le blog (it’s here!)
Whirlwind Wednesday Part 1- March 19, 2008
9am. Breakfast and we all meet up for a logistical meeting. The hotel cafe serves fair trade organic coffee. In lieu of the Suncor tour we’re going to drive to Fort McKay, about 45 minutes north of Fort McMurray, to meet with a resident to talk about local impacts of the development. Following that, some of us will meet with representatives from a local of the Canadian Union of Public Employee’s and some of us will hop into a helicopter and fly over the Tars Sands development. I opt to fly☺
But first, the Oil Sands Discovery Centre. ‘The Centre is an educational facility committed to increasing public awareness, appreciation and knowledge about the oil sands industry. This is done by presenting and interpreting the history, technology and significance of the industry and its role in the development of Canada.’ Oil Sands Discovery Centre website. 
Our tour of the centre begins with a 15-minute film called ‘Quest for Energy’. The film walks you through the history of the Tar Sands development, from the end of the 19th century through to the present day. There have been a number of attempts to get oil of that pesky sand over the years, interestingly, the film clearly makes the point that it wasn’t until the Alberta provincial government becoming earnestly involved in the research process of how to extract bitumen from the sand that the process of exploiting the Tar Sands began to look financially viable for the private sector. The little film was a good introduction and a quick overview of the process of how the extraction process takes place. After the film an employee of the centre demonstrated the actual process of using steam to extract the bitumen from the sands. She had a beaker of tar sand into which she poured hot water and mixed it with a spoon. 
After some stirring, the sand began to separate from the bitumen, which can then either be further refined into different products such as airplane fuel, gasoline and much more. This simulated the process of using steam to separate the bitumen from the sand – which is one of the methods being used in the Tar Sands.
A good description of the actual process is from Wikipedia.
Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD)
Steam assisted gravity drainage was developed in the 1980s by an Alberta government research center and fortuitously coincided with improvements in directional drilling technology that made it quick and inexpensive to do by the mid 1990s. In SAGD, two horizontal wells are drilled in the tar sands, one at the bottom of the formation and another about 5 metres above it. These wells are typically drilled in groups off central pads and can extend for miles in all directions. In each well pair, steam is injected into the upper well, the heat melts the bitumen, which allows it to flow into the lower well, where it is pumped to the surface. SAGD has proved to be a major breakthrough in production technology since it is cheaper than CSS, allows very high oil production rates, and recovers up to 60% of the oil in place. Because of its very favorable economics and applicability to a vast area of tar sands, this method alone quadrupled North American oil reserves and allowed Canada to move to second place in world oil reserves after Saudi Arabia. Most major Canadian oil companies now have SAGD projects in production or under construction in Alberta’s tar sands areas and in Wyoming. Examples include Japan Canada Oil Sands Ltd’s (JACOS) project, Suncor’s Firebag project, Nexen’s Long Lake project, Petro-Canada’s MacKay River project, Husky Energy’s Tucker Lake and Sunrise projects, Shell Canada’s Peace River project, Encana’s Foster Creek development, ConocoPhillips Surmont project, and Devon Canada’s Jackfish project, and Derek Oil & Gas’s LAK Ranch project. Alberta’s OSUM Corp has combined proven underground mining technology with SAGD to enable higher recovery rates by running wells from underground within the tar sands deposit, thus also reducing energy requirements compared to traditional SAGD. This particular technology application is in its testing phase and has stranded oil and other carbonate applications as well.
The sand itself is quite abrasive and the guide told us that the equivalent of two pickup trucks worth of metal can be ground off of equipment in the mining process every day.
Our guide didn’t know the answer to many of our questions about environmental and health impacts of the Tar Sands development. She said several time that the centre received most of its information from industry. We asked her who she worked for and she said this is a provincial government facility. (Flash back to the comment from the Suncor person who said we’d be meeting with a Suncor employee when we went to the Oil Sands Discovery Centre.) This is an interesting point because she knew that the information we were receiving had a bias. Welcoming you just after the admission booth to the Centre is this wall of barrels with the names of the centre’s supporters. Many oil companies are on the barrels.
After the talk with the guide we checked out the rest of the centre, which consists of a kids exploration area and a bunch of displays walking you through the process of how the mining and refining process takes place. One of the displays consists of the front section, including engine, wheels and drivers cabin of a two-story mining vehicle. As you sit in the drivers seat a giant screen in front of you simulates you driving through a mine in your truck as chatter comes over the radio system in the drivers cabin. At the end of the centre is a section about First Nations communities and the environment.
After leaving the centre we began the drive to Fort McKay where we come upon another WIIIIIIIDE load, this one allowed for no traffic dodging at all. That giant Pyrogy in Glendan, although large, just doesn’t hold up to Tar Sands large.
Just off the highway we could see a complex of workers housing. They look like prison camps, some of them are very large. There are between 50,000 – 60,000 construction workers working in the area now. Which raises the point of employment. There is most definitely a boom happening in the area now. However, much of this work is construction related, building workers camps, building new refineries and mining sites, building entire neighbourhoods where currently trees stand. All of this frantic development is employing a lot of people, but, many of the critics are saying that once the actual construction boom ends, there may be truck loads of sand to mine, but there won’t be truck loads of jobs.
Tuesday March 18, 2008
11 people, 2 vans, one Fort, you figure it out.
The whole group met up at noon at one of the organizers houses in South Edmonton, near the funkariffic Whyte Ave. strip. We did a brief bit of intro, had some yummy treats, tucked ourselves into two mini-vans and hit the high road. It’s about a five-hour drive north from e-town to the tar sands. Lot’s of beautiful, flat-ish, country.
The highway to Fort McMurray is called the highway of death because of all of the accidents that take place on it. People getting off of working a 7, 14 or 21 day run of shift working, tired, wanting to get to Edmonton, or Calgary, or somewhere else for a few days, hop into a car, it may be late at night, they may be tired, much of the highway is only two lane, they may be on speed, or caffine, or uppers or something else to stay awake, and, well, you get the idea. The highway is in the process of being twined and small sections of it have been completed. Thankfully, no death on this trip for us. We did however pass the mother of all WIIIIIIDE loads. Three flat-bed truck’s, each carrying one large, very large, extremely vary large, blue, cylindrical… something. The girth of each blue, cylindrical something extended so far off of each of each flat bed that the trucks took up almost half of the lane of ONCOMING traffic as well as their own lane. Passing the blue-cylindrical something felt like playing a game of dodge-the-cannon-ball. Thankfully we won.
We arrived in Fort McMurray, the ‘beating heart of the Alberta’ economy at 5:30pm. Ft. Mac looks like many small towns I’ve been in. It seemed as if, on the way into town, we would pass row’s of parked pick up trucks. Orderly. We checked into our hotel and re-convened for a logistics chat-o-rama. Bad news, the tour we had set up for Wednesday morning at the Suncor refining facility had been cancelled. The Suncor folks had asked for a list of who from our group would be touring the Suncor facility. The list was sent Monday night and we received the ‘gotta cancel’ call Tuesday mid-morning. The person from Suncor said something had come up at the plant and they had cancelled all tours. Our coordinator asked if it would be possible for us to talk with someone from Suncor so we could hear their perspective on Tar Sands development. Our coordinator was told that, as we had plans to visit the Oils Sands Discovery Centre, and would have a tour of that centre and would have a presentation from an employee at the centre, we would be meeting with a Suncor employee. (remember this point dear reader)
Tuesday evening we met with several FN elders from the Fort McMurray area. The elders shared many stories with us about the impact of the Tare Sands development on their communities, their culture, their health, their food and water, diversion of rivers, polluting of waters, fish with tumours and that smell of chemicals, in effect, every aspect of their lives and the cost of living here. A one-bedroom apartment in Fort McMurray costs between $1,200 – $1,500. The cost of buying a house starts at about $600,000.
Much of the conversation centered on the dramatic increase in cancer rates in FN communities over the last few years. One of the women we met with said, “We go from wake to wake, and I go to every wake, because it’s the right thing to do and I want people to come to mine.” Another said “When I was young, it was only the elders who would die of cancer, maybe 1 or 2 a year. Now, after 30 years of Tar Sands development, it’s younger and younger people who die of cancer. All kinds of cancers. Very rare cancers. The graveyard is full.” 6 people have died from cancer in the community since this January. One of the women meeting with us had her granddaughter with her. The granddaughter’s father, who is 31, has cancer. Another young man, 27, has developed a rare form of cancer. She said, “Why isn’t the rest of Canada in an uproar? What will it take?”
Monday March 17, 2008
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Last Thursday a new documentary aired on the CBC called Tar Sands, the Selling of Alberta. Check out the links on the CBC page for more Tar Sands info.
Last week I heard an interview on CBC radio with the director of the film, an Albertan. During the interview it was mentioned that the Mayor of Ft. McMurray is frustrated with the negative attention that the Tar Sands is receiving and that a marketing campaign will be put in place to promote the benefits of what’s happening there.
Here’s a link to some aerial photo’s of the Tar Sands. Here’s a link to a few job postings for work in the tar sands.
My friend Zane is teaching a 6 week course on labour and the oil sands at the University of Alberta. It sounds like an excellent course. Here’s a photo of the course outline, break out the magnifyer, 
and a shot form last years class. 
If you’re interetesd in the course check this out and click on the 2008 Spring and Summer guide PDF.
Saturday March 15, 2008
All done. It’s been a great day. There’s a lot of snow on the ground here and it is beautiful. This morning the keynote speaker was spoken word poet and activist Jon Jon Rivero. Jon Jon shared some of his poetry with the group and then his story which was largely about his families struggle with his fathers cancer and how that journey slowly led him into doing more and more to try and address injustices. 
Molly and I facilitated two workshops on climate change in the morning and had a discussion with a group of teachers in the afternoon. Each morning workshop had about 20 participants. The two workshops ended up being very different in terms of what we did and how the discussion rolled out. Our workshop was titled ‘Taking a look at climate change – what difference can we make?’ Other workshops included ‘Student Activism against genocide in Darfur, Environmental Sustainability Made Easy and Education for Women and Girls in Afghanistan.
The workshop started with a brief intro to CYH and then a few rounds of move your butt. We followed that up with a brainstorm on what people think of when they hear the term climate change. Folks had a lot to say and many thoughts on the topic. Climate change is such an encompassing topic that it is confused, understandably, with other issues such as ozone depletion, air quality, peak oil, toxic burdens and so on. Of course each of these is connected, but we took a few minuets in each workshop to explain the actual process of climate change – why it’s happening and how.
During the brainstorm in the first workshop agricultural land, environmental refugees, melting glaciers, flooding coastlines, impacts on the majority world, and weird weather came up in quick succession. After this list was up, a male participant asked ‘So, is this the end? Are we headed into some kind of chaos and disaster?’ The room was silent. I think this question runs through a lot of people’s minds when they learn about the cumulative impact of the moment that we are in. We responded by saying that ‘Some are predicting that that’s where we may end up, and, that what’s important right now, is that we be working at every level we can, individually, with friends and family and in our communities so that we actively shape the future, instead of just finding ourselves somewhere we don’t want to be. It’s partly about hope and action’
After the brainstorm we moved into climate change bingo, which resulted in an excellent conversation about how often, when we think about climate change we think about things like oil production, cars, and industry and weather changes.
In discussions about climate change the connection to our general consumption patterns aren’t always made looking at how much we consume, of pretty much everything and the impact of this on the planet, people and our own future. After bingo we played scattergories in smaller groups. In scattergories each group had to come up with 5 things that can be done to address climate change: as an individual, with family/friends, in their community. We then came back together and shared the lists as a whole group. We then went over the list of actions, asking people which of these things they thought they could/would actually do. Then we had them fill out pledge sheets of three things that they will do when they return home to address climate change. We will mail the pledges to them when we get back to Vancouver.
In the second workshop we tried to show a clip from the Story of Stuff. Thankfully, in retrospect, technology didn’t triumph and we ended up having an amazing conversation with the group about consumption, marketing, hope, how we make change happen, whether or not we have to have a crash and then try and build something new from that and so on. During that conversation we were able to get into what’s happening in the majority world in terms of addressing climate change, which led us into talking about how we can’t just buy our way out of the place we are in and so much more. We then moved into what they can actually do to address climate change. It was a whirlwind. We had a lot of good feedback from participants from both sessions who said they felt that we were respectful of everyone’s opinions, that the workshop, although dealing with very difficult issues, left them feeling hopeful and inspired with ideas for next steps. Can’t ask for much more in an hour.
Some other things we learned today.
All that trash.
-Edmonton diverts about 80% of its waste from the landfill and has a citywide composting system (Hello City of Vancouver!). There is also a methane capture system at the landfill which catches the gases form the landfill site, generating power that is put back into the grid.
-A community wide recycling system was implemented in the Glendon (population 500 and home of the world’s largest pyrogy), because of the activism of two grade 12 students who became very passionate about wanting to do something in their community to reduce the amount of waste produced. The students, with the support of their teacher, organized, did research, prepared materials and presented to the local council with a passionate argument asking for a community wide recycling system. The council said yes and now the community has a system in place. Some of the councilors told the teacher who was supporting the students that they said yes to the proposal because it came from the youth, that if it had been the teacher who came to them asking for the same thing, they probably would have said no. Now the teacher tells us that kids in grade 3 in that school, the local school is k-12 have seen at what the grade 12’s have accomplished and view that as a benchmark for what is possible, i.e. something to surpass. A small but important step.
The husband of another teacher at the conference is a truck driver in Fort McMurray. He hates it up there, but it pays the bills. (We heard this comment from many people who have friends or family who work in the Tar Sands – they don’t really like it, but where else can they get a job that pays like that?) Her husband recently told her that he had seen a pit full of brand new computers, printers, stereo systems and a photocopier, still in their boxes. The pit was being bulldozed over with dirt. It’s spring breakup for some of the work camps and apparently it’s cheaper and less hassle for some companies to bulldoze brand new equipment over than to store it for next year or to donate it.
Some quotes from the day
“Our consumer based society in North America started with the Fur Trade”
“The Tar Sands are Apocalyptic. That’s the word that comes to mind”
“He was able to buy a truck with one paycheque – what do you say to that? “
“All our dads and men are up there”
“My husband hates it – working in the oil sands.”
“We have to support the youth we work with”
The teacher’s session was very good. We talked about challenges that educators face trying to get into these issues, especially in smaller communities where many, or most people may be completely reliant on the oil industry for their livelihood. We also shared ideas and strategies for how to engage people in ways, which don’t alienate them, and the best ways to try and support the youth that we work with. I think everyone in the teachers session felt overwhelmed by the huge nature of what we face and we talked about how important it is to actually have that conversation, the conversation about how we are feeling about climate change and the fact that it scares us and that we feel overwhelmed and don’t always feel like we know what to do. Merely by having the conversation, we are engaging in an empowering process and that if we don’t do that; we are in danger of isolating ourselves and succumbing to inertia. We also had a good conversation about how no one’s really sure how to move ahead, how we are in the middle of this movement, together, figuring out where it needs to go and how we can get there and that the kind of conversations we were having together were a key part of that. We can’t wait for leadership to arrive to show us the way; we have to forge it together, now. And we are.
Friday March 14, 2008 9:28pm
We’re heeere! Gull Lake Alberta – about a 70minute drive south of the Edmonton International Airport for the Rural Roots conference – oops– let’s back up a couple off frames – reeeewind to early Friday morning. After a full day at the office – Molly and I meeting to finalise plans for our workshops at Rural Roots, a meeting about youth engagement strategies in the city of Vancouver and a whack load of other busyness – we hit the sidewalk to catch our proletariat chariot to the Vancouver airport the #491 Two Road.
This is the second time the magnificent Molly and I have taken an out of town CYH trip ensemble and I’m beginning to think that the good folks at Translink have it in for us. On our last adventure, not two weeks ago to Saltspring for an environmental youth conference, we waited at the right place and the right time – FOR A LONG TIME – for a bus that, alas, never showed itself. We had time and place from Translink Tonya herself – Molly even called Translink back while waiting for our handsome chariot to sweep us off our feet– all to no avail. It became apparent that if waited for the bus any longer we would miss our Ferry, the last one of the night, which would mean going home, getting up at the CeRAAACK of dawn and running out to the Ferry Terminal to try and make it to Saltspring before our first workshop – an idea we did not relish. Like stood-up prom goers we decided to take matters into our own hands, hopped into a cab, yellow no less, and metered it all the way out to the Tsawwassen Ferry terminal which really ain’t far but is some fare.
Today, we arrived at the right time and the right place to catch our bus to the airport, and yet again, the bus did not come. Anticipating this possibility, the super smart Molly Lynes-Ford had outfoxed Translink Tonya, for Molly had taken schedule information for us to catch a bus too soon as it were, earlier than what we actually needed to get to the airport on time. It worked the first bus did not arrive, but the second bus came on time and on we hopped on – take that Translink!
Unfortunately, due to napping (Molly) and daydreaming (me) we missed our bus exchange in Richmond and ended up near a wee bridge, staring at the airport, so close and yet so far. Molly attempted to call a cab and I waived my arms like a whirling dervish in a vain attempt to stop a passing taxi. Thankfully a bus came along and we did make it to the church on time for our wee flight to e-town.
At the Edmonton International Airport we were met by Daniel, a very positive and engaging board member of Change for Children (C4C). Daniel is studying economics and once he’s competed his degree plans to not take another economics course, ever. He has been involved in C4C’s Project Hope doing work in Latin America. Daniel drove us from the Edmonton International Airport to Gull Lake, a Baptist camp where the Rural Roots conference is being held and, well, we’re heeeere.
Things we learned from Daniel on our drive to the camp; La Duke was the sight of the first oil discovery in Alberta in 1947, the Alberta Government is considering allowing the first nuclear reactor to be built in Western Canada about 5 hours Northeast of Edmonton, at the same time that Bob Rae, a former Premiere of Ontario was being beaten and bruised by the media for the size of the Ontario deficit, the Alberta government had a higher per capita deficit than Ontario’s, Alberta has both the lowest taxes and the highest per capita provincial government spending in Canada, minus 20 is really “not that bad, unless it’s windy – then it will cut through your coat like a knife”.
The event we are at is called Shape Your World and is the annual youth conference organized by C4C. There are about 80 youth here aged 13 – 18 from across Alberta who have come for the weekend to learn about social change through workshops using the arts, poetry, community activism, multi-media and more. We are facilitating two workshops on Climate Change with the youth participants and one with teachers on tools for teaching about global issues. When we arrived at the conference tonight Ravi Jaipul was telling his story to the participants. Ravi is a young Albertan who has done work in Nicaragua with C4C and in Guyana. Ravi shared the story of how he became involved in the work of building a better world. It was a powerful story beginning with Ravi being knocked almost unconscious in a hockey tournament by a player who had taunted him with a racial slur beforehand. The incident, which left Ravi in a semi-conscious state for 3 days afterward and ended his dream of playing hockey, started him on a journey of activism both in Alberta and abroad. Ravi is now very involved in the campaign to stop the violence in Darfur, C4C and many other great projects. His tale of self-discovery and activism was inspiring.
KM
Wednesday March 12, 2008
So, to get things going – here’s a quick entry. From March 14 – 21 Molly, our amazing Program Director, and I will be in Alberta. We’re starting our journey with a wonderful group called Change for Children and their Rural Roots Conference where we’ll be doing some workshops on Climate Change with youth from across Alberta. From there we’re off to meet, not the wizard exactly, but something close – the Tar Sands! That’s right, we’re going to the source to talk to people about what’s happening in the Tar Sands, what the issues and concerns are and what folks in Alberta are trying to do about them.
We’re travelling with a great group of folks from the CCPA, the Council of Canadians, Greenpeace, The Pembina Institute, the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and CUPE BC. We will be quite the caravan.
There is a LOT going on in connection to the Tar Sands. More and more people are speaking up about concerns in connection with the Tar Sands and its impact on both our country and our climate.
We’ll be loading some photo’s of our trip up as well as some posts about what we’re learning along the way – so check back in!
