NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
The people of the Sahtu need to understand what fracking is and its potential economic, social and environmental impacts before a decision can be made on whether large-scale development is wanted in the region.

During the Bakken formation tour, representatives from the NWT visited the Three Affiliated Tribes in New Town, North Dakota, where 500 fracked wells generate $25 million per month in oil revenue. Here, Tribal Council representative Ken Hall, left, Fort Good Hope Chief Greg Laboucan, and Tribal Employment Rights Office administrator Charles Foote meet. - photo courtesy of Leanne Graydon/ITI

This was the main takeaway for leaders from the Sahtu and the territorial government who travelled to the Bakken formation – a 520,000 square kilometre subterranean oil play being developed in southern Saskatchewan and North Dakota – from Sept. 29 to Oct. 4.

"We've got to do more community meetings where the process is fully explained," said Industry, Tourism and Investment Minister David Ramsay, whose department organized the trip.

He promised the GNWT is working on a community tour to explain the process to Sahtu residents.

Most leaders and community members the delegation met with were happy with the boom development has brought to their region, but said if they had it to do over again, they would plan things a lot better.

"One of the main things we heard is they wish they would have had more time to plan," said Ramsay.

"We do have time. We're probably quite a few years away from commercial development."

Along with Ramsay, representatives from the Tulita Land Corporation, the Norman Wells Land Corporation, the Fort Norman Land Corporation, the Fort Norman Dene Band, the Fort Good Hope Band, the National Energy Board, Sahtu MLA Norman Yakeleya, Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley and Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins first visited Regina and Estevan, Sask., where they toured rigs and saw a live frack from within a control room. They then travelled south by bus to Williston, North Dakota. Ten years ago, Williston was an agricultural town with about 12,000 residents. Today, its population is more 30,000 people and unemployment is among the lowest in the United States thanks to the oil boom.

To see impacts on First Nations peoples, the group travelled to a reserve near Williston, where beneficiaries of the Three Affiliated Tribes — the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara – rake in about $25 million per month in oil revenue. There are currently 500 wells on reserve land there, and another 15,000 are being proposed.

Community leaders consider fracking

For Fort Good Hope Chief Greg Laboucan, the trip was a chance to see the impacts of development first hand and to learn more about fracking, which he said he knew very little about previously.

He said he now understands the process and appreciates the level of technology used and the amount of money pouring in to the communities he visited. However, he is still not convinced he would like to see the practice used upstream from his community, and worries about the harmful social and environmental impacts he saw.

"The amount of money they're receiving is astronomical," he said of visiting the MHA Three Tribes.

Along with their new wealth, members are facing issues of increased crime, alcohol abuse and spiking drug use. The growing pains related to the boom were evident on the state of the roads and in the lack of infrastructure, he said.

Douglas Yallee, sub chief with the Fort Norman Band, had a similar reaction.

He said he saw rigs, trucks and thrown-together trailer camps "all over the place."

For him, the most disconcerting part was that, in the roughly two-hour drive from Williston to the Three Affiliated Tribes reserve, he saw no wildlife. This was likely due to the amount of traffic on the road.

"It's amazing the amount of truckloads that are coming in an out to the rigs – for one rig, they estimated it takes 2,200 truckloads in 24 hours," he said.

While on the reserve, he asked if the people still practise their traditional culture.

"They said yes, they still hold dances, but that's not really what I meant," he said. When he rephrased, asking if anyone still traps or hunts, the answer was "no."

Both leaders said they personally don't support fracking in the Sahtu, but that the decision should be left up to the people who live there. When asked if they thought people in their communities understand what fracking is and what the future could hold for the Sahtu, they said no.

To fix this, Laboucan said he wants to see the results of geological work done in the region, where the deposits are and where underground water is.

Yallee is putting together a presentation on what he saw during the trip and plans to present it at the band's next public meeting.

"My concern is more for the younger people, for the future," he said. "What's going to be left?"

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