Mining

Graphic of oil barrels and a train going downhill - A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

Mégantic, Fracking & Money

EARLY SPECULATION on what caused the train disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Québec, in July seems to have settled on the role of the train’s engineer and the railway company’s poor safety record – and penchant for cutting corners. Some attention was also paid to the out-dated technology used for dangerous cargo, […]

Orion McKay catches some pickerel for dinner on the Fawn River

Web Exclusive: The Breathing Lands

THE ELDERS OF KITCHENUHMAYKOOSIB INNINUWUG (KI) FIRST NATION KNOW that local water flows through their blood, and that their bodies are built of the trout that swim in its clean rivers and lakes. Taking care of their watershed is a sacred responsibility handed down to the KI youth from the […]

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Blocking the Arteries of the Tar Sands

There’s been a tremendous amount of media coverage surrounding Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline proposal, which spawned an incredible resistance movement led primarily by indigenous nations of British Columbia. Events such as Defend Our Coast attracted thousands of protestors, while the Yinka Dene Alliance made national headlines with their anti-pipeline tour across […]

Prosperity mine Tŝilhqot’in First Nation drummers A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

No Means No

IN THE COLDEST NIGHT of the season, well below freezing, and the tawny grasses are stiff with frost. Since dawn we’ve been trekking through a shadowy forest of pine and fir, eventually reaching a wide, arched meadow with views extending to the south and west. Ts’yl?os [pronounced, Ts-eye´-los], sacred mountain […]

Peatlands contrasted with tailings ponds. A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

An Act of Deception

ON APRIL 17, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver stood behind a podium on the warehouse floor of Automatic Coating Limited’s Centre for Pipe Line Coating Innovation, in the industrial heart of Scarborough. Renowned for its technologically advanced and fully automated production lines, ACL has made a name for itself […]

Embodied Energy

WASTE DISCUSSIONS have traditionally focused on the back-end management of garbage: the significant economic and environmental implications of finding safe disposal sites, for example.  But the obvious often escapes us – that garbage is made up of basic materials (metal, wood, plastic, glass, etc.) that require energy to obtain, process and […]

Violating the Sacred

IN A RUGGED KNOT of mountains in the remote reaches of Northern British Columbia lies a stunningly beautiful valley known to the First Nations as the Sacred Headwaters. There, on the southern edge of the Spatsizi Wilderness, the Serengeti of Canada, are born in remarkably close proximity three of Canada’s […]

Black bear cub peaks out from behind some mossy rocks A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

Northern Getaway

A WHITE SPIRIT BEAR cub tentatively crosses a mossy log, followed closely by his black sibling. Majestic grey wolves search for salmon from a rocky, seaweed-enveloped shore at low tide. Two orca whales ply the waters at sunset. “They call this the Great Bear Rainforest,” explains Gitga’at first nation member Helen […]