Russell Stigall

Written for Alaska’s 50th Anniversary celebration publication. An edited version of this story and others can be found in Alaska 50, at libraries in Anchorage and Seward.

 

 

Someday in the next few decades, the Trans-Alaska pipeline will deposit into the hold of a tanker ship in Valdez the final barrel of North Slope Crude.

The oil will complete its 800-mile journey in 9 days and its sale will deposit in Alaska’s coffers the last few of the billions of dollars the state has made from its oil during the pipeline’s decades of operation. Oil extracted from massive hydrocarbon deposits below the ice and permafrost of the North Slope and frozen Bearing and Arctic Seas have slipped down the long straw for 30 years.

Dozens of drill sites gulp hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil from North Slope reserves. The large reserves, Prudhoe Bay, Aurora, Midnight Sun, Orion, Polaris and Borealis provide the majority of North Slope crude. These are supplemented by other smaller sites. By far the largest reserve, Prudhoe Bay encompasses over 200,000 acres and produces on average half a million barrels of oil each day.

Alaska is a resource extraction state. Russia’s wooden ships filled with Sea Otter pelts left Alaska bound for women’s shoulders in Moscow and London.

Yukon gold swelled United States coffers in the late 1890s.

Today fishermen harvest the Bering Sea of three billion pounds of seafood each year. Continue reading…