Oil clouds gather over Alaskan eden

At this time of year the view from Kaktovik is snow-white in every direction, leaving little to distinguish the churned pack ice of the Beaufort Sea from the tundra of the Alaskan coastal plain.

Even this village, the only human settlement in the 19m acres (7.7m hectares) of the arctic national wildlife refuge and one of the most remote communities in the US, is scarcely visible beneath the drifts left by winter blizzards. From the air it is a barely perceptible dark patch clinging to the northern edge of Alaska.