Fort Chipewyan: In the Shadow of the Oil Sands
Fort Chipewyan is a northern Canadian First Nations community of some 1200 residents. For thousands of years, the Chipewyan and Mikisew Cree bands in the region have relied upon their traditional ecological and cultural knowledge to live off of the surrounding environment. Historically, the health of the people has relied upon the health of the land - a delicate relationship that is now being destroyed by industrial developments in the area. Fort Chipewyan is situated on top of the world's second largest oil deposits and the tiny community now finds itself dangerously close to one of the largest and most ecologically destructive industrial projects in the world – the Canadian Oil Sands.
For over a decade, fatal cancers and other unexplainable illnesses have swept across the community, and still the cries of the people and medical practitioners of Fort Chipewyan continue to fall upon deaf ears. Tumor-laden fish now being found in Lake Athabasca and the results of independent environmental assessments have begun to confirm what the people of Fort Chipewyan have feared all along – their community is being poisoned by the Oil Sands.
Fort Chipewyan's local economy of commercial fishing and fur trading has been decimated by the environmental impacts of industry. As a result, the majority of the residents of Fort Chipewyan have been left with no other option but to work in the Oil Sands to support their families. A cloud of grief hangs heavy over Fort Chipewyan as the people, land and culture are all beginning to waste away – a process that is being referred to by some members of the community as cultural genocide.
This is an ongoing project.
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