AlPac, Natives clash over logging

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Francis Auger kneels on his Ski-Doo and races through a snowy, boreal forest to his cabin at Rock Island Lake. His face lights up as he points to a lynx and moose tracks along the way.

The 63-year-old Metis is a trapper. And his cabin marks the beginning of his 24-kilometre trap line.

Auger is from Calling Lake in northern Alberta. He's one of an estimated 25,000 Native people living in Alberta Pacific Forest Industries' forest management area. AIPac - mostly owned by Mitsubishi and other Japanese companies - has a 20-year renewable lease with the provincial government on a piece of land the size of New Brunswick.

Auger has just been told a logging road is scheduled to be built next to his cabin, 100 metres from Rock Island Lake. Part of his trapline is also expected to be logged. AIPac's policy is to warn trappers before logging so they can remove their traps.

He built the cabin himself from hand-split poplar. It's insulated with mud and equipped with two cots and a makeshift stove. Having had one trap-line logged out already, he wonders about the rights of multinationals on Indian land.

"We were here before they were. We were born in this country, us guys. Where the hell do these guys come from?" he says. "What gives them the right to destroy everything and kick me out? Somebody has to stop them."

Mill huge, sophisticated

A bright, yellow grapple hovers over a logging truck and in two bites, scoops the 27,000 kilogram load onto a sea of poplar logs stacked by AIPac's pulp mill.

Less than 75 kilometres south of Auger's cabin in the woods, the mill is one of the world's largest and most sophisticated. It processes about 550 truckloads of poplar trees per day - the same trees that built Auger's cabin, the same trees that feed the beaver Auger traps. It turns the woods into bleached kraft pulp.

Ed Sager, AIPac's spokesperson, says his company's market is international. The United States and Pacific Rim countries are a few of AIPac's biggest customers. Sager is proud of his company's product.

"We produce a very strong and very white fibre that meets the highest brightness standard in the world," he says. "It's used for fine printing papers, magazine coated paper, wax paper and playing cards. The uses are practically endless."

Sager says his company is at the forefront of forestry/Aboriginal relations - both for respecting traditional land use and offering local employment.

Local Aboriginals say this is debatable.

Getting involved the key

More than 100 people gather at a workshop hosted by AIPac in Athabasca. About 65 of those are Natives who live within AIPac's forest management area. The workshop is a showcase for jobs within the industry. Employment opportunities range from logging and road building to truck driving.

Joe Blyan from Buffalo Lake says Natives have to get involved with companies like AIPac if they're going to have any influence over land management.

"We missed the boat during the oil and gas industry. When we woke up all we saw was a tail light. We want to be at the forefront with the wood industry. If we don't deal with these big corporations - and they're monsters - we'll be forgotten. We want to be in the corporate boardrooms negotiating. I think today's meeting will lead that way."

Not everybody at the workshop was as optimistic as Blyan. Standing at the back of the room, Alfred Beaver says he's tired of dealing with industry giants on their terms. His people, he says, never benefit economically.

"I'm not afraid to say many of these Aboriginal people are bought off. There are many of us who are unwilling to compromise for a piece of comfort," Beaver says. "I'm not saying we shouldn't participate in industry, but we must be taken as equals, not as second-class citizens."

Beaver says many Natives in AIPac's forest management area supported development because they were promised jobs. Of the 600 full-time mill jobs available, only a minority were given over to local Natives. eaver, and several others attending the workshop, say their people are capable of doing more than short-term manual labor. But they need training and machinery.

AIPac vice-president Bob Ruault sees things differently. "Basically, Natives want to be hands-on. That's where their experience is," Ruault says. And although he says AIPac will help implement training programs in local colleges, the funding is up to the government.

"We're not in the business of training. We're in the business of making pulp," he says.

Compensation is not enough

It's late afternoon. The sun sheds an orange glow on Rock Island Lake's frozen surface and Francis Auger gets ready to leave his cabin.

"Sometimes I come out here for weeks. I like the solitude."

Auger says a logging road near his cabin is sure to disturb the peace, not to mention disrupt wildlife. He's worried about increased access and vandalism. But putting his own interests aside, he says, his biggest concern is that some wilderness is left for his children and grandchildren.

AIPac's representatives say they're working on compensation for damage to traps and loss of income for people like Auger. But Auger says his way of life isn't for sale.

If logging has to happen, he says, then there should be two conditions. Room should be made for people like him and locals should be entitled to training and employment.