Canada Cree Now Back Power Project on Native Lands

Ben Harder
for National Geographic News

July 2, 2002

Bill Namagoose was just a boy when government-dispatched bulldozers came
30 years ago to bottle up the energetic flow of the La Grande River in
the remote region of Quebec where he and his fellow Cree live.

Now, long after losing a legal bid to halt that damming—and after decades of fighting alongside environmentalists and concerned citizens to block other hydroelectric projects on native lands—the High Council of the Cree has surprised many people by a recent move: It's supporting a project to divert much of the Rupert River.

The government-owned power company that built the La Grande River project now wants to redirect much of the Rupert River's flow to a massive hydroelectric plant that is already underway. The plan would flood 400 square miles (900 square kilometers) of land on which the Cree live and hunt and would reduce the river's flow by at least 80 percent.

Despite the impact—and unlike in the past—the tribal leaders have given their stamp of approval. In a new deal dubbed the Peace of the Braves, Hydro-Quebec has agreed to share the profits from the hydroelectric plant with the Cree in exchange for the tribe's acquiescence.

Namagoose, now the executive director of the High Council of the Cree, defends the agreement against some environmentalists' claims that it is a sale to the devil. "They want us to go down fighting for the sake of environmental protection," he said. "[But] every nation should be allowed to benefit from the extraction of its natural resources. That's the concession we see in our present situation."

Surprising Development

The alliance between Hydro-Quebec and the Cree's High Council once seemed highly improbable, especially after the Cree's bitter experience from the La Grande River project.

After the La Grande dam began operating, it flooded 6,750 square miles (15,000 square kilometers) that included vast tracts of prime land in surrounding river valleys. The Cree saw much of their fishing and hunting grounds disappear, and the flooding displaced about a third of the 9,000-strong Cree Nation, which has since grown to 14,000 members.

The effects of the damming and flooding led to high concentrations of mercury in local waters. Fish were found to be heavily contaminated with the toxic metal, forcing the Cree to suspend all fishing in the affected region.

"Fish is really spiritual food in our culture," said Namagoose. "It is the first solid food given to a baby and the last food given to an elder before they pass on."

A third of the Cree economy is still based on fishing, hunting, and trapping—subsistence activities that tribal members said were heavily damaged by the dam's construction.

With that bitter experience behind them, Namagoose and his fellow Cree fought back with renewed vigor when new hydroelectricity plans in the 1980s threatened the Great Whale River and the James Bay, into which the Great Whale flows.

The Cree sued the government and, aligned with environmentalists, mounted an ambitious public information campaign in Canada and the United States.

New York and some states in New England had agreed to buy power from Hydro-Quebec. A proliferation of "Save the Bay" bumper stickers and other moves to block the project fueled public opposition, however, and the company finally backed off.

"I spent seven years of my life fighting hydroelectric projects on the Great Whale River," Namagoose recalled. "And in the end, it was my river."

A New Deal

Under the agreement in February between the Quebec government and the High Council of the Cree, the tribe will receive up to 2 percent of the revenue generated by Hydro-Quebec's new dam on the Rupert River. The Crees' revenue from this arrangement is estimated at $3.5 billion in Canadian currency (U.S.2.27 billion) over fifty years.

For its part, the High Council has agreed not to marshal its formidable will to oppose development.

The new deal has drawn criticism from environmentalists and others, even though many people say they understand the High Council's motives for accepting it.

"The Cree people are living in what can only be described as extreme poverty," said David Boyd, a professor of environmental law at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. "Their leaders made a decision—a very difficult decision, I'm sure—to sacrifice some of the environment to reap the economic benefits of development in their region."

Continuing Opposition

In a reflection of environmentalists' concerns about the new hydroelectric complex, the nonprofit conservation group Earthwild International last week listed the Rupert as number one among Canada's most threatened rivers.

Namagoose argues that it's growing demand for electricity that is driving the construction of dams and related environmental impacts. "If environmentalists are serious about saving the Rupert—and preserving other rivers from future hydroelectric dam projects—they have to go to the demand side," he said.

That demand comes from both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. Claudine Aucuit, a Hydro-Quebec spokeswoman, said, "We are building now for demand which will occur later, which is climbing." Ninety-six percent of the company's power comes from hydroelectricity, half of which is generated on Cree territory, she said.

Without Cree support, environmentalists aren't optimistic about halting the Rupert River plan. "We won't stop Hydro-Quebec," conceded Jacqueline Leroux of the nonprofit group Reverence Rupert.

Yet Leroux and her group's small coalition of kayakers, conservationists, and Cree who oppose the rivers' development are dedicated to educating people about the dam's possible damage to local ecotourism and fish stocks, and about alternative sources of energy.

If such efforts succeeded in reducing demand for energy use in Quebec and upper regions of the United States that are potential markets for Hydro-Quebec's electricity, there could be some relief for the Rupert, as well as for other rivers marked for the same fate.

Many opponents of the new hydroelectricity project are heartened by past success. Faced with consumer opposition to the use of energy from the Crees' native lands, developers eventually abandoned plans that also would have diverted the waters of the mighty Great Whale River.

Join the National Geographic Society

Join the world's largest nonprofit scientific and educational organization, and help further our mission to increase and diffuse knowledge of the world and all that is in it. Membership dues are used to fund exploration and educational projects and members also receive 12 annual issues of the Society's official journal, National Geographic. Click here for details of our latest subscription offer: Go>>