North Slope Borough careers

Across roughly 94,000 square miles of Arctic Alaska, the North Slope Borough is the municipal government, stretching 650 miles from Point Hope on the Chukchi Sea to the Canadian border. Eight villages sit inside it: Anaktuvuk Pass, Atqasuk, Kaktovik, Nuiqsut, Point Hope, Point Lay, Wainwright, and Utqiagvik, the largest community and the seat of government.

The borough incorporated on July 2, 1972 and adopted a home rule charter in 1974, and its own history page states the significance without hedging: it was the first time Native Americans had taken control of their destiny through the use of municipal government. Nearly 10,000 permanent residents live here, with another 4,000 counted as residents because they work at least half the year in the Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk oil fields, and the borough's stated responsibilities run from taxation and property assessment through education and planning and zoning. An eleven-member assembly elected to staggered three-year terms holds legislative power, the mayor is limited to two consecutive terms, and fourteen departments deliver services from health, housing, police, and fire through search and rescue. Working for the borough means delivering public services at the top of the continent, for communities that mostly have no other provider.