Tumbler Ridge Tragedy -- Remote BC Community Shattered

Resources North workshops building regional consensus on economic issues

Melanie Karjala, Acting General Manager for the Resources North Association, discusses an active agenda for the organization in 2012. At Resource North, she explains, “We have multiple sectors on the board, including people from  forestry, mining, oil and gas, and First Nations, and also we have academia, communities, small business, and there are projects with local education institutions.”

Resources North started in 1992 as the McGregor Model Forest and in 2007 was merged with Integrated Resource Management Partnership, an industry group working in Northern B.C., to create Resources North Association. It is run by a 16-member large board of directors and executive committee. 

Says  Karjala, “Our aim is to bring community stability and prosperity through sustainable resource management. We have four key theme areas: Community engagement, Expanding the knowledge base, Operational integration, Communications and extension,” she says, “one of our roles is to get information out to the people who can use it.

 “Our focus is on collaboration. In order to achieve it, we focus on bringing people together to work on solutions in our four theme areas. The full board meets quarterly and executive meets every six weeks roughly. Stephanie Killam, is the chair, and Mayor of Mackenzie, B.C., and she is very involved in meetings and outreach as well as attendance at all executive and board meetings”

A new communications strategy has been drafted by a contracted senior strategist, “and we are doing a lot of work on building a re-conception of our business model and preparing a communications strategy, and the board approved a new five-year strategic plan in December for new fiscal year in April 2012.”

 Resources North stages workshops in the region and coming in March 2012, RNA is holding workshops on Agro-forestry. “The goal is to build capacity for agro-forestry expansion in northern B.C., building on a workshop we gave in 2009.Agroforestry is the planned integration of agriculture and forestry practices occurring on the same plot of land, which combines agriculture, silviculture, and conservations practises to produce systems such as alley cropping, integrated riparian management, shelter belts, and silvo-pasture, which is growing trees in a farm towards producing a wood product, perhaps Christmas trees, or birch syrup. Agroforestry presents an opportunity to diversify northern economies”

She says people wanted more northern examples about the best crops for this northern latitude and more education on land management. “We got funding from the Agroforestry Development Institute and the Omenica Beetle Action Coalition to develop a community of practice, and we are having the first meeting this week to organize the workshop. We’d like to get at least 50 people per event.” The workshop will be followed by a series of learning events including field tours, short courses, to build skills and knowledge about Agroforestry.

The next set of priorities for workshops is to discuss the recruitment and retention of a labour force in natural resources industries, “and it will be a big topic in the region.”

The workshop will bring together existing initiatives, barriers and solutions for labour recruitment and retention in the natural resources sector of northern B.C.. “We have funding from the Forest Products Sector Council to put on this workshop in April. The Steering Committee includes academic institutions,  employment agencies, professional associations, and private sector.”

The Forest Products Sector Council provided analysis of labour needs and reported the shortage of personnel will be in the area between 40,000 to 120,000 the forestry sector alone as the decade proceeds. “In order to maintain economic activity we need enough people trained. Among other topics, we want to explore the nontraditional or untapped labour market, including people with disabilities, women, career changers and First Nations.”

Fort Nelson First Nations work hard to stay engaged in a huge oil and gas play

Harvey Behn is the General Manager of Eh-Cho Dene Enterprises in Fort Nelson, B.C., a company and a community at the centre of a huge oil and gas region in full industrial bloom. It doesn’t get any more industrially active in oil and gas than it is right now in the surroundings of Fort Nelson, says Harvey.

It is his ancestral home as much as his current home, whereas Harvey is educated in oil and gas development with a Petroleum Engineering degree from University of Wyoming. “We are riding a tsunami of new development in the oil and gas industry around us, and we are surrounded by industry, government, and then there’s us, little Indians on the bottom trying to get up on the wave and ride it to survive.”

He stares at the spending program underway by oil and gas exploration companies (the number of which are too many to count, much less name) and he reflects upon the impact to the environment, the lifestyle of people in the area, and the ways to make opportunities a reality for his community.

As general manager of Eh-Cho Dene Enterprises construction company he employs up to 120 people during major construction projects. The company history dates back to the early 1980s, and in the past 20 years the Fort Nelson Dene people have established a lot of thriving businesses that operate in the town and region; many residents of the 500-person reserve either work for Dene-owned businesses or own one themselves. (Another 300 members buy or rent homes in Fort Nelson or area.)

The current pace of business activity is a little daunting even to a professional oil man with a long career like Harvey. “Just one oil company, for example, has a $1.2 billion exploration budget to outlay in drilling and all the obligations.” Harvey’s goal is to put Eh-Cho Dene trucks and equipment into a few of these expansive operations. Fort Nelson is their epicentre of activity, a place where Harvey was born and raised. He also sits on a six-member council, while the Eh-Cho Dene company is a limited owned by the Band, and run by a six-member board of directors.

Illustrative of how busy the activity is in Fort Nelson, says Harvey, “This year there was no spring break or slow-down in exploration activity. It was non-stop this year and we expect it to be running flat-out again this coming 2011.” This is good news for the 85 percent First Nation employees under his management. It makes for a thriving reserve adjacent Fort Nelson.

Bulkley River, near Ksan Historic Village

 Old Hazelton, Northern British Columbia

Ksan Historic Site started middle of last century