public anger against Exxon Shipping Company (the tanker owner) and Alyeska Pipeline Service Company (the oil company consortium with initial spill response equipment and mandate). Emotions escalated as the spill was labeled a national disaster, as dire predictions were made about the oil’s potential impact on the marine environment, and as residents and visitors viewed oiled shorelines. The acute oiling conditions that Alaskans, including myself, encountered in 1989 raised serious questions about the health of local resources, and many people expected the oil to cause long-term ecological disruption. Alaska is a unique land, and, on the surface, the damage seemed unparalleled. Oiled Alaska beaches reacted much like beaches hit by other large spills. Initial shoreline impacts were acute, but the long term environmental impact has not been catastrophic. About thirteen hundred of the more than nine thousand miles of shoreline in the Prince William Sound/Western Gulf of Alaska region were oiled to some degree, with conditions ranging from large quantities of relatively fresh oil on some Prince William Sound shorelines to weathered “tarballs” hundreds of miles away on Kodiak Island and Alaska Peninsula beaches.