My Little Corner of Canada, May 1

After oil was discovered in Prudoe Bay in Alaska in the 1960s, a mad rush for the Canadian High Arctic took place. Oil companies from Canada, the US and other countries were hoping to find vast reserves of oil and natural gas in the islands and waters of the High Arctic.

Hundreds of exploration permits were issued by the Government of Canada. There was very little oversight by the government and the oil companies carried out their activities with little concern for environmental protection, wildlife issues, or the concerns of Inuit communities in the region.

Resolute became the focal point of this exploration boom. It had a long airstrip and was the jumping off point for the oil companies with permits to drill for oil north and west of the small community.

During the spring and summer of one year, Resolute was one of the busiest airports in Canada with dozens of planes landing and taking off 24 hours a day in the never ending daylight.

That same summer, 13 huge freighters were anchored in the small bay bringing in tons and tons of supplies for the oil companies.

With all this uncontrolled activity, there were serious accidents and a lot of environmental damage that most Canadians never heard about.

There was huge blowout on one of the islands that lasted about two months.

We were lucky that it only spewed water and natural gas. If it had been oil, it would have been an environmental catastrophe.

There was a huge fire involving a drilling rig, where the workers had to be evacuated. An aircraft crashed at a PanArctic Oils site where dozens of oil workers died.

A cat train pulling loads containing a million litres of diesel fuel broke through the ice and sank. It is still there somewhere on the sea bottom.

Miles and miles of drilling mud and other waste were left on many islands. A lot of it is probably toxic. There were probably other incidents that we never heard about.

The exploration boom finally fizzled out in the 1970s after the Inuit of Nunavut started negotiating a land claims settlement with the Government of Nunavut. The issue of who had a claim to the land and resources was now in question and the oil companies didn’t like the uncertainty and pulled out.

Some oil and a lot of natural gas was discovered in the islands and waters. It is estimated that about 20 percent of Canada’s reserves are up there. If those reserves are ever to be exploited, the Inuit of Nunavut and their government will have to become full partners.