MORE THAN JUST PARKS
PART VI · THE OTHER SIDE CHAPTER 1 Stated as they state it
The strongest argument for this road comes from three Tribes on the record, in signed resolutions we hold, and by a mine that pays for most of a borough and runs out of developed ore in 2031. We're against the road. This chapter is the other side, in its own words and its own documents, without a foil.
What this chapter finds
The opposition to this road is well documented and well funded, and the people on the other side say, repeatedly, that nobody hears them. So we went and got what they wrote down. AIDEA's project website hosts the resolutions as scanned, signed PDFs. We transcribed them into the record so every line can be searched.
| Body | Adopted | Vote | What it asks for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allakaket Village Council, PJ Simon, First Chief | December 15, 2023, signed January 2, 2024 | 4 to 0 | Alternative A as the "Tribal Alternative" that BLM should select; limited access only; Red Dog-style mitigation; an ice road and barge access for freight; "a road maintenance and operation plan whereby Tribal members are guaranteed employment" |
| Ruby Tribal Council, Patrick McCarty, First Chief | March 4, 2024 | 7 to 0 | Support for a "private, industrial-access road"; "continued responsible resource extraction is essential to the future of the residents in the Northwest Arctic Borough and its provision of public services to the region's residents" |
| Hughes Village, Thelma Nicholia, Chief | March 21, 2024 | Signed by the Chief | Alternative A "only if the road is limited to access by the mining companies, local communities and residents for shipping goods, supplies, and fuel, as well as emergency medivacs"; Red Dog-style mitigation; training, hiring preferences and small business opportunities |
| Northwest Arctic Borough and North Slope Borough | 2023, joint resolution | Reported | Support for the road, per the Mining News North report of March 2024 quoting Borough Mayor Dickie Moto. We do not hold the resolution. |
Allakaket Village Council resolution, three pages, signed (the resolution number on the page reads 2015-12-15-01; the certification says adopted 12-15-2023 with 4 present and 4 yes). Ruby Tribal Council Resolution 2024-05, adopted at a meeting in Ruby on March 4, 2024, roll call vote 7 for, 0 against. Hughes Village Resolution No. 24-08, dated March 21, 2024. All three are hosted by AIDEA at ambleraccess.org; our transcriptions are in the record under their own names. The Ruby and Hughes press releases carry later dates (March 20 and March 26) than the resolutions themselves. The boroughs' joint resolution: North of 60 Mining News, March 22, 2024.
Here is how the Chief of Hughes explained the vote, in the village's own press release:
"Our future generation needs to have opportunities to earn a good living and support our families, as well as, stay in the community and practice subsistence." Thelma Nicholia, Chief of Hughes Village, press release, March 26, 2024
And the First Chief of Ruby, in his:
"We want to have a say over our future and supporting the Ambler Road is one way we can plan for future generations." Patrick McCarty, First Chief, Ruby Tribal Council, press release, March 20, 2024
Allakaket's resolution goes further than the other two in one respect. It names the regional tribal consortium that opposes the road and says it doesn't speak for the village:
"Tanana Chiefs Conference and other opponents to responsible and balanced resource development (such as the Red Dog Mine) offer nothing for the future except continued poverty and despair. Tanana Chiefs Conference does not represent or speak for Allakaket Tribe on any issue unless specifically authorized to do so." Allakaket Village Council resolution, paragraph 7, adopted December 15, 2023
That paragraph is the split in one place. The consortium opposes the road on behalf of its member Tribes. One of the member Tribes closest to the road says, in a signed document, that the consortium doesn't get to. Anyone who tells you "the Tribes oppose the Ambler Road" or "the Tribes support it" is flattening a disagreement between Alaska Native governments that is real, current and theirs.
Hughes Village press release, March 26, 2024. Ruby Tribal Council press release, March 20, 2024. Both press releases are hosted on AIDEA's project site. The Allakaket resolution as above. Tanana Chiefs Conference's own position, and the named testimony on both sides from the federal subsistence hearings, belong to the people chapter, which we won't publish until we hold the hearing transcripts.
Larry Westlake Sr. is an elder from Kiana and co-chair of the project's Subsistence Advisory Committee and its Workforce Development Working Group, both bodies convened by AIDEA. In January 2024, in an AIDEA press release, he said this:
"It's not what happens to us because of mining. It's what happens to us without mining." Larry Westlake, SAC and WDWG co-chair, AIDEA press release, January 11, 2024
The same question was already in Allakaket's resolution of December 15, 2023, and Hughes's of March 21, 2024 carries it word for word:
The right question to ask is not "what happens to our communities and Tribal members if a road is built and mining occurs" but "what happens to our communities and Tribal members if a road is not built and no jobs or opportunity exists for our children and future generations." Hughes Village Resolution No. 24-08, paragraph 7; Allakaket Village Council resolution, paragraph 8
The condition both sides are arguing from is the cost of living. At the Bureau of Land Management's Anchorage meeting on the draft supplemental review, December 13, 2023, Miles Cleveland Sr. testified, in AIDEA's account of the meeting:
"Today in my hometown we are paying $15 a gallon [for fuel] and if things don't change in the next few years, how are we going to warm our houses? How are we going to provide for our family?" Miles Cleveland Sr., as quoted in AIDEA press release #2-2024, January 11, 2024. The bracket is AIDEA's.
Miles Cleveland, president of the Native Village of Ambler and a member of the Northwest Arctic Borough Assembly, in the weeks before the 2024 federal denial: "I strongly believe that the road will greatly benefit my community and I'm not alone. Many of my neighbors also support the road, as do other villages in the region," and, "I worry though that our voices are getting drowned out by people outside the region who don't understand the struggles of my community."
PJ Simon, First Chief of Allakaket, after the denial: "We need this road to feed our families and allow for more affordable goods to be transported to our community, as well as to provide jobs and investment for our village," and, "I want to see my young tribal members out in the forest hunting and fishing while earning a paycheck. This will keep our culture strong in a changing world." In May 2026, with a contractor hiring Allakaket tribal members for the summer field season, he said: "No other industry can measure up to the pay scale and capacity building."
Fred Bifelt, co-chair with Westlake of both AIDEA committees: "As indigenous people we are going to own this [opportunity] and this is how we are going to help our people."
AIDEA press release #2-2024, January 11, 2024 (Westlake, Cleveland Sr., Bifelt, Simon). AIDEA press release #6-2024, February 27, 2024 (Westlake's standing). Cleveland and Simon after the denial: North of 60 Mining News, April 26, 2024; Cleveland before it: North of 60 Mining News, April 5, 2024, a mining trade publication, which is why we mark these as second-hand. Simon in 2026: AIDEA press release 06-2026, May 1, 2026. Fuel prices in the state's own survey, and the villages the survey doesn't cover, are in the fish chapter.
Every one of these resolutions points at the same precedent, and it's a real one. Red Dog, Teck's zinc mine on NANA land north of Kotzebue, reached by a state-financed road, has been operating since 1989. The numbers are in Teck's securities filings.
| Red Dog, what it pays | Figure |
|---|---|
| Royalty to NANA, share of net proceeds of production | "starting at 25% and increasing by successive increments of 5% at five-year intervals to a maximum of 50%"; 40 percent since October 2022, 45 percent expected October 2027 |
| Royalty expense, 2025 | $372 million, up from $327 million in 2024 |
| Shared with the other regional Native corporations | Per Teck, NANA "has advised us that they share the royalty received, net of allowable costs, with other Regional Alaska Native corporations pursuant to section 7(i) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act" |
| Share of the Northwest Arctic Borough budget from Red Dog | "Approximately 90%," NANA's own page during the 2019 review |
| New payment in lieu of taxes to the Borough, signed January 30, 2026 | $17.5 million to $22 million a year for six years, plus $4 million to $8 million a year to the Village Improvement Fund |
| Developed reserves | Through 2031; operations winding down by 2032 |
| What the road earned the state, fiscal 2025 | $28.5 million net to AIDEA, 41 percent of its increase in net position |
Teck Resources, Annual Information Form, year ended December 31, 2025, p. 24 to 25 (royalty structure, 7(i) sharing, the Alaska Mining License Tax); Teck Management's Discussion and Analysis, 2025, p. 15 ("The NANA royalty expense in 2025 was US$372 million compared with US$327 million in 2024"). NANA, AMDIAP information page (2019): "Approximately 90% of the Northwest Arctic Borough (NAB) budget is from Red Dog Mine." The 2026 PILT: North of 60 Mining News, February 6, 2026, reporting Teck's January 30 announcement; we have not located Teck's own release text. AIDEA's return: AIDEA audited financial statements FY2025, p. 10, in the money chapter.
The cliff is not hypothetical to the people who run the borough. In May 2024 the assembly began drafting a budget for a mine that is ending. Its treasurer, Angie Sturm:
"Our revenue future, at least for the borough, doesn't look great. We have to start cutting our budget now to prevent facing even more serious pain later." Angie Sturm, Northwest Arctic Borough Treasurer, The Arctic Sounder, May 7, 2024
Teck's own 2025 report expects its zinc in concentrate production to fall from 565,000 tonnes in 2025 to 365,000 to 415,000 in 2027 and 275,000 to 325,000 in 2028, "primarily due to declining grades at Red Dog." Ruby's resolution says it in one clause: "continued responsible resource extraction is essential to the future of the residents in the Northwest Arctic Borough and its provision of public services to the region's residents." We read that as being about Red Dog's decline, though the resolution doesn't name the mine.
The Arctic Sounder, Alena Naiden, May 7, 2024. Ruby Tribal Council Resolution 2024-05, as above.
AIDEA's project site attributes these figures to a University of Alaska Center for Economic Development study. We hold AIDEA's summary. We have not seen the study, and AIDEA's site doesn't link it.
| AIDEA's stated benefit | Figure |
|---|---|
| Road construction, direct jobs, annual average | 360 |
| Road operations and maintenance, direct jobs a year | up to 81 |
| Mine construction, direct jobs | 2,777 direct, "with $286 million in wages annually" |
| Mine construction, indirect and induced | 2,034 more, "with $108 million in wages annually" |
| Mine operations, direct jobs | 495 direct, "with $72 million in wages annually" |
| Mine operations, indirect and induced | 3,436 more, "with $228 million in wages annually" |
| State revenue, life of all four mines | $393 million mining license tax, $524 million corporate income tax, $214 million production royalties, $13 million claim rents |
| Payments to local governments, life of all four mines | $193 million |
Two things to hold next to that table. First, the road's numbers and the mines' numbers are different numbers, and AIDEA's own page keeps them apart: 360 and 81 for the road, everything else for mines. Second, the federal review's road-only findings, that "no local government revenues are expected to be generated during road construction, operation, or reclamation" and that the road itself supports 81 permanent jobs, don't contradict AIDEA's table. They are the same table with the mines taken out. The villages are asking for the mines the road would open, and the federal record says no mine is permitted and no plan for one is pending. That gap, between what is promised and what is authorised, is the whole argument, and it's stated in the mines chapter and the money chapter.
Ambler Access Project, Benefits, AIDEA, retrieved September 15, 2026, which says the figures are extracted from "UAA CED AMDIAP and Mine Development Impact" by the University of Alaska Center for Economic Development. 2024 Final SEIS, Vol. 1, p. 262 (local revenue) and p. 264 (jobs). 2024 Record of Decision, p. 27 (81 jobs).
The companies that would use the road say less than the villages do, and what they say is about supply chains. In April 2025 the chief development officer of South32 and the chief executive of Trilogy Metals, the two owners of Ambler Metals, published a joint op-ed. Its commitments: "We are in this for the long haul because the road is essential for gaining access to the world-class mineral deposits found in Northwest Alaska." "We are committed to local hiring and partnering with local communities to ensure this project works for them." And the national case: "But without the Ambler Road, the vast supplies of critical minerals found in this region will remain stranded."
The legal spine of the case is older than any of them. Congress wrote it in 1980, in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, section 201(4): "Congress finds that there is a need for access for surface transportation purposes across the Western (Kobuk River) unit of the Gates of the Arctic National Preserve (from the Ambler Mining District to the Alaska Pipeline Haul Road) and the Secretary shall permit such access in accordance with the provisions of this subsection." Every supporter quotes "shall." What the same act requires the Secretary to do first, and whether it was done, is the litigation, and that is the case page.
Anchorage Daily News, opinion, Simon Collins and Tony Giardini, April 9, 2025. ANILCA section 201(4) as quoted in the record; the statute itself is 16 U.S.C. 410hh. Where the concentrate would go, and what the federal stake requires about that, are the ore chapter and the deal chapter.
NANA Regional Corporation owns the land at the western end of the road and the land under the deposits. Its position has shifted since 2019, and every version of it is still quoted as if it were current. Here is the sequence, from NANA's own pages and one reported document.
| When | Position | In NANA's words |
|---|---|---|
| 2019, draft EIS | Neutral | "supportive of a transparent public process to evaluate the potential impacts and benefits of development of a road but has remained concertedly neutral on the merits of the project" |
| 2020 onward | In court, on the side of access | Entered the lawsuit over the 2020 approval as an intervenor-defendant "to protect its rights as laid out in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act section 201(4)(d)" |
| May 2024 (board vote May 2, announced May 8) | Withdrew from the project | "This decision reflects unmet criteria, insufficient consultation, and a lack of confidence in the project's alignment with our values and community interests." And: "While NANA is disengaging from the AAP, we maintain our interest in future mineral development in the region that aligns with the expectations of our shareholders." |
| June 28, 2024 | Unchanged after the federal denial | "This decision remains unchanged following the issuance of the joint Record of Decision." |
| December 2025 | Signed a nonbinding memorandum with AIDEA and Doyon | It "does not constitute a final determination about the Ambler Road, its construction, or any commitments from the signatories" |
The May 2024 withdrawal is the one most often misread. NANA's own FAQ answers the question "Does this mean that NANA has shut the door on accessing the Upper Kobuk?" with the word "No," and continues: "NANA maintains its interest in potential mineral development in the Upper Kobuk should NANA Shareholders and the neighboring region find the right time and partnerships to build a road across that meets the expectations of these regions." Its partnership with Ambler Metals, the FAQ says, "will remain intact." Its stated objections were to AIDEA's failure to meet its criteria, above all "ensuring controlled permitted access along the entire route that includes NANA in management of access," and to the federal review itself, which NANA said gave an "Inaccurate Representation of Red Dog Mine and Employment Opportunities." NANA's board chair, Gia Hanna: "All decisions about development on our lands need to be made by and with our people at the table."
Then, in December 2025, NANA and Doyon signed a memorandum of understanding with AIDEA that the Northern Journal reported in February 2026. NANA's chief executive, John Lincoln, described it as reflecting "a mutual interest in creating a clear framework for future discussions about how to best advance" the project. Anything published after February 2026 that says "NANA withdrew" and stops there is out of date.
NANA, AMDIAP information (2019). NANA, withdrawal release, May 8, 2024. NANA, Ambler Access Project FAQ. NANA, on the Record of Decision, June 2024. Northern Journal, Nathaniel Herz, February 6, 2026 (the memorandum; Doyon declined to answer the reporter's questions). We report positions at the level of the institution that holds them: NANA, the Northwest Arctic Borough, the Native Village of Ambler and Tanana Chiefs Conference are four bodies with four mandates.
What this chapter does not say
It does not say the villages that support the road speak for the region. Tanana Chiefs Conference opposes it on behalf of its member Tribes, and people from the same rivers have testified against it at length at the federal hearings. That side is in the people chapter; the federal hearing transcripts are the part we haven't read yet.
It does not say Red Dog proves Ambler pays. Red Dog's road works because a multinational guaranteed the payments "regardless of mine operations or ore prices," for a mine that was permitted before the state committed a dollar. Ambler has no guarantor, no toll agreement and no permitted mine. The supporters' precedent and the precedents chapter are the same document read to the end.
It does not use the road's numbers to answer the villages. The villages are asking about mines. The federal finding that the road itself generates no local government revenue is true and beside their point. Their point is Red Dog ending in 2031.
It does not treat the resolutions' condition as a detail. Allakaket and Hughes support the road "only if" access is limited to "the mining companies, local communities and residents" for freight, fuel and medevacs, and Ruby's resolution states no condition. The federal record describes a road with "no access by the general public, including area residents," so what the two villages ask for isn't what has been proposed. The published social science on this road, by University of Alaska and Park Service economists, found that villages near the route produce 1.8 to 2.5 times the subsistence harvest of comparable road-connected communities, and modeled the household cost if the road were opened to the public. Whether a road owned by a state corporation can be kept limited for fifty years is the precedents chapter.
It does not quote anyone whose standing we could not confirm. Two quotes attributed to a First Chief of "Tanana Tribal Council" in an advocacy piece conflict with the consortium's own releases and are not printed anywhere on this site.
It has not been put to the people in it. We have not asked AIDEA, NANA, Trilogy Metals, Ambler Metals or the three tribal councils for comment on this chapter. Everything here is their own published word. If any of them want to add to it or correct it, write to ask@morethanjustparks.com and we will print the response here.
AIDEA, DeLong Mountain Transportation System Asset Management Review, December 2017 (the guarantee). Guettabi, Greenberg, Little and Joly 2016, Arctic 69(3), abstract: "Total subsistence production of PZ communities was 1.8 to 2.5 times greater than that of NPZ communities."
Three federally recognized Tribes have voted for it in writing, and we hold the signed resolutions: Allakaket (December 15, 2023, 4 to 0), Ruby (March 4, 2024, 7 to 0) and Hughes (March 21, 2024). Allakaket and Hughes ask for a road "limited to access by the mining companies, local communities and residents," Red Dog-style subsistence protections, and hiring preferences, and both give the same reason: "poverty, high unemployment, expensive shipping and costs of groceries, fuel, and other supplies." Ruby, on the Yukon well south of the corridor, supports the project as "a private, industrial-access road" for "jobs and economic opportunities."
Allakaket, Ruby and Hughes council resolutions, scanned and signed, held in the record."NANA opposes the road" is wrong, and so is the opposite. NANA was neutral in 2019, withdrew from the project in May 2024 while stating "we maintain our interest in future mineral development in the region," and in December 2025 signed a nonbinding memorandum with AIDEA that its chief executive says "does not constitute a final determination about the Ambler Road."
NANA Regional Corporation, 2019 page, May 2024 withdrawal and June 2024 statement; the December 2025 memorandum as reported.Red Dog. Teck's zinc mine paid NANA a royalty of $372 million in 2025, on a rate that rises to 45 percent in 2027, and NANA's own page says the mine supplies "Approximately 90% of the Northwest Arctic Borough (NAB) budget." Developed reserves run through 2031. AIDEA's stated benefit case is a mine case: 2,777 direct mine construction jobs, 495 mine operations jobs, $193 million to local governments over the life of four mines, from a University of Alaska study AIDEA summarizes and we have not seen.
NANA Regional Corporation and Teck Resources disclosures; AIDEA, Ambler Access Project Benefits page.The pro-road case is unusually well documented by its own side, because AIDEA hosts the resolutions and issues the releases. The gap is on the other end: the federal review records that "At the 12 public meetings and ANILCA 810 subsistence hearings, 189 people provided oral comments." That is the largest body of named village testimony on either side, and we don't hold the transcripts yet.
2024 Final SEIS, Vol. 1, p. 39.
Read it whole. If you oppose the road, the people in this chapter are asking a question about their own children, and the road's opponents, including us, owe them an answer. If you support it, notice that Allakaket and Hughes support the road "only if" access is limited to the mining companies, local communities and residents, which is more local access than the federal record's road allows, and then read what fifty years of Alaska roads say about keeping a road limited.
If you're a reporter, the story in this chapter is a disagreement between Alaska Native governments, and the way to get it wrong is to pick one and call it "the Tribes." Name the body every time.
