In two days, we leave for the Tar Sands. We will meet up in
Edmonton on Thursday evening, and then travel on together. I am recently back
from two other canoe trips in Ontario and Quebec, both within 250 km of Ottawa.
On both of those trips, like on most of my Canadian canoe trips, I drank the
water right out of the lake or river. It
will be different on the Athabasca River through the Tar Sands industrial development
and beyond. Even though the trip ends in Ft Chipewyan at 59 degrees N, and
adjacent to Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada’s largest national park and the
park containing the Peace-Athabasca Delta, the world’s largest inland delta, we
cannot drink the water, and are bringing water for the majority of the trip.
There are five of us going; beside myself there are two Vancouver
writers, Judy and Rua, a New York photographer, Brittany, and a political aide (my nephew, Evan) to
Canada’s first Green Party MLA, Andrew Weaver. We will be meeting up along the
way with a Metis group of paddlers headed up by Sara, a school teacher
whose partner, Ron is from Ft Chip.
I am getting a lot of details ironed out last minute. That is
inevitable in the north, where time and schedules take a back seat to the weather
and the natural rhythms. This is the first summer in a very long time that my
dog, Willow, recently deceased, will not be on the trip. I am sad about the
state ot the water on the Athabasca and area, and sad to no longer be
accompanied by Willow, who was in my estimation, the best dog in the world. I am very much looking forward to the trip and also, uncomfortable with the destruction, the pollution and the denial which I know we will see. But we will also see the bravery, the good will and the lightheartedness of those working for change, and those living one of the biggest contradictions in the western world.
