Monday, January 27, 1997
A second look at the oil seekers
The petroleum industry is once again spending a lot of money looking for oil and natural gas in the Western Arctic. This time their focus is the Deh Cho, more specifically the Liard Valley.
Northern instincts are to embrace this latest display of enthusiasm from the industry, but a close look suggests a more reserved response is in order.
Though the dollar figures represent little more than minor tax deductions for the explorers, who still benefit from one of the last vestiges of federal industrial subsidies, the expenses are not insignificant in the larger Northern picture.
Unocal, Paramount, Ranger Oil and Shell are spending some $43 million over four years looking for fossil fuel deposits in the Liard region, even though, as company executives say, they don't have high hopes of finding any.
First of all, that kind of money has been spent before -- in the Beaufort Delta -- and produced little but dashed hopes and industrial graveyards in otherwise picturesque Tutoyaktuk.
Second, there are still signs of southern arrogance, with Nahanni Butte trappers complaining that their traps lines are being destroyed by exploration teams.
Third, that kind of money would do wonders for engineers developing clean energy systems, such as solar, wind and hydrogen fuel cells, all of which could be put to good use helping the North lessen its dependency on those same southern oil and gas companies and their environmentally disastrous product.
So, while we welcome the jobs and the dollars these companies will spend while they're here, let's not count on anything too wonderful further down the pipeline. We don't want to be disappointed again. (1/27/97)
Last week we received a piece of mail written on muskox dung. It got our attention.
It seems that teacher Cyndi Foster has her students in Cambridge Bay making paper from a mixture of recycled newsprint and digested sedge grass. This is the kind of initiative that the North needs.
It is a marketable, intelligent use of a readily available and renewable resource. Happily, it is a process that also uses recyclable paper.
The product is a sturdy, textured paper that has some flexibility. The samples that we received came in various colors. And no, it doesn't smell -- of anything.
The paper can be printed, written on, folded and mailed, proving it has the versatility needed to compete in today's marketplace.
The paper-making project in Cambridge Bay could serve as a model of the kind of entrepreneurial initiative that will bring the North to the world's markets.
Unlike so much of the simplistic claptrap about economic development going around these days, this idea's worth the paper it's printed on. (1/27/97)