Northword Magazine -- The Trouble with Tankers

Excerpted from Northword Magazine:

Kyle Clifton folds his large, 6’1” frame into the tiny Cessna 185 and his arms across his chest. He appears anxious...Flying in small aircraft isn’t the only thing that makes [Hartly Bay native] Clifton nervous. Kitimat marks the western end of the proposed Enbridge pipeline, a project designed to transport bitumen from the Alberta oilsands across northern BC to waiting tankers that would carry it to Asian markets. With Hartley Bay directly on the tanker route, fears of an oil spill—something opposition groups say is just a matter of time—plague the community. As a result, the Gitga’at is just one of many First Nations speaking out against the project over the threat it poses to their traditional lifestyle.

“Most places are economy first and everything else second. For us, it’s about saving the resources first. Without the resources, we have nothing,” Clifton says. “The Enbridge pipeline scares the hell out of us. It’s making us live in fear already, and it’s not even here.”

Clifton’s fears aren’t unsubstantiated. In 2006, commuter ferry the Queen of the North sank when it hit Gil Island, just off Hartley Bay, and for two years contamination concerns from leaking fuel prevented local residents from harvesting clams—a substantial part of their diet. Nearby King Pacific Lodge, a floating luxury fishing lodge that provides about 50 percent of the community’s employment, has already threatened to pull up anchor and move out if the pipeline goes through.

Crammed into the back of the Cessna with me is ForestEthics senior energy campaigner Nikki Skuce. After flying over the pipeline’s western end the evening before, we’ve now joined Clifton to explore the proposed tanker route.

“First Nations’ territories are vast and what’s at risk is huge,” Skuce says. “An oil spill would completely devastate the Gitga’at and the Haisla and, really, what company has a right to do that?”

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