First Nations teens stand on the banks of the Albany River after a wet day of rafting down the 1,000 km long body of water.
TANYA TALAGA/TORONTO STARALBANY RIVER, ONT.
There is a Cree legend about the insatiable appetite of big brother.
Always famished, big brother demands his little brother work harder to bring him more timber, gold and fuel so he can feed his hungry belly.
Ed Metatawabin tells this story from a wooden raft as it slowly makes its way through the pummeling rain down the 1,000-kilometre-long Albany River in Ontario’s Far North.
Directly above the Albany lies the Ring of Fire — more than 5,000 square kilometres of pristine wilderness that is believed to contain a $30 billion deposit of chromite, the ore used to make stainless steel. Prospectors also say a treasure trove of platinum and diamonds lies underneath.
But the pursuit of these riches means little brother must blast, bulldoze and bigfoot through the Albany watershed, the surrounding boreal forest and the swampy peatland of the Hudson Bay lowlands.
The race to develop the ring is already furiously underway. International mining companies have staked more than 9,000 claims covering 480,000 hectares. All-weather roads, bridges and a railway line are being planned to transport the precious ore south.
A coalition of environmental groups is calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government to create a federal joint review panel — a body of experts that would closely monitor the mining — to ensure development adheres to environmental standards.
Metatawabin, dressed in hip waders and warm rain gear, his black and grey striped ponytail hanging down his back, stands on the bow of his 16-by-63-foot raft and surveys the river his people have lived off of for nearly 10,000 years.
“Cruel big brother,” Metatawabin says. “He eats and he eats and he eats.”
Will little brother finally stand up and say enough? Will he refuse to do big brother’s bidding?
Metatawabin is unsure. He worries little brother has lost his way.
The boreal forest stretches from the...
LIKE many Americans who have tried to use their credit cards inEurope, Elliot E. Porter, a historian from San Francisco, has encountered his share of payment headaches. Perhaps the most aggravating occurred a few months ago at Amsterdam Centraal Station, where he learned only after waiting in line to purchase train tickets that none of his credit cards, which include a MasterCard, Visa and American Express, would be accepted. The problem? They rely on magnetic-strip technology rather than embedded microprocessor chips, which are becoming increasingly common outside the United States.“This is a big deal when traveling,” said Mr. Porter, who trekked back to his hotel to get cash, which he then had to exchange for local currency before returning to the train station to wait in a long line to pay for his tickets. He encountered similar problems at train stations in Belgium and Britain. “It just got super frustrating,” he said.
Events around Toronto June 10 to June 12
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