THE MACKENZIE VALLEY PIPELINE INQUIRY 7 the Mackenzie Valley the Mackenzie Valley 77
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THE REPORT OF THE MACKENZIE VALLEY PIPELINE INQUIRY 7 The Mackenzie Valley The Mackenzie Valley 77 The Pipeline Guidelines envisage two energy The Region Beaufort Sea. Along this river Arctic Gas and corridors in Canada’s Northwest: one would Foothills propose to move pipe, material, cross the Northern Yukon, and the other would The Mackenzie River not only defines the equipment and supplies to their stockpile and run the length of the Mackenzie Valley. I have Mackenzie Valley, it dominates the entire construction sites. And along this Valley it is recommended that no pipeline be built and no Canadian Northwest. The Dene called the river proposed to establish an energy corridor. corridor be established across the Northern Deh-cho, the Big River. Alexander Mackenzie The Mackenzie Valley region that would be Yukon. In this chapter, I will address the called it the Great River, by which name it was affected by the pipeline and oil and gas activities Mackenzie Valley corridor. known until John Franklin descended this river includes not only the Valley itself but also the The Mackenzie Valley is a transportation during his first overland expedition, 1819- basins of Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake. route that has seen several decades of industrial 1822. Since then, we have known it as the Despite the diversity of this large region, the development. No major wildlife population is Mackenzie River. It is the longest river system continuity and definition given the region by the threatened by a pipeline along the Mackenzie in Canada, one of the ten longest rivers in the river make it a logical entity to deal with as a Valley, and no major wilderness areas would be world, and one of the last great rivers that is whole. Because it is a natural travel corridor, it violated by it – but that is not to say that a not polluted. The Mackenzie drainage basin now sees many competing uses by wildlife, pipeline would have no impact. Clearly there encompasses nearly one-fifth of our country, traditional activities of native peoples, and the will be impacts, but they will be superimposed taking in northwest Saskatchewan, the advance of industrial development. on those that have already occurred in the northern half of Alberta, most of northern When you fly along the Mackenzie Valley, region, and in many respects they can be British Columbia, the eastern Yukon and, of you have the impression of immense distances ameliorated. So, setting aside the very course, all of the western part of the Northwest and great isolation, but in some senses this important social and economic issues and the Territories. Included within this great drainage impression is misleading. It leads to the overarching question of native claims, all of system are the Peace, Athabasca and Liard assumption that the land is virtually empty and which I shall treat in subsequent chapters, there Rivers, as well as the Finlay, Parsnip, Nahanni, that its capacity to absorb impact is limitless. As is no compelling environmental reason why a Great Bear, Arctic Red and Peel Rivers. It each activity advances – seismic exploration, corridor to bring oil and gas from the drains the great lakes of the North: Great Slave drilling, roads, highways, mines and pipelines – Mackenzie Delta and Beaufort Sea could not be Lake and Great Bear Lake, both of which are we tend to overlook their cumulative effects on established along the Valley. However, to keep bigger than Lake Ontario. Within the the land, the wildlife and the native people. the environmental impact of a pipeline to an Northwest Territories alone, the Mackenzie acceptable level, its construction and operation River and its tributaries drain an area of some The People and the Land should proceed only under careful planning and one-half million square miles an area larger strict regulation. The corridor should be than the Province of Ontario. Native land use within the Mackenzie Valley developed only on the basis of a sensible and Historically, the Valley has provided a home focuses on its renewable resources: moose, comprehensive plan that accounts for and and subsistence for the native people. It provided caribou, furbearers, fish and birds. resolves the many land use conflicts that are the main transportation route and resources upon Environmental impacts will, therefore, bear apparent in the region even today. which the northern fur trade was built, and today especially on them. It is only within it is a vital link between the people and the comparatively recent years that the incremental communities of the region. The river is also the changes to the environment caused by successive route over which machinery and equipment are stages of industrial development have built up sent to the base camps and the drilling rigs of the to a level that is obvious to the people who oil companies active in the Mackenzie Delta and live in the Mackenzie Valley. The land has 78 NORTHERN FRONTIER, NORTHERN HOMELAND - Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry - Vol. 1 changed. A cut-line here and there, a drilling site, there has been extensive industrial activity: forms of development on the environment and a road or highway where none existed before, now all of the lands around the communities at peoples of the region. The consequences of these airstrips, and more and more aircraft flying Fort Norman and Brackett Lake are held under varied developments and changes on the way of overhead. These things together are effecting a petroleum exploration permit. The major life of the native people in the region was cumulative environmental transformation. permit holders include Aquitaine, Texaco, described by Chief Daniel Sonfrere of Hay River: The initial incursions of white people into the Decalta Group, Shell and Imperial Oil; some ... after the white man came, well things look dif- Mackenzie Valley were limited both in number 25 wildcat wells have been drilled within 60 ferent, everything’s changing now. I’m going to and extent. Engaged in the fur trade, they lived miles of Fort Norman, the nearest one only tell you a few things about that.... close to the major river routes and were eight miles east of the settlement. Look at it today. If we try to go in the bush and dependent for their living on the native people’s The oil companies have carried out kill something, it’s pretty hard for us to find annual harvest of furs. The pattern of that widespread seismic exploration in the area for [anything] because there are too many roads many years, and there are seismic trails going different directions. There’s too many peo- relationship has survived for more than a century. ple around. It’s pretty hard for us to kill any- But it began to change in the early 1900s when everywhere. For example, Aquitaine has carried thing. We have to go quite a ways to get what we geological parties began to explore the Valley out 350 miles of seismic exploration on a block want off our land. Yes, even some people [are] and surrounding area. Oil was found at Norman of land covering about 1,000 square miles. complaining about the fish they’re catching in Wells in 1920; uranium and gold deposits were There has been exploration for other minerals, this river because everytime they go and pull discovered in the region in the 1930s. Slowly the too. Manalta Coal Limited of Calgary have their net, when they want to have a feed of fish it activities of industrial man moved farther from exploration licenses on land covering some 240 always taste of fuel.... [We] have to go in the bush and do the hunting, [we] got to go quite a the main river transportation routes, away from square miles east and southeast of Fort Norman. ways and got to get out quite a distance before the trading posts, into lands that had been the They have put down about 30 shallow drill holes [we] can get anything [we] want. [C588ff.] exclusive domain of the native people. and found coal seams 20 feet thick at shallow In recent years, many hitherto remote areas depths. The same block of land is also held have come under intensive use. Consider what under a petroleum exploration permit. Environmental Concerns is happening in an area that is still regarded as There is barge traffic on the river in summer. relatively untouched, the Fort Norman-Fort The Mackenzie Highway alignment will pass Many parts of the Mackenzie Valley terrain Franklin region. The native people have always along the north side of the village of Fort are sensitive to disturbance. The region is used the lands and waters of this area to hunt, Norman, and its right-of-way is already partly distinguished by its silty, clayey permafrost trap and fish. The main area of long-term use cleared. The CN telephone land-line and a soils that are vulnerable to dramatic thermal by the people of Fort Norman extends inland winter road run the length of the Valley. The degradation, particularly along the many river past Brackett (Willow) Lake at least 250 miles feasibility of a hydro-electric development on valleys and slopes of the region. These concerns from Fort Norman, and occasionally travel the Great Bear River has been studied. There is are of major importance because the north- takes the people another 150 miles. The people extensive air traffic in the area, which rises and south direction of the corridor cuts across the of Fort Franklin still use all of the lands around falls with exploration and development. A rash many east-west valleys and slopes that Great Bear Lake.