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Walk aims to heal Alberta oilsands lands
Opinion | Edmonton Journal | Brent Wittmeier | August 15, 2010
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EDMONTON — The stretch of highway between Fort McMurray and Fort MacKay is lined with gaping chasms, lifeless tailings ponds, smokestacks and piles of sulphur.
Those features — signs of open-pit oilsands mining — are partly why 100 activists held a 13-kilometre “healing walk” near the northern industrial area on Saturday.
“Forty years ago, our people hunted, trapped, fished, and picked berries here,” said George Poitras, a former chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation.
“It’s a land that has been totally decimated.”
The walk was the idea of the Keepers of the Athabasca, a network of local aboriginal, Metis and settler communities along the Athabasca River. The group described the event as a journey for the spiritual healing of the land and sacred waters, not specifically a protest against oilsands development.
Nevertheless, participants are hoping to persuade the Alberta government to halt expansion of oilsands production until environmental assessments can be completed.
“Once all the resource has been exploited and everyone leaves, we’ll still be here,” said Poitras, who spoke over the phone while approaching the Syncrude site. “We want to ensure we have a healthy environment left.”
Apart from two banners — one read “Stop the destruction, start the healing” — placards were not encouraged.
“It was not to be a protest or demonstration, it’s a symbolic walk, a spiritual and healing walk,” said Poitras, at one point nearly drowned out by honks of support from a passing truck.
A dozen RCMP cruisers accompanied registrants, ranging from eight-month-old children to people in their 80s.
Beginning at sunrise with a pipe ceremony, the group walked from Crane Lake and joined Highway 63 before turning north.
Poitras estimated the walk would finish in under five hours, passing by the Suncor and Syncrude operations. Interspersed along the way were stops for smudging and for local elders to offer prayers.
A feast was scheduled for Saturday night at Fort MacKay First Nation.
Keepers of the Athabasca is a chapter of Keepers of the Water, a group that began in the Northwest Territories in 2006 in response to increased turbidity and toxicity in the northern Mackenzie River basin.
The organization has since expanded its concerns to the Arctic Ocean drainage basin, and other chapters have started up in northern B.C. and Saskatchewan. The Athabasca chapter has contributed to reports on the health of the Athabasca River and a massive database of oilsands incidents.
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