EVANSVILLE — About 12 hours before Nick Carpenter climbed into his packed 2002 Subaru Outback destined for the neon lights of Nashville, he stood out on a rocky beach, completely silent but for the whooshing of the Koyukuk River.
Carpenter, the creative force behind Medium Build, was in Evansville, an Alaska Native Village with fewer than 10 year-round residents about 250 miles north of Fairbanks. Carpenter, 32, has lived in Alaska since he was 18, but this was his first time in the Interior off the road system. After years of playing living rooms, dive bars, lawns and theaters throughout the state, he was able to leverage his local fame into a national following.
Carpenter now has to leave the state that built him to be closer to the music industry as he looks to push his musical career as far as it can go. Before heading south, he spent his final three days in Alaska learning about the ways of life for indigenous communities living off the road system. He learned about the Ambler Industrial Road, what it would do to these communities and the landscape, and how he could use his platform to educate Alaskans.
“The road is just late-stage colonization,” Carpenter said, following the visit.
Activism is a new role for Carpenter. Prior to the weekend, he didn’t know much about the Ambler mining district, and the proposed 211-mile road that would open up access to dozens of proposed open-pit copper mines.
Carpenter was invited out by the Evansville Tribe and Defend the Brooks Range, a diverse coalition of Tribes and organizations working to protect one of the world’s last large, pristine ecosystems. The Ambler Road would run along the south end of the Brooks Range, crossing through 3,000 rivers and streams, Gates of the Arctic National Preserve, and the migration path of the Western Arctic caribou herd.
The goal of the trip was to bring local celebrities out to show them the impacts of the proposed mining district, in hopes that they become ambassadors for the people most affected by the proposed project. Ricko DeWilde, from the National Geographic show Life Below Zero, also came out. Members of Portugal. The Man were invited but had a conflict, and are planning to come out in September.
Carpenter, who recently signed a record deal with Island Records, has exploded in popularity over the past two years, turning packed, raucous concerts in Alaska into international fame. In late August, he left Alaska for Nashville, which will act as a home base while he’s touring and recording music. He plans to come back to Alaska in the summer, this time using it as a reprieve from his musical career, rather than its launching pad.
Alex Johnson, National Parks Conservation Association’s Arctic and Interior Alaska Campaign Director, was one of the organizers of the trip. He’s trying to raise awareness before a public comment period expected this fall. He and others in the Defend the Brooks Range Coalition leveraged their networks for people of influence who could help bring awareness.
Johnson said the goal is more than a post on Instagram. It’s about connecting social influencers and thought leaders with people living in the communities along the proposed road. Johnson said he envisions a long-term relationship where those celebrities work with community members and tribal leaders to fight this road until the end.
“There’s so much power there,” he said.
Johnson joined the trip along with April Monroe, Evansville Tribal member and Realty Director of Tanana Chiefs Conference, an Interior Alaska tribal consortium representing 42 tribes, which is suing the federal government over the federal permits previously issued for the road. Native Movement, another coalition member, sent staff members Naawéiyaa Tagaban and Jeff Chen, and filmmaker Jayme Dittmar joined as well. The group was hosted by Evansville First Chief Frank Thompson.
The proposed Ambler Road is a project of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a public corporation owned by the state of Alaska, tasked with industrializing the state for economic benefit.
“The state of Alaska is trying to sell off one of our last pieces of wilderness to Outsiders who don’t know us or care about our world,” Carpenter said. “It feels devastating and careless.”
The proposed road would allow trucks to haul ore from the proposed mining sites more than 700 miles down to one of Alaska’s southern ports, where it could be put on ships and sent to China for refinement. People and communities opposed to the road are concerned about the environmental impacts of the mines, including cutting off caribou migration paths, but how the road would change the ways of life for nearby communities.
“What is important about this place and places like it is (road access) isn’t an option,” Monroe said in a conversation with Carpenter about the road. “It’s the peace of it. It’s a way that we’ve preserved a way of life, that is under threat in so many other places and extinct in so many other places.”
Monroe grew up in Evansville, a small village located right next to Bettles. Right now, the two communities are only accessible by plane, or ice road in the winter. However, they are right near where the proposed road would intersect with the Dalton Highway. Monroe, who has a personal friendship with Carpenter, asked him to come to Evansville to meet community members, learn about the proposed road, and use his influence to fight it. When she asked, his response was “hell yes.”
“Making a decision to take a stand on an issue that is controversial at the time is admirable, it’s bold,” Monroe said.
Originally, the goal was to fly out to Iniakuk Lake to stay at John Gaedeke’s Iniakuk Lake Wilderness Lodge for a night before flying over sections of the proposed road route to get a deeper understanding of what a road and mining could do to such a pristine wilderness. Gaedeke was raised in Iniakuk and is a staunch and vocal opponent of the Ambler Road.
Weather grounded the group in Evansville for the full three-day trip. The clouds shielded views of the famed Brooks Range to the northwest, but allowed for ample conversations about the road and the industrial changes it would bring.
In a conversation with Carpenter, Monroe talked about how proponents of the road preach about the modern conveniences it would bring, without stopping to wonder if those conveniences are wanted in the first place.
“Do the people of the Interior want this main line to all of the things the modern world has to offer? The answer is a pretty resounding ‘no,’” she said.
Whether the proposed road would be public or private remains debated, but Monroe and other opponents firmly believe eventually it will be opened to the public, and become a major arterial for smaller roads, industrializing and forever changing the Arctic.
“Preserving one of the last pinnacle ecosystems on the planet is important for people, period,” Monroe told Carpenter. “I think there is a misconception that we love it here and want to keep people away, but it’s more that we love it here and want to protect it. When people come to visit it, we want it to be here.”
Carpenter spent his final three days before leaving Alaska for an industrialized city in the woods, where the only whirring of machinery came courtesy of the bush planes flying overhead. He learned about the area, played his songs around the community, and spent his nights by a fire alongside the Koyukuk River.
He said the visit showed him the importance of keeping the area undeveloped, and he left more connected to the state and the land.
“This place changes you,” Carpenter said. “There’s no denying the power of the uninterrupted landscape, rivers, and cultural history. It makes you realize how much we’ve destroyed elsewhere, and how important it is to not make the same mistake here.”
