Bury My Heart at James Bay

The Cree village on the Canadian island of Fort George never had many full- time residents: most of the 1,000 inhabitants were subsistence hunters and trappers who would spend months in the bush. But today the place is a virtual ghost town. Following the construction of huge hydroelectric dams upstream, almost all the villagers were relocated because of fears that torrents of water would erode their island, which lies at a vulnerable spot where the La Grande River meets James Bay in Quebec province.

The Crees who moved to nearby Chisasibi now have electricity, running water and ties to the outside world, but they have lost their traditional way of life. Many ancestral hunting lands are underwater, and the natives can no longer eat local fish because of mercury contamination stemming from the creation of a reservoir upstream. Crammed together and often idle, they suffer from soaring rates of alcoholism, suicide, vandalism and family violence. About 30% of them have high levels of mercury in their bodies. “When we were on the island, we had less,” says Larry House, a community leader, “but we were happy.”

The tale of Fort George’s Indians serves as a warning about what could happen to thousands of Crees, as well as Inuit, who live in the wild regions surrounding James Bay. The construction on the La Grande River is just one part of what is intended to be the world’s largest hydroelectric network. Begun in 1971 and only about one-third finished, the James Bay power project could eventually include 215 dams and dikes, 23 power stations and 19 river diversions. If completed, the project would affect an area larger than Germany, disrupting the environment and destroying the tribal heritage of many of Quebec’s Indians.

The Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec, backed by environmental groups, has sued Hydro-Quebec, the government-owned utility, to block the next stage of the James Bay project, which would affect the Great Whale and Nastapoca rivers, in the northernmost regions of inhabited Quebec, and three rivers farther to the south. Though the Crees have unsuccessfully fought the project for two decades, they now have a reasonable chance of at least stalling it when the courts rule on the case this summer. Growing environmental concern and worries about an uncertain economic climate have led some opinion leaders in Quebec to question the wisdom of spending as much as $31 billion on more dams. What particularly outrages the Crees is that Quebec doesn’t need all that power, some of which may be sold to New England and New York. The Indians face the possibility of losing their hunting grounds so that Americans can keep running their air-conditioners and hair dryers.

The James Bay project is the dream — some say obsession — of Quebec’s Premier, Robert Bourassa, who seems to see every free-flowing drop of water in Quebec’s big rivers as a wasted kilowatt. From the beginning, 20 years ago, Bourassa envisioned a power network that would ensure his province’s economic independence and boost the fortunes of its French-speaking majority. At first, the only serious opponents were the Crees, who claimed aboriginal rights to the land. In 1973 the Indians lost a major battle: a Quebec appeals court decided that construction on the project was too far along to stop and that the needs of millions of the province’s residents outweighed the concerns of a few thousand natives. In 1975 the Crees grudgingly ceded rights to lands affected by the power project in return for an agreement that gave them cash compensation (which will eventually total more than $300 million), exclusive hunting and fishing rights to 75,000 sq km (29,000 sq. mi.) of land and the right to have a say in future projects. The Crees now have a strong legal claim that this last part of the deal is being broken.

Because Hydro-Quebec launched the project before completing any kind of < environmental-impact assessment, problems such as mercury pollution came as a surprise. The mercury lay dormant in rocks until the dammed La Grande River began flooding forest land. When drowned trees began decomposing, bacteria transformed the mercury into a form that could enter the food chain. The problem should disappear when the trees have decomposed completely, but that process may take 20 to 50 years.

The Crees claim that by drying some rivers and inundating others, the hydroelectric project is affecting everything from the health of moose herds to the eelgrasses that are vital to migratory birds. Says Ian Goodman, a Boston-based environmental consultant who has advised the Crees: “It’s like a giant science experiment to see what happens to an area as large as New England, New York and Pennsylvania combined.”

Gaetan Guertin, who directs Hydro-Quebec’s environmental-impact studies, admits that the company started with very little knowledge but asserts that the utility has since spent tens of millions of dollars examining the affected ecosystems. Moreover, Guertin says, the hydro project has had positive effects on populations of beavers, ducks and such fish as walleye pike and sturgeon.

The agreement that the Crees signed in 1975 may give the tribe the tools it needs to prevail in court. The utility is trying to separate road building from the parts of the project subject to environmental review, so that construction can begin this summer. As in 1973, it would become much more difficult for the Crees to halt work once it has begun. The Crees, however, are arguing that the $1 billion road-construction program, in the region of the Great Whale River, is an integral part of the project and that the 1975 agreement requires both Grand Council consent and environmental review before any work can go forward.

Delay would favor the Crees because the public is beginning to question who will be the real beneficiaries of additional power capacity. In January the Quebec government went to court to suppress the publication of unusual secret contracts that Hydro-Quebec had signed to deliver power to 13 metals and chemicals companies. Some of the details leaked out anyway, revealing that the utility had offered cut-rate energy deals to these companies. Other industries and consumers in Quebec suspect that they will end up subsidizing the bargain contracts through rate increases.

Moreover, the promised economic bonanza for Quebec is far from certain. Potential power customers in the U.S. are vigorously pursuing conservation programs, and their need to purchase electricity may not grow as fast as once estimated. Whether or not more customers come forward, completing James Bay will weigh down the Quebec government with an additional $60 billion in debt, more than twice its current debt load.

Whatever the Canadian courts decide, the Crees have raised legitimate questions about the logic and impact of a vast undertaking. Canada aggressively promotes its many natural wonders in the hope of luring tourists from abroad, but at home it often seems willing to sell that heritage for short-term profits.