Recently, however, the village has become noteworthy for something beneath the surface: Just 30 miles up the Tubutulik River lies Alaska’s largest known uranium deposit at a 22,400-acre property called the Boulder Creek site. For the people of Elim, that geological wealth is not a promise but a threat to their way of life. The deposit sits near the Tubutulik’s headwaters, where locals harvest fish, forage for berries, and hunt for moose, as they have done for centuries.
ELIM, Alaska—Roughly 120 miles south of the Arctic Circle, this Inupiaq village stands between mountains and the slate-gray waters of Norton Bay. Children yelp and skip through the streets, and residents race down open roads on ATVs. Elim is known as a checkpoint during the Iditarod, not a destination for tourists and cruise ships.
ELIM, Alaska—Roughly 120 miles south of the Arctic Circle, this Inupiaq village stands between mountains and the slate-gray waters of Norton Bay. Children yelp and skip through the streets, and residents race down open roads on ATVs. Elim is known as a checkpoint during the Iditarod, not a destination for tourists and cruise ships.
Recently, however, the village has become noteworthy for something beneath the surface: Just 30 miles up the Tubutulik River lies Alaska’s largest known uranium deposit at a 22,400-acre property called the Boulder Creek site. For the people of Elim, that geological wealth is not a promise but a threat to their way of life. The deposit sits near the Tubutulik’s headwaters, where locals harvest fish, forage for berries, and hunt for moose, as they have done for centuries.
Uranium, prized for its use in commercial nuclear reactors, naval submarines, and other defense applications, is one of many resources in Alaska that draw interest from the public and private sectors.
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