Over the last few weeks, whenever I’ve felt a particular kind of postelection blues, I’ve been playing a haunting game with myself. I go to the weather app, look at the temperature for the day, and then guess how many degrees above the average it is.
This fall, in Oklahoma, my birthplace and home to one of the largest Native American populations in the United States (more than 10 percent of the state’s population), temperatures have often been five degrees or more above the stated average on my iPhone’s weather app, in line with the last 10 years globally being the warmest on historical record. It’s a gloomy exercise, of course, but we all have our vices.
No presidential administration is completely in harmony with Indigenous people, but this past decade has been especially difficult in regard to the environment. The biggest loss I can think of is that of the Dakota Access pipeline. Four days after Donald Trump’s first inauguration, he signed an executive order to speed up the construction on this pipeline. This paved the way for the pipeline to start pumping oil from North Dakota to Illinois only five months later, despite one of the most robust Native American political protests ever recorded. This pipeline opened up large swaths of Native land—1,172 miles long to be exact—to water pollution, soil erosion, flooding, and loss of biodiversity (notwithstanding that burning fossil fuels is the largest contributor to climate change).
As a second Trump presidency looms ever closer, the possibility of even more destructive climate change policy sits hard in my gut. But even in this bleak Indigenous climate fight, there are still beautiful parts of this country that are, for now, being protected—and are worth visiting. Here are three such spots where the Indigenous climate fight is at the forefront and where travelers can visit respectfully and, in doing so, help further protect them.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska
In 1980, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) was created in Alaska’s northeast to preserve the 19.6 million acres of one of the United States’ last wild places. The refuge itself occupies the traditional homelands of the Iñupiat and Gwichʼin peoples, who still live on and are sustained by the land. The area consists of diverse landscapes spanning wetlands to tundra, and the wildlife consists of birds from six continents, caribou, moose, seals, and pygmy shrews. The coastal plain, adjacent to the Arctic Ocean in the northwestern portion of the refuge, is known as Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit in the Gwich’in language, which means “Sacred Place Where Life Begins.”
For more than 30 years, legislators have attempted to pass bills that would allow drilling in the refuge, making it continually on the frontlines of the Indigenous climate fight. To allow drilling here would be to taint one of the last places inhabited by Indigenous people and open up its vast lands to the possibility of its first oil spill. And an oil spill would irreparably change the land, poison wildlife, and with that, damage food sources for the Iñupiat and Gwichʼin.
In January 2021, the federal government held a first-ever oil and gas lease sale for the ANWR. The sale, to which only three bidders showed up, was an utter failure, generating only $14 million in bids, with half of the offered leases drawing no bids at all. For the moment, pipeline activity has been halted—although that may change with the incoming administration.
ANWR lands are open to the public, and there are no visitor fees or specific entry points. However, that also means that there are also no roads, established trails, or facilities on the 19 million acres. Visitors may hike, fish, camp, hunt, or go on a guided tour, such as with Expeditions Alaska.
Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, California
The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, which was designated on November 30, 2024, encompasses 4,543 square miles of California’s Central Coast. It’s a biodiverse part of the Pacific Ocean filled with at-risk species, including southern sea otters, leatherback sea turtles, and blue whales, as well as vital sites in Chumash history, including one at Diablo Cove.
A part of President Biden’s America the Beautiful Initiative, the project allowed the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians a more active role in preserving their own homelands through co-stewardship with the government (specifically, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). This was a large win for the tribe and other community members, who have been advocating for a sanctuary and its allocated protections for over 40 years. The sanctuary will protect the region from offshore oil expansion, acoustic testing, and other developments where the environment is treated as collateral.
It is the first tribally designated sanctuary of its kind. It is estimated that it will generate $23 million in annual economic activity, as well as create 600 new jobs, such as environmental caretakers and tourism guides. It will also hopefully model a practice for future government-tribe relationships, until a point can be reached where tribes can fully control and own their own lands.
Travelers interested in the Chumash Sanctuary can visit sites such as Dinosaur Caves Park in Pismo Beach or the nearby Channel Islands National Park to dive, snorkel, or hike.
Fones Cliffs on the Rappahannock River, Virginia
In 1608, when Captain John Smith was exploring (read: scoping out for England to colonize) the Chesapeake Bay, he encountered the Rappahannock Tribe. By the 1640s, English settlements began sprouting up the Rappahannock River in modern-day Virginia. Slowly but surely, most of the tribe’s lands were either seized or sold on unfair terms.
Nearly 400 years later, in 2022, the Rappahannock Tribe reacquired 465 acres at Fones Cliffs, which in their language holds the name Pissacoack. This marked the tribe’s “return to the river,” a sacred place rich in history.
Fones Cliffs is a four-mile stretch of cliffs made of powdery white rock, stretching above the Rappahannock River for more than 100 feet. The acres acquired by the tribe also include woodland and marshland, biomes that are vulnerable to climate change. Real estate development can pollute the waters inside the marshlands, killing the species living in them. Removing native plants can open up an area to flooding. According to Audubon Magazine, it is also “one of the most important nesting habitats for resurgent bald eagle populations on the east coast.”
With the region now under conservation by the Rappahannock, it is newly protected from development. However, there is still work to be done, as the adjoining 2,000 acres are owned by a corporation intending to use it for commercial use. Travelers interested in supporting the tribe’s “return to the river” could visit and hike, take historical tours, or bird-watch. Signing up for events and activities sponsored by the tribe are an especially good way to support conservation efforts.
