YELLOWKNIFE - The Drybones Bay region may appear an empty wilderness to prospectors, but for aboriginal groups that testified at hearings on further mineral exploration there, the land holds great spiritual, cultural and archeological significance and should remain free from development.

Rachel Crapeau, manager of land and environment for the Yellowknives Dene, makes a statement at the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board hearings on Consolidated GoldWin Ventures' and Sidon International's mineral exploration program with Greg Empson, Yellowknives Dene legal counsel. - Jason Unrau/NNSL photo

"We as elders say that we wanted to keep that area undeveloped, so I don't agree with the development that is being proposed," Isadorre Tsetta, a Yellowknives Dene, stated at the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board (MVEIRB) hearings on the matter. "I'm very concerned about all our ancestral burial grounds and are they going to drill near those burial grounds?"

Tuesday and Wednesday, the MVEIRB convened to discuss development permit applications from Consolidated GoldWin Ventures and Sidon International, which would allow those companies to conduct exploratory diamond drilling approximately 50-kilometres southeast of Yellowknife in the Akaitcho Territory.

While aboriginal groups complained they have not been properly consulted on the companies' plans, the companies maintain that MVEIRB hearings are part of the consultation process and, until they begin drilling, the information presented to the board is as complete a picture as they can currently provide.

"It's the same plan we've had for three years," GoldWin's chair Abby Farrage told Yellowknifer during a break in the hearings. "How can we define the project if we don't know what we're going to find there?"

The companies' intention is to explore nine "targets" in six different locations. In a "best case scenario" would require winter drilling of 27 holes to obtain a half-cubic-metre of material for analysis.

While the companies classify the proposed work as "short term" with no significant impact on hunters and trappers, they have yet to determine the exact location of a six-person work camp that is required or whether necessary equipment would be delivered by helicopter or via an ice road. It was also noted that no complete archeological inventory of the area has been made.

"My initial thoughts are that it doesn't appear that there's been a lot of planning or a lot of work put into your proposal to this point in time," said Greg Empson, legal counsel for the Yellowknives Dene.

Laurence Stephenson, Farrage's geological and financial consultant, responded, "if we expend another $150,000 and still can't drill that's wasted expenditure."

Manager for the Yellowknives Dene land and environment program Rachel Crapeau, who also testified at the hearings, called the information "skimpy," adding the Yellowknives are adamantly against further industrial activity in the area.

"We are unhappy and don't want it," she said.

Following the hearings, the MVEIRB will allow two weeks for written submissions before making its recommendation to Indian and Northern Affairs, which will either decline the permits, approve them or approve them with conditions.