Flying Over the Pits

On Saturday morning, the delegation flew north a couple hundred kilometres to Fort Chipewyan. Built on the Athabasca delta, it is downstream from Fort McMurray and the open pit mines just to the north of city.

This video is a short section of our flight as we took a detour over the two oldest pit mines and processing plants, Suncor and Syncrude. In it, you'll see several tailings ponds (each at different stages in their lives), the plants, an open pit, and huge pyramids of sulphur (a waste product from the process). You'll also get some sense of the scale of the tar sands operation.