In Fort Chipewyan

On Saturday, the delegation flew into Fort Chipewayn, 300 km north of Fort McMurray. Fort Chip is a fly-in community, except for the winter when an ice road can be built through the boreaal forest and across the immense Athabasca River.

Abe Janzen, Executive Director of Mennonite Central Committee Alberta, describes Fort Chip:
Fort Chip is at the Western tip of Lake Athabasca, a small town of about 1200 people. It includes about 5 different people groups... the Mikisew Cree, the Athabasca Chipewyan, the French Metis, and Scottish Metis, and then various families of Asian, white Canadian, Nigerian and probably some other backgrounds. In Fort Chip we had lunch at lovely lodge overlooking the lake, with some community leaders present, and then we toured the local museum as well as the Anglican and Catholic churches, both of which have histories to around the beginning of the last century. In fact, Fort Chip claims to be the oldest town in Alberta... 1788. Fort Chip now has paved streets, and some pretty good infrastructure.

The people of Fort Chip are worried about the water that surrounds them in the Delta and Lake Athabasca.

Water levels in the lake dropped dramatically after the construction of the WAC Bennett dam on the Peace River some thirty years ago. Trapping, so essential to indigenous livelihood here, was disurupted. Now the problem seems to be coming from further south. Abe writes:

But the other problem in Fort Chip is that the massive, massive oilsands are upstream, not so far along the Athabasca River, which empties into the delta area that surrounds Fort Chip. There are tailing ponds ... incredibly giant storage pits where the oilsands companies dump toxic waste materials ... and at least one of them is not 50 meters from the Athabasca River. There is seepage. They are supposed to put liners in the bottom of those pits before they begin to use them, but one hears stories of incredible seepage, that the companies have then tried to stop ... which means there really is seepage. And to have that sitting so close to the river means there is toxic waste emptying into the river. As the people of Fort Chip say, the air, the water, the land are being affected. No one seems to know quite how badly, but the incidence of rare cancers is above normal in Fort Chip, and in other communities as well. We heard quite a few stories and you can watch the movie, Downstream, which we saw in Fort Chip at an evening meeting, describes this reality. One of the chiefs in Fort Chip said there is not a family there that has not lost someone to a rare illness, like cancer, in the last 10 to 20 years.

As Abe notes, we met with membrs of the community on Saturday evening and again for a powerful ecumenical service on Sunday.




Presbyterian Moderator Cheol Soon Park writes of our time with the people of Fort Chipewyan:

They all came with special stories to share. They talked about the changes happened during last few decades. Their life style has been forced to change as their primary food supply had been disturbed. Almost everyone had someone in the family died of cancer. Government said that further study is necessary to define the cause of the increased cancer rate in the town. It is the story of Aboriginal communities in the region of Athabasca River.

This may be one of numberless stories involved in ever complicated Tar Sands Development in Alberta. Yet this is the most important story to listen to because it is about people.

Tar Sands present a great opportunity to Canadians. But it will become a true blessing if we will put the priority on the people before anything else.