Alaska Highway Pipeline Inquiry

This document has been reproduce with the permission of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, 2002, and courtesy of the Privy Council Office. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to copy electronically and to print in hard copy for internal use only. No part of this information may be reproduced, modified or redistributed in any form or by any means, for any purposes other than those noted above (including sales), without the prior written permission of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0S5 or at [email protected] [ l<cg__ro·k; 1,-re...~.......A-~J Alaska Highway Pipeline Inquiry Kenneth M. Lysyk, Chairman Edith E. Bohmer Willard L. Phelps ( '· 1"'. ·.. ~; j. 0•, Alaska Highway Pipeline Inquiry © Mi11ister of Supply and Services Canada 1977 Design: Paul Rowan, A!phatext Limited Avaifab!e by mail from Cover Photo: Andrew Hume Printing and Publishing Supply and Services Canada Ottawa, Canada K1 A OS9 or through your bookseller. Catalogue No. CP32-31/1977 Canada: $4.50 ISBN 0-660-ll122Nl Other countries: $5.40 Price subject to change without notice. Table of Contents v Letter to the Minister 105 8 Yukon Indian Land Claim 107 Indians and Inuit in the Yukon 108 The Background to the Indian Land Claim 1 1 The Inquiry 110 The Content of the Claim 116 The View of the Indian Communities 9 2 Historical Background 118 The Question of Prejudice 120 Recommendations 19 3 The Project 123 9 Dempster Lateral 21 Background 23 The Proposal 125 Dempster Lateral or Maple Leal Line 25 Other Developments 125 The Dempster Highway 126 The People of Old Crow 127 The Porcupine Caribou Herd 29 4 Alternative Routes 126 Economic Links 128 Industrial Corridor 31 Pipelines in Established Corridors: 129 The Value of Wilderness Rebirth of an Old Idea 33 The Klondike Highway and 130 Recommendations Tintina Trench Alternatives 34 A Decision lor Yukoners 131 10 Planning and Regulation 34 Recommendations 134 A Single Agency 136 Scope and Function 37 5 Employment and Training 138 The Second-Stage Inquiry 39 Construction Phase 141 Funding of Participation 48 Operation and Maintenance Phase 142 Funding of the Agency 50 A Project Agreement: Unions, Contractors and 143 Access to Information Foothills 144 Enforcement and Remedies 145 Appeals 145 Timing 53 6 Economic Impact 55 In-migration 147 11 Compensation 60 Local Economy 70 Compensation 149 Beyond Regulation 70 Government Revenues and Expenditures 150 The Yukon Heritage Fund 76 Gas Supply to the Communities 153 The Treaty 79 Electrification of the line 153 Equity Participation 81 7 Soclallmpact 83 Yukon Communities 89 Assessing the Pipeline's Impact 93 Social Impact 101 Conclusions and Recommendations ~----~--··-··-·~ .-.-··~--~-··--·· 155 Appendices Figures 155 A. Terms of Reference 4 1. Yukon settlements in which hearings were held 156 B. Community Profiles 6 2. Proposed natural gas transportation systems 169 C. Participants Organizations-Formal 8 3. Locations of proposed pipeline routes Hearings 12 4. Indian linguistic divisions in the Yukon 170 D. Acknowledgements 16 5. Yukon pipelines: past and present 30 6. Possible Yukon pipeline routes 32 7. Possible hydro sites and areas with high potential for mining 124 8. Relation of Dempster Highway to potential gas and oil fields, and to Porcupine caribou herd Alaska Highway Pipeline Inquiry Kenneth M. Lysyk, Q.C .. Chairman Edith E. Bohmer Whitehorse, Yukon Willard L. Phelps July 29, 1977 The Honourable Warren Allmand Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario Dear Mr. Allmand: You have directed this lnguiry to r~in a Rrelimina!Y Northwest Territories. In the Yukon, a wholly elected ~ on the social and economic impacts that may be territorial council first met in 1908: in the Northwest expected if a gas pipeline is constructed, as proposed, Territories, the territorial council was not wholly elected through the southern Yukon. You have also asked us to until 1975. report on the attitudes of Yukoners to this proposaL For a long time, the chief means of access from the The first task requires an understanding of existing south into the three jurisdictions was by water. and the social and economic conditions and their present most important settlements were located along the trends in the Yukon. As for the second task, main nvers. In both Alaska and the Northwest Yukoners' attitudes toward the proposed pipeline can Territories, many communities still are not reached by be understood only in the context of how they see road, but in the Yukon the situation is quite different. themselves and the society in which they live. This Following construction of the Alaska Highway in report summarizes a great deal of evidence presented 1942-43. the network of roads has been extended to to the Inquiry on these two broad subjects, and we every community in the Yukon, except Old Crow, an hope that you and your colleagues will find it useful in isolated Indian village in the northern part of the reaching a decision on the proposal. However, before terntory. There the people maintam a traditional life turning to the report itself, we should like to make centred on hunting, fishing, and trappmg. In this some general observations on its nature and scope. respect, Old Crow more closely resembles many communities in the Mackenzie District of the Northwest Territories than it does other settlements in the Yukon. Settlements in the Yukon (except Old Crow), and those reached by road in the Northwest Territories, have much in common with many settlements in the The Yukon and its People northern sections of the western provinces. The social and economic effects of all-weather overland access to northern Canada can hardly be overestimated. In describing the Yukon and its people, we think it is Although strong parallels may be drawn between the unwise to rely with any confidence on generalizations social and economic consequences of the temporary about the north and about northerners. Certainly in presence of a large number of construction workers on many ways the Yukon may be usefully compared with projects such as the Alaska Highway and the proposed its neighbours, Alaska and the Northwest Territories, pipeline, there can be no doubt that the continuing but one must be careful to recognize the differences as influence of a highway on the region through which it well as the similarities among the three regions. For passes is of much greater magnitude than that of a example, in geography the Yukon more closely pipeline. The most obvious difference may be seen in resembles Alaska than the Northwest Territories and, the changed pattern of settlement. The experience in like Alaska, the Native people are a minority within the the Yukon has been !hal the highways have the effect total population of the Yukon. In the Northwest of a magnet. New communities have sprung up along Territories, on the other hand, the Native people form a the highways, whereas those that were passed by have clear majority. been abandoned. Four of the eight communities along the Yukon stretch of the Alaska Highway did not exist There are also important differences between the before its construction. Conversely, Fort Selkirk, once Yukon and its neighbours in their political institutions, a major centre on the Yukon River near its confluence traditions, and social attitudes. A comparison of the with the Pelly River, was quickly abandoned when the Klondike gold rush with the gold rushes in Alaska at Klondike Highway passed it by, A pipeline has no about the same period show a marked contrast in the comparable power to create or destroy communities. ability of the administrative authonties to maintain order and control. Important differences exist also Another generalization that has been proposed seems between the political institutions of the Yukon and the to us still more fallacious, and that is to divide v Yukoners into two groups, Indian and non-Indian, and of this pipeline (or with any other project of comparable to attribute to each group totally different values and scale) would run counter to the aspirations of many aspirations. Having created two mutually exclusive Yukoners and that it would disappoint them bitterly. It categories, which are defined by race, it may be is equally clear to us that many Yukoners regard tempting to assign intransigent points of view to each properly controlled economic development not only as of them. From this position, it is a short step to the inevitable but also as desirable, and they see in the conclusion that a conflict of interest between the two proposed pipeline an opportunity to improve economic groups is inevitable. and social conditions in the Yukon. A lengthy or indefinite moratorium on the construction of the The supposition that Indian and White Yukoners hold pipeline would seem to be, lor practical purposes, a entirely different values and seek radically different decision against building it through the Yukon, because objectives has, no doubt, a certain simplicity that may in that case the United States would be likely to be intellectually attractive, but it reduces any proceed with the all-American route proposed by El discussion of Yukoners to a consideration of Paso. Failure to have taken such an opportunity would stereotypes, and any discussion of their problems surely lead to frustration, anger, and recriminations tends to lead to the assignment of blame rather than to that might be as dangerously divisive among the the more complicated and far more important business people of the Yukon as a decision to proceed of working out a solution that may be acceptable to immediately with construction of the pipeline. everyone. The proper solution to this problem seems to us to lie We do not suggest that there are no differences in flexibility and compromise.

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