Book cover, courtesy Minotaur Books
In the past year or two, the controversial Pebble copper and gold deposit has seized the public mind, inspiring documentaries, YouTube videos, poems, grade-school papers, community protests, Native dances, college dissertations, a voter ballot initiative and countless meetings and debates.

Now, it’s a plot element in one of Alaska’s best-known fiction series, Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak mysteries. In Stabenow’s latest novel, Whisper to the Blood, she plops a fictional mineral deposit almost exactly like Pebble next to Shugak’s community, in the headwaters of the Copper River (in the book, it's the Kanuyaq River).

I asked Stabenow a few questions about the book this week. Here’s what she said.

Q: Why did you pick Pebble as a backdrop for one of your mysteries?
A: Conflict is meat and drink to the author. The Kate Shugak series is set in today's Alaska. What's the single most divisive issue in Alaska today? At the decibel level the discourse concerning the Pebble Mine is set at, all too easy to imagine someone getting killed over it. Enter Kate, pursued by a mine.
Q: What are your thoughts about the Pebble issue, in general?
A: Speaking of conflict. Sometimes when I'm thinking about Pebble I feel like I've got a split personality. The boomer in me says, "Jobs for the next generation! They won't have to make beds and wait tables, they can be engineers! And think of the tax base!" The hardcore, selfish Alaskan in me says, "Why can't they just let a beautiful thing be?" We can't undiscover the gold, and as long as someone can make money mining and selling it, someone is going to try. It's not an issue that is going to be resolved any time soon, and with gold at $1,000 an ounce it isn't going away. It's going to be interesting to see how Kate and the rest of the Park rats handle the fictional mine. And no, I have no idea what's going to happen next.

Here’s an excerpt from Whisper to the Blood, in which an Alaskan athlete hired by the mine company as a community liaison is describing the exploration project to suspicious tribal leaders:

“Mrs. Shugak,” Mcleod said, “Global Harvest Resources knows that we have to be good neighbors to the people who live in the Park. That includes respecting the fish, the wildlife and the environment, and the subsistence lifestyle practiced by everyone who lives here. We’re going to use the very best science available ….”

Fine words, Kate thought. They would have been more convincing if they hadn’t sounded so well rehearsed. “You’re going to have to get a lot more specific than that,” she said.

“We know,” Macleod said. “And we will. We’re just getting started here, Kate. We’re not naïve enough to think there won’t be problems. Of course there will be. But every step of the way we expect a Park – what is it you call yourselves – a Park rat at our elbow, telling us what we’re doing wrong. We’ll be listening for that advice, and we’ll be acting on it.”

“You better be listening for it,” Old Sam said, “because you’ll be getting it. A lot of it.”