Blog post by Ethan Buckner (@ethanbuckner), US Organizer, ForestEthics
5th Annual Tar Sands Healing Walk, Fort McMurray, Alberta. Photo: Ethan Buckner, ForestEthics
Last weekend, I traveled further north than I’d ever been in my life, to Fort McMurray, Alberta for the 5th Annual Tar Sands Healing Walk. At this time of year in "Fort Mac" (as they call it up there), the sun shines late into the night, so even on a new moon at midnight the sky is dusky and dim but never completely dark.
The healing walk’s camp is located about 35 kilometers (~21 miles) south of town, sitting beside the beautiful and enormous Gregoire Lake, which is surrounded by brilliant green Boreal forest.
Organized by Athabasca Keepers of the Water, the entire weekend was rich with ceremony, prayer, learning, and connection. On Saturday, more than 300 of us gathered at Crane Lake, one of SunCor's so-called "reclamation" sites. We walked in a procession led by Dene drummers around one of the tar sands mines, past toxic tailings ponds, and an enormous bitumen upgrading facility.
Stories of despair and pain, cancer, and corrupt government shared by First Nations leaders echoed in my head as the dense metallic air penetrated my lungs.
Throughout the walk, as I heard countless tales of Big Oil's exploitation and community resistance, I couldn't help but think about the communities I've been working with back home in the Bay Area. How residents in Pittsburg, facing the region's highest rates of asthma, led a David vs. Goliath battle to beat back efforts to build an enormous oil-by-rail facility and tank farm in their community.
How residents in Richmond, after a massive refinery fire sent 15,000 people to the hospital, are rising up to challenge Chevron's relentless expansion plans.
And then, on the first night of the walk, I learned that First Nations in Canada had just won a momentous victory in Canadian courts, expanding land title rights that will provide tremendous leverage for First Nations communities fighting tar sands development.
It’s clear that our movement to stop tar sands is stronger than ever.
Next Saturday, I'll join hundreds of Bay Area residents for our fourth and final leg of the Connect the Dots Refinery Corridor Healing Walks. Inspired by comrades in Alberta, these walks have led our growing Bay Area movement on a journey for healing, from the WesPac site in Pittsburg, to the Shell and Tesoro refineries in Martinez, to Valero's refinery in Benicia, to Phillips 66 in Rodeo, and to Chevron in Richmond.
The walks have been led by Idle No More along with the growing number of grassroots community groups that have blossomed to fight big oil's expansion plans this past year.
I left Alberta not only with the sights, smells, and tastes of the tar sands, but with a profound sense of hope from the Healing Walk community. As I flew west over the snowcapped Canadian Rockies, across the lush Frazer River basin then south over the calm waters of the Salish Sea and, finally, toward the rocky coast of Northern California that I call home, I thought about the lines that both physically and politically divide us.
Despite the many borders that separate California, Oregon, and Washington from British Columbia and Alberta, the struggle to defend communities and the climate from tar sands destruction is very much connected.
Big oil preys upon communities that have already endured long histories of racism, colonialism, and economic exploitation. But everywhere oil shows up, so does our movement. Led by the communities most impacted by tar sands destruction, our movement is growing more powerful by the day - for the healing of our communities, and the healing of our planet.
ForestEthics, 350.org, Sierra Club, Oil Change International, and Le Carre Bleu Lac-Mégantic are teaming up for a Week of Action July 6th-13th. Hundreds of communities all over North America will stand together to stop oil by rail. Find an event near you!