The price tag to clean up orphan oil and gas wells in Alberta increased by nearly 50 per cent since last year, bringing the estimated total to $1.66 billion, according to the latest annual report from the Orphan Well Association.

The report, released last month, attributes the increase to an “influx” of orphan wells from a company called Long Run Exploration Ltd. The price tag to clean up the thousands of orphan sites left behind by the company is estimated by the association to be $500 million.

“A surge in inventory is not new for the [Orphan Well Association]. … These struggling companies are on our radar for a long time,” the annual report reads. 

“We know the assets will eventually come our way, and plan in advance with the [Alberta Energy Regulator] to ensure we are ready to tackle the challenge.”

Alberta’s Orphan Well Association is a not-for-profit organization launched in 2002 that acts as a backstop when delinquent oil and gas companies leave behind inactive wells that need to be cleaned up. It was designed to be funded by industry in the form of an annual levy, but has received government grants in the past and gets an annual interest-free loan from taxpayers. 

In response to questions from The Narwhal, Lars De Pauw, the president of the Orphan Well Association, said by email, “The pace of closure will depend on future orphan levies which have not yet been determined.”

All companies pay into an orphan well fund, to make a pool of money available for when companies go bankrupt, or otherwise walk away from their liabilities. Last year, the orphan well levy added up to $144.45 million. This year, after a seven per cent increase set by the Alberta Energy Regulator, it increased to $154.6 million.

Last year, the association safely sealed 721 wells, according to the annual report, and received reclamation certificates for another 850. The report says this is the equivalent of “over 15 square kilometres of land returned to Albertans, an area equivalent to 2,100 [Canadian Football League] football fields (including end zones!).”

That’s not enough to make up for the decades-long backlog of orphan wells, according to public interest lawyer Drew Yewchuk.

“The bottom line is that Alberta’s orphan problem continues to grow,” Yewchuk wrote in a University of Calgary Public Interest Law Clinic blog post about the latest annual report. “All signs point to an orphan well problem that will become too big to solve so that a large share of the costs will be socialized, with taxpayers left to pay the bill for closure work.”

Yewchuk cautions the amount taxpayers could be on the hook remains to be seen. “This is not an all or nothing question of whether costs are passed to the public. Both the federal and provincial governments have already paid some costs for the closure of oil sites, but the amounts are small compared to the total cost,” he told The Narwhal by email. “The thing to watch is how much of the cost gets passed to the public.” 

Alberta’s orphan well problem grows year after year

According to the Government of Alberta, there are an estimated 466,000 oil and gas wells in the province. More than half of those are no longer producing, some of which have been properly plugged, while others are in a state of temporary suspension. And some are orphans: a well that no longer has a legal or financial owner. 

The most common cause is an insolvent or bankrupt oil and gas company that has left behind a long list of wells that were never properly decommissioned or cleaned up. Those wells, pipelines or other related facilities then become “orphans.” 

But they still need to be properly plugged and reclaimed, according to provincial rules. That falls to the Orphan Well Association.

The association’s inventory currently lists 7,382 wells that need to be decommissioned — as in, safely sealed — and 9,148 sites that need to be reclaimed, which means restored to what’s known as “equivalent land capability” to get back to the ecological, agricultural or other pre-drilling state of the land.

These numbers have increased substantially. As of the end of March, the Orphan Well Association reported its inventory included 4,200 orphan wells that needed to be safely sealed and more than 8,000 sites that needed to be reclaimed.

For comparison, in 2013, the Orphan Well Association had just 387 orphans in its inventory of sites that needed to be reclaimed.

The total price tag to clean up wells the association is responsible for has also increased. According to Yewchuk’s analysis, “the total amount owed has increased for five of the last six years and has more than doubled from 2021 to July 2026.”

Thousand of wells were orphaned in April

The thousands of new wells from Long Run Exploration Ltd. that landed on the Orphan Well Association’s books this spring ended up as orphans after a 2024 deal with a Chinese company fell through. That deal would have seen all of Long Run’s shares purchased for $22 million.

In April, the Alberta Energy Regulator announced the company’s wells were officially orphans. That meant 4,031 wells, 383 facilities and 2,121 pipeline segments previously owned by Long Run Exploration Ltd. were transferred to the Orphan Well Association. 

The association reported updated numbers after verifying the status of each site: 2,980 wells and associated facilities and pipelines need to be decommissioned and 938 sites have already been sealed.

The association’s annual report is optimistic the sites do not pose any extraordinary risks.

“Given the nature of the Long Run assets, we do not foresee any of the sites posing a high risk to public safety or the environment,” it said in its annual report.

De Pauw, the president of the Orphan Well Association, said by email, “We have incorporated the Long Run wells into our overall program. We don’t see them any differently as other orphan assets and will continue to prioritize sites based on risk and those on private land while ensuring efficient operations. ” 

Cleaning up one orphan well involved demolishing homes

According to the association, the average cost to safely seal each well is $28,800 and the average cost to reclaim the site is $27,000, though actual costs can vary widely depending on the complexity of the cleanup. 

In its annual report, the association cites an example in Bonnyville, Alta., where a 1950s-era orphan well was found to be leaking methane into a home. Two houses and a duplex were purchased and demolished, and the well was safely sealed — a complicated and expensive endeavour. “The homeowners were disappointed, of course,” Cliff Pybus, land and stakeholder coordinator at the Orphan Well Association, said in the annual report. “But also relieved that the [association] was taking charge and fixing the situation.”

In theory, the levies collected from industry should be enough money to fund orphan well cleanup in the province. But as clean-up bills have ballooned, the auditor general and other critics have warned this may not be the reality.

“In recent years, levy revenues have not been enough to keep pace with the increasing number of orphan sites being transferred to the [Orphan Well Association],” the auditor general wrote in 2023. Back then, the total price tag of cleaning up orphan wells was a little more than half what it is today.

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Summary

• As polls suggest a majority of Canadians support building new pipelines, the Alberta government is proposing a new pipeline to the West Coast to help boost production in the oilsands.
• The terms of the pipeline proposal name Alberta and the Canadian government together as majority owners, suggesting taxpayers will foot much of the construction bill.
• Pipelines are very expensive to build. A recent analysis of the federal government’s Trans Mountain pipeline, which is already operational, showed that the pipeline’s revenues aren’t high enough to cover its construction and debt costs, making it a money-loser for taxpayers.

Pipelines, pipelines, pipelines. No matter how you feel about them, it’s hard to escape news of them lately. 

In July, the Alberta government announced it is formally proposing another pipeline to the West Coast. On the weekend, the federal government took another step towards designating the pipeline as a project in the national interest, meaning environmental assessments and other parts of the approval process could be fast-tracked.

Recent polling shows the majority of Canadians — 63 per cent according to the Angus Reid Institute in July — support that new pipeline from Alberta to B.C.

Why? Mostly for economic reasons. A majority told pollsters they were convinced by the argument that Canada needs to diversify its oil markets away from the U.S., while half said oil is just generally important to the economy. Forty-five per cent said the project would create jobs. 

The economic forecast, though, isn’t quite that simple. There’s still the question of who’s going to pay for it. A poll commissioned by the Pembina Institute and conducted by Probe Research in April found a majority of Albertans — 61 per cent — say they don’t want to spend taxpayer money on a new pipeline.

It’s increasingly clear: many Canadians say they do want a new pipeline, but they don’t want to pay for it. Companies aren’t exactly lining up to build new pipelines by themselves either. That raises a question: why?

So what are the economics of a pipeline in Canada? Do they make money? Here’s what you need to know.

How much do pipelines cost to build?

No one is going to build a pipeline on a shoestring. These are multibillion-dollar projects, often crossing multiple provinces. Even expanding an existing pipeline, or building along an existing pipeline route is a huge endeavour involving tens of thousands of people working on the project.

Take the Trans Mountain Expansion project, as an example. That increased the capacity of an existing pipeline, built in the 1950s, from Alberta to the West Coast. That expansion project ultimately cost taxpayers $34 billion — notably, that’s almost $30 billion more than initial estimates. 

The latest pipeline idea making headlines was proposed by the Alberta government, with an estimated cost pegged at between $35.2 billion and $43.7 billion. That proposal was brought forward alongside the federally owned Trans Mountain Corporation, which will lead the project, and Pembina Pipeline Corporation (which is not connected to the Pembina Institute that held the poll). 

Under the proposed partnership, Trans Mountain and the Government of Alberta — through the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission — would hold a majority interest. 

So who would actually own it? Well … taxpayers, in a way.

How much have taxpayers spent building pipelines in the past?

It varies. Canadian taxpayers have been on the hook for billions since the Government of Canada purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline in 2018.

And maybe that’s okay. Some would argue that pipelines are infrastructure, much like highways or railways. Others disagree that billions of dollars of public money should be put toward increasing oil and gas infrastructure.

Nonetheless, it continues to happen. TC Energy’s cancelled Keystone XL expansion was backstopped by Alberta taxpayers to the tune of $1.5 billion in 2021.

And it’s happening again. Alberta’s government has already contributed a little more than $18 million to its latest pipeline plan, saying the money went to early planning work “including preliminary engineering, cost estimates, economic modelling, early Indigenous engagement with communities and development of the proposal for federal consideration.”

The Alberta government calls it a “myth” that it will pay for the entirety of the pipeline, saying, “Now that this preliminary work is done, we will work alongside Trans Mountain and Pembina Pipeline to move this project ahead.” But Pembina Pipeline currently has only a 10 per cent stake in the project.

So, in the end, it appears if the West Coast pipeline project moves ahead, it will be governments — and taxpayers — who foot much of the bill.

“I am quite comfortable that this is a good investment for Canadian taxpayers,” federal Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson told CBC in July.

How does a pipeline operator make money?

Whether pipelines are owned by companies or governments (and taxpayers like you), they charge fees for companies to move their products. The fees paid to use pipelines by companies such as oil producers are called tolls or tariffs. 

The Canada Energy Regulator oversees pipeline tolls, saying it ensures “they are just and reasonable.”

According to the regulator, tolls “cover the company’s cost of service, including a fair and reasonable return to pipeline investors.” Rates vary based on many factors: whether there’s a long-term commitment to shipping, how far, what the product is and how much of it.

The Trans Mountain expansion ended up costing so much that the tolls it charges customers to move oil are higher than expected. Still, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, only $15.4 billion of the $34-billion cost of the pipeline is covered by the tolls it charges.

Does running a pipeline actually make money?

Let’s look at Trans Mountain Corporation as an example — that pipeline we all own together. 

The company says it is now profitable. It reported its net income for 2025 was $556 million — up from $5 million the year before.

It’s what Minister Hodgson described to CBC as “generating oodles of cash.” 

But that claim has raised some eyebrows. And untangling it is complicated. 

The Trans Mountain Corporation is a wholly owned entity of another company, Canada TMP Finance Ltd., which is itself a subsidiary of Canada Development Investment Corporation, the entity which holds the Government of Canada’s investment in Trans Mountain. Still following? 

Let’s do it in the opposite direction. The Government of Canada owns a Crown corporation. That corporation has a subsidiary, which then in turn owns Trans Mountain Corporation. Hopefully that helps.

The debt of the expansion, and the interest on that debt, isn’t paid off. But Hodgson can claim the pipeline is profitable because of the confusing corporate structure of which Crown corporation holds its construction debt and pays the interest, and which takes in the tariffs, according to a report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

The author of the report described Trans Mountain’s profit claims to The Tyee as a “misrepresentation of finances.”

Trans Mountain Corporation did not respond to questions from The Narwhal by publication time.

But a company’s balance books aren’t the only way of looking at it. Industry advocates argue pipelines generate money in other ways too, including tax and royalty revenues and making oil prices more competitive.

For example, a 2024 report from a group created for Alberta credit unions argued the Trans Mountain expansion project resulted in a significant increase in access to markets for Alberta oil and that access significantly narrowed the price difference between a type of Western Canadian oil called Western Canadian Select and a type sold out of Texas called West Texas Intermediate. The report estimated this had already increased revenues by about $10 billion in the first six months the pipeline expansion launched.

There’s little doubt that producing and exporting oil and gas makes money for Canada — and especially for oil and gas companies themselves. But many have argued a fuller accounting would include the significant costs of the health risks, environmental degradation and other damage that comes from increasing carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels.

What are the costs of carbon pollution from increasing oil production?

Fossil fuel production is driving climate change and the consequences are being felt today. Life is more expensive, cities have dirtier air from wildfires, deadly heat waves and other extreme weather are more common, First Nations are disproportionately threatened with disasters and Canadians are more at risk of poverty, heart disease, cancer and premature death.

As The Narwhal has reported, it’s possible, at least broadly speaking, to compare the economic output of fossil fuels with health costs. The federal energy regulator, for example, has reported the total value of crude oil exports from Canada was $138 billion in 2024. A Health Canada report that same year found the total cost of health impacts attributable to air pollution in 2018 was $146 billion. The cost of many foods produced here is also rising as farming becomes less predictable. 

Estimates vary, but the short answer is climate change is expensive. A 2022 report from Queen’s University projected trillions of dollars in losses in Canada due to climate change this century, with the greatest contributor to that change being the burning of fossil fuels.

Does Alberta produce enough oil to fill a new pipeline?

Trans Mountain is currently “Canada’s only pipeline system transporting oil products to the West Coast.” The company says its 1,200-kilometre pipeline network has room for 890,000 barrels of petroleum products to be shipped each and every day. 

The new pipeline proposed by the Alberta government would be capable of transporting one million barrels of crude oil per day from the Edmonton area to the West Coast.

If it goes ahead, that would significantly increase the network of pipelines leading from Alberta.

There are already several other pipeline systems in use — leading to other locations in the U.S. and eastern Canada — and according to the Alberta Energy Regulator, all of them together could carry 5.4 million barrels per day. 

Currently, Alberta produces an average of more than four million barrels of oil per day. That suggests Alberta’s oil production stands to increase substantially if a new pipeline is going to be filled each and every day. 

Meanwhile the International Energy Agency has predicted global demand for oil from combustible fossil fuels may peak as early as 2027 — raising questions about the long-term outlook for expanded oilsands production.

— With files from Drew Anderson and Carl Meyer

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• Last week, the Alberta Energy Regulator announced thousands of oil and gas wells and pipeline segments, belonging to Long Run Exploration Ltd., had officially become orphans, meaning they have no solvent owner.
• Long Run Exploration had tried to salvage its financial situation through a deal to sell all its shares to a Chinese company for $22 million, which fell through.
• Court documents show the total cost to safely seal and clean up all of Long Run’s wells and other infrastructure is estimated to be $476 million.

A beleaguered oil and gas company has left a multimillion-dollar cleanup bill in Alberta, The Narwhal has learned. Experts worry at least some of that bill could ultimately be passed on to taxpayers.

Last week, the Alberta Energy Regulator announced 4,031 wells, 383 facilities and 2,121 pipeline segments previously owned by Long Run Exploration Ltd. had officially become orphans, meaning they no longer have a legal or financial owner. The announcement did not specify a price tag for decommissioning or cleaning up any of the infrastructure.

But in a sworn affidavit filed early last year, the total liability of Long Run’s various assets was estimated at $476,834,036.95.

That means the Orphan Well Association, which is funded by an annual levy on industry and spent just under $130 million decommissioning and cleaning up old oil and gas infrastructure last year, now has a huge new liability on its hands. 

In one court document, they’re described as “mammoth environmental liabilities.”

According to the affidavit, Long Run’s oil and gas infrastructure ended up as orphans after a 2024 deal with a Chinese company fell through. That deal would have seen all of Long Run’s shares purchased for $22 million.

It wasn’t the first time the company had looked to Chinese investors when it faced financial troubles. In 2016, a financially struggling Long Run was purchased by Calgary Sinoenergy Investment Corp., its sole voting shareholder.

David Chem, reached by phone at Calgary Sinoenergy Investment Corp., told The Narwhal that Calgary Sinoenergy is a holding company and most of its shareholders are in China. “Actually, nobody calls,” he said. “I was surprised somebody called.”

Chem, who declined to share his title, said the company’s investors in China were not familiar with the concept of environmental liability regulation when they invested in Alberta oil and gas, as much of China’s oil and gas industry is state owned and private companies are not responsible for cleanup.

“A lot of Chinese investors put money into Alberta before they fully understood environmental liability because there’s no environmental liabilities in China,” he said. “They are trapped by environmental liability.”

He said the Chinese shareholders have paid for their mistake, and the blame rests on the original owners of Long Run. 

“How can you blame the Chinese owner? How can you say, ‘Oh, you guys didn’t take care of the orphan wells?’ ”

“They’re the guys who lost the most,” Chem said. “They’re the guys who lost all the money.”

Bill Andrew, who was the chairman and chief executive of Long Run Exploration at the time of that sale, pushed back on Chem’s assessment. 

“They came in with their eyes wide open,” he said by phone. “They went through a two-to-three month due diligence process,” he said, adding Long Run supplied well lists and information about all the company’s working interests. 

“We didn’t sell them a pig in a poke.”

‘The result of regulatory failure’: law professor

Meanwhile, even before Long Run’s assets were added to its inventory, the Orphan Well Association already had 4,200 wells on its list for decommissioning in Alberta. 

“In one swoop, it’s a huge jump,” University of Calgary law professor Shaun Fluker said in an interview. “It increasingly looks very likely these bets, these liabilities, will only ever be addressed with public money.”

Alberta’s Orphan Well Association is a not-for-profit organization that is theoretically funded by industry in the form of an annual levy, but has received government grants in the past and gets an annual interest-free loan from taxpayers.

“All of these problems are the result of regulatory failure,” Fluker said, describing the Orphan Well Association as an “industry-funded insurance system never designed to handle anything close to the size of these sorts of assignments.” Funding for the association, set by the regulator and paid by industry in the form of an annual levy, he said, is “wholly inadequate.”

Lars De Pauw, president and CEO of the Orphan Well Association, referred questions about the current cost of Long Run’s environmental liabilities to the Alberta Energy Regulator. “We have a multi-year plan to deal with all orphan assets including those from Long Run,” De Pauw said by email. “The plan is based on the amount provided from the orphan fund levy and other sources of revenue.”

In response to questions from The Narwhal, the Alberta Energy Regulator said by email it “does not have any further information to provide regarding Long Run’s total estimated liability.”

An unnamed spokesperson said the regulator uses tools within its liability management framework to ensure a company that takes over wells can eventually clean them up, and said it may “impose terms and conditions to mitigate any ongoing risks” and ensure regulatory obligations are met.

Andrew, who has been in the oil and gas industry for 52 years, points to the increasing number of wells falling to the Orphan Well Association. “You have to wonder who the hell was on top of them from a regulatory point of view,” he said. Andrew says when he ran Long Run, he made sure the company stayed on top of sealing old wells every year, ensuring a percentage of older wells were decommissioned each year.

Chinese investors lost millions in deal to save Long Run from financial ruin

Andrew oversaw Long Run back when it was called Galleon Energy and the company had a “nasty reputation on Bay Street and with public investors,” he said. Under his watch, the company was refinanced and its name was changed to Long Run in 2012.

In 2016, Long Run narrowly avoided financial ruin. That year, under Andrew’s leadership, the company was sold to China-based Sinoenergy Investment Corp. in a $780-million deal that included a $100-million purchase price and an agreement to take on hundreds of millions of the company’s debt, according to the Calgary Herald. 

“The deal was dubbed a Christmas miracle, reflecting Long Run’s precarious finances,” according to the Globe and Mail at the time.

Andrew told the Herald the sale was the best option for the heavily indebted company. “The alternative was grim,” he said then. The Canadian Press reported at the time that Long Run had faced a net earnings loss of $305 million in the most recent third quarter. 

“The banks were all over us. It was receivership or sell,” Andrew told The Narwhal, adding the bank facilitated an introduction with the investors.

Chem, with Calgary Sinoenergy Investment Corp., said the Chinese investors “bought from a local guy, right from the local owner.” 

“Who’s laughing? The previous owner,” he said. “They take the money and walk away.”

Andrew pushed back on that assessment. “We didn’t walk away, we sold the company,” he said.

“I did it the best I could do. I did it as fair as I could be,” he said. “When we sold Long Run, we didn’t sell it with a whole bunch of unpaid bills,” he said, adding the company was up to date on what it owed to landowners and counties.

To Chem, the big loser is the investors.

“They lost all their investment,” Chem said of shareholders in China, who he said he meets with annually. “All their investment, $800 million, is all gone.” 

“Their mistake is they should learn more about the system.”

According to Insolvency Insider Canada, “Calgary Sinoenergy is a holding company with no operation or assets other than its investment in Long Run.” All of its shares are held by another company, Sinoenergy Oil, which is based in the British Virgin Islands.

Chem said the Chinese investors he works with are less interested in investing in Alberta oil and gas after seeing how it has played out with Long Run. “A lot of people lose money in Alberta. So I think they just say ‘no more.’ They walk away,” he said.

The Narwhal could not independently verify Chem’s assertions.

Fluker points to the massive 2015 oil price drop that saw a mad scramble for companies, many of them backed with foreign investment, to pick up Alberta oil and gas assets. “There were a number of these transactions at that time,” he said, pointing the finger at the Alberta Energy Regulator which would have approved the transfer of wells. “The regulator doesn’t appear to have scrutinized those transactions sufficiently.”

“That was really the beginning of the problem now we’re watching before our eyes.”

A last-ditch attempt to sell Long Run for $22 million in 2024 falls apart

In 2024, Long Run faced significant financial troubles again. It attempted to secure its financial footing with an agreement with a Chinese-based company, Hiking Group Shandon Jinyue Int’l Trading Corporation. That would have seen Long Run’s shares purchased for $22 million, but the company “faced challenges … transferring money out of China due to regulations of the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange.”

In March 2025, Long Run entered into receivership. This is when a court-appointed third party acts as a custodian for a company facing serious financial troubles.

Attempts to reach Long Run Exploration Ltd. went unanswered. PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is its receiver, confirmed it is acting as “manager of all current and future assets, undertakings and properties of Long Run Exploration Ltd” but declined to comment further. “The receivership proceedings are ongoing and as such, [PricewaterhouseCoopers] does not publicly comment on aspects of active receivership proceedings in the media,” spokesperson Anuja Kale-Agarwal said by email.

As is noted in documents filed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, any funds left over in Long Run’s accounts must be put toward cleaning up its mess. This requirement stems from the Redwater decision in 2019, when the Supreme Court ruled the money left over from a bankrupt oil and gas company must be used to clean up the wells it left behind before other debts, including bank loans, were prioritized.

As of February, the receiver noted it held approximately $26 million in its Long Run accounts, compared to the hundreds of millions in estimated costs to clean up its mess.

In March, it put $10 million of those funds toward clean-up.

Fewer than 500 wells were decommissioned by the Orphan Well Association last year

In 2025, Alberta’s industry-funded Orphan Well Association estimated the total cost to properly seal and clean up oil and gas on sites under its watch to be about $1.12 billion.

As of the end of March, the Orphan Well Association reported its inventory included 4,200 orphan wells that need to be safely sealed and more than 8,000 sites that need to be reclaimed.

These numbers have increased substantially. In 2013, the Orphan Well Association had just 387 orphan sites in its inventory of sites that needed to be reclaimed.

Susanne Calabrese, managing lawyer at the Alberta office of Ecojustice, is concerned what the increase means for the future. “Increasingly, profits are privatized, but cleanup is left behind — burdening landowners, municipalities and taxpayers. Companies are more than willing to take Albertan resources for profit, only to avoid the cost of cleaning up their contaminated sites through bankruptcy. This isn’t an anomaly — at this point, it seems to be their business model,” she said in an emailed statement.

“Long Run Exploration Ltd. … is not the first case of an oil and gas company walking away unscathed from costly cleanup obligations, nor will it be the last,” she added.

According to the association’s most recent annual report, fewer than 500 wells were decommissioned — meaning safely sealed — in the fiscal year ending in March 2025, while more than 2,000 new wells were added to its inventory during that time.

Andrew says it’s bad actors that contribute to the problem. He doesn’t think he’s one of them. “The properly run oil and gas companies are conscientious. They have staff and the resources to identify what needs to be done,” he said. “We don’t want to finish our lives and our careers thinking we make a mess of our country.”

“If you’re not putting a portion of your cash flow towards cleaning up your wells and cleaning up your properties, you should be lined up against the wall and shot,” he said. “Who has that sense of disregard to their country, that they leave a mess like that behind?”

According to the Government of Alberta, there are an estimated 466,000 oil and gas wells in the province. More than half of those are no longer producing, some of which have been properly plugged, while others are in a state of temporary suspension.

“It’s a bit scary when you think about it,” Fluker said. “It makes you wonder what else is out there. What’s next?”

Updated Friday, April 17, 2026, at 11:29 a.m. MT: This story was updated to include comment from the Alberta Energy Regulator that was received after publication.

Methodology

The Narwhal spoke by phone with David Chem, who responded to a voicemail left for Calgary Sinoenergy Investment Corp., which is based in Calgary and is the sole voting shareholder of Long Run. He declined to share his job title. The Narwhal also spoke by phone with Bill Andrew, former chairman and chief executive of Long Run Exploration Ltd.

The Narwhal emailed Long Run Exploration Ltd. but did not receive a response. The Narwhal also phoned Long Run’s emergency line, and was told to call Long Run’s main office. A message left at that number did not receive a response by publication time. An email sent to Wendy Barber, listed in court documents from March 2025 as Long Run’s interim chief executive officer, also did not receive a reply.

The law firm Dentons, listed in court documents as legal counsel for Long Run, replied by email to say it no longer represents Long Run and that questions should be directed to the court-appointed receiver, PricewaterhouseCoopers. 

PricewaterhouseCoopers declined to respond to specific questions, citing ongoing receivership proceedings.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• The Alberta Energy Regulator announced Thursday that more than 4,000 additional wells will be added to the inventory of the Orphan Well Association.
• The association currently has 4,200 wells on its list to be properly sealed.
• The number of orphan wells in the province has increased dramatically in the last decade. Orphan wells are those left behind by bankrupt companies.

On Thursday, the Alberta Energy Regulator announced more than 4,000 additional oil and gas wells are now officially orphans, meaning the industry-funded Orphan Well Association’s list of old wells to properly seal has nearly doubled.

According to the regulator, 4,031 wells, 383 facilities, 2,121 pipeline segments and 38 pipeline installations belonging to Calgary-based Long Run Exploration Ltd. have now been turned over to the Orphan Well Association.

Before Long Run’s assets were added to its inventory, 4,200 wells were already on the Orphan Well Association’s list of wells that needed to be decommissioned.

According to the association’s most recent annual report, fewer than 500 wells were decommissioned — meaning safely sealed — in the fiscal year ending in March 2025, while more than 2,000 new wells were added to its inventory during that time.

Lars De Pauw, the president of the Orphan Well Association, said by email not all the Long Run wells need to be sealed. “Our initial review indicates that about one-third of the wells are already decommissioned but we are anticipating close to 3,000 new wells in addition to our current 4,200,” he said by email.

Organizations had already been ringing alarm bells about the issue earlier this month. At the end of March, the Alberta Energy Regulator announced it was increasing the orphan well levy — a fee charged on oil and gas licences to cover the costs of cleaning up orphan wells — by seven per cent. But as watchdogs were quick to point out, the orphan count increased 29 per cent last year.

“This is not good enough, plain and simple,” Ecojustice lawyer Susanne Calabrese said in a statement at the time. “The shortfall is already being felt in the province, and taxpayers are paying the price for the gap — all while the risks and costs continue to climb.” 

A spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator said by email the new levy amount was endorsed by the Government of Alberta, adding it “will support the Orphan Well Association’s operating budget for the 2026/27 fiscal year.”

As of 2025, the Orphan Well Association estimated total costs to properly seal and reclaim orphan oil and gas sites in Alberta that were on the inventory at the time was approximately $1.12 billion.

That doesn’t include the thousands more on the list now.

“This is the largest single transfer in history, and it almost doubles the [Orphan Well Association’s] inventory overnight,” Janetta McKenzie, director of the oil and gas program at the Pembina Institute, told The Narwhal by email.

“While this single insolvency means the number of orphan wells will spike by nearly 100 per cent this year, the amount of industry funding required by the provincial government to clean these wells up has risen by only seven per cent. This is clearly inadequate for the scale of the problem,” she added. “It leaves Albertans to bear the harms associated with unremediated wells near their homes and businesses.”

So what’s this all about? Here’s what you need to know.

What is an orphan well anyway?

An orphan well is one that no longer has a legal or financial owner. 

Most often, an oil and gas company that has gone bankrupt has left behind a long list of wells that were never properly decommissioned or cleaned up — and someone has to pay for that. In the meantime, the well, or pipeline or other related facility, becomes an “orphan.” 

But even without an owner, it still needs to be properly plugged and reclaimed, according to provincial rules.

How many orphan wells are there in Alberta?

As of the end of March, Alberta’s Orphan Well Association reported its inventory included 4,200 orphan wells that need to be safely sealed and more than 8,000 sites that need to be reclaimed.

These numbers have increased substantially in recent years. In 2013, the Orphan Well Association had just 387 orphan sites in its inventory of sites that needed to be reclaimed. 

But a lot of the concern about orphan wells comes not just from the current inventory, but from the potential for thousands more to be added to the list. 

According to the Government of Alberta, there are an estimated 466,000 oil and gas wells in the province. More than half of those are no longer producing, some of which have been properly plugged, while others are in a state of temporary suspension.

Either way, once a well is no longer active, it’s no longer making a company any money.

In fact, it does the opposite. Oil and gas companies have to pay costs associated with sites they’re no longer using. 

For example, they’re supposed to pay rent to the owner of the land where the well is located, as well as taxes to the local government. That said, it has been more and more common in recent years that companies don’t pay landowners or their tax bills.

All of this means an inactive well can be a costly burden to a company, especially one that’s already struggling financially.

What is the Orphan Well Association?

Alberta’s Orphan Well Association is a not-for-profit organization that is theoretically funded by industry, but actually has received government grants in the past and gets an annual interest-free loan from taxpayers.

It takes over responsibility for cleanup when no company is legally or financially responsible for a well or related pipeline or facility.

According to the association’s most recent annual report, it spent nearly $130 million on cleaning up and sealing orphan wells, pipelines and related facilities in the fiscal year that ended in 2025. 

The Orphan Well Association is overseen by a board of directors made up of industry representatives from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Cenovus, Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) and others, as well one representative of the Alberta Energy Regulator.

Who’s supposed to pay to clean up orphaned wells?

The short answer: industry.

The idea is that all companies pay into the orphan well fund, to make a pool of money available for when companies go bankrupt, or otherwise walk away from their liabilities. Last year, the orphan well levy added up to $144.45 million.

In theory, this fund should be enough money to fund orphan well cleanup in the province. But as clean-up bills have ballooned, the auditor general and other critics have warned this may not be the reality.

“Every year that we underfund this cleanup is another year contaminants remain in the ground, water and air — putting landowners’ health, property values and livelihoods at risk. Meanwhile, taxpayers are left picking up the tab,” Ecojustice said in a statement earlier this month.

Updated at Friday, April 10, at 4:12 p.m. MT: This story was updated to include information received by email after publication time from the Orphan Well Association.

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Canola is making headlines again. It’s been the centre of trade negotiations with China since last year, when that country instituted 100 per cent tariffs on canola oil and meal in retaliation for Canadian tariffs on  electric vehicles, instituted at the behest of the United States.

Now, as Prime Minister Mark Carney wraps up his trip to China, there’s a new canola deal, which would see canola seed tariffs drop to 15 per cent (from nearly 76 per cent) by March, and tariffs on canola meal removed completely. The preliminary agreement makes no mention of tariffs on canola oil.

With the U.S. and Canada now frenemies, Carney is trying to expand our trade network, including rejuvenating a long-icy Canada-China relationship. But even if dropping vehicle tariffs to restart the flow of canola makes sense geopolitically, it could be a problem nationally, with Ontario’s auto industry and Prairies canola growers at total disagreement about which trade stream is more important.  

It appears, for the time being at least, the Prairies got their way. The deal for lower canola tariffs also allows close to 50,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market — not great news for Ontario’s auto sector.

“Make no mistake: China now has a foothold in the Canadian market and will use it to their full advantage at the expense of Canadian workers,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said in response to the news.

But it’s sweet relief in the Prairies, especially for the 40,000 farmers whose crops contribute part of the $43.7 billion the Canola Council of Canada said the industry generated in 2024. 

All this over a — seed? What is canola, exactly? Here’s what you need to know.

What is canola?

Put simply, canola is a plant that produces yellow flowers and oil-rich seeds.

If you’re old enough, you might remember a time when canola was called rapeseed. And if you’re really old enough, you’d remember that rapeseed was first grown in earnest in Canada during the Second World War, for its oil to be used as an emergency replacement for lubricants in naval ships.

Then, at some point along the line, we decided to start eating it. 

But there was one hurdle: rapeseed in its naval engine lubricant form wasn’t all that desirable to ingest.

So, according to a federal government report called “Canola: a Canadian success story,” plant breeders in the Prairies did some tweaking, and in the 1960s, voilà, canola (that’s CAN-ola, short for Canadian oil) was born.

If you’ve ever flown over the Prairies, canola crops are among the most distinct sights. In the patchwork quilt of massive fields, canola is the bold, bright yellow patch — a burst of colour among more subdued fields of wheat or oats.

What is canola used for?

Canola is a versatile crop. You’re likely most familiar with it as an oil used for deep-frying and other cooking, but it can also be used in not-so-tasty-treats including fungicides, sunscreen and something called “mold releasers.”

A canola education website run by the Alberta Canola Producers Commission lists many uses. The same oil used in margarine, cooking sprays, mayonnaise, crackers and cookies (and, of course, a lot of fried stuff) can also be found in plastic wrap, biodiesel, printing inks, lipstick and other cosmetics and as a softening agent for applying plastic casings on window panes.

How big is the canola industry in Canada?

Canola was harvested on more than 21 million acres of Canadian Prairie last year — far exceeding many other well-known crops like oats, barley and soybeans, according to Statistics Canada. Wheat, in all its forms, is the only crop that takes up (slightly) more space on the Prairies landscape. 

The conversion of native grasslands and wetlands into cropland, including for canola, has contributed to much wildlife habitat loss on the Prairies, according to the federal government, and “many areas are of concern.” This threatens animals including the burrowing owl, ferruginous hawk, swift fox, greater sage grouse and long-billed curlew, according to the Canadian Wildlife Federation.   

How much glyphosate is used on canola crops?

Modern canola is a product of what’s known as agricultural technology or agri-tech — the big business of maximizing yields (and profits) in farming. By some estimates, 40 per cent of canola grown in Canada is what’s known as “Roundup Ready,” meaning it is genetically engineered to survive the spraying of the popular glyphosate-containing herbicide Roundup.

Roundup is a weedkiller, which made news recently when a 25-year-old report — dubbed a “landmark study” that deemed glyphosate to be safe for human health — was retracted by the scientific journal that published it over concerns that scientists from the company that manufactures Roundup, Monsanto, had played a key role in the study’s conclusions. 

According to The New York Times, that study was “for decades cited by other researchers as evidence of Roundup’s safety. It became the cornerstone of regulations that deemed the weedkiller safe.”

In 2015, the World Health Organization said glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Roundup is still applied on a wide variety of crops using ground sprayers or airplanes that cover an entire field with the herbicide to ensure no other plants can compete. Data on the exact amounts of Roundup used on Canadian canola crops don’t exist, but CBC reported in December that 50 million kilograms of it are sold in Canada each year.

How is canola’s sustainability being improved?

There are ways to decrease the environmental impact of bringing tens of millions of acres of Prairies land into cultivation. One big one is what’s called “zero-till.”

In essence, instead of tilling the soil every year to prepare for seeding a new crop as farmers have done for centuries, farmers opt to leave the remnants of the previous crop in place. Rather than a freshly cultivated field of exposed dirt, the “stubble” of the last crop is left in the soil, along with its roots. Minimizing soil disturbance improves its carbon storage potential.

So, about all this tariff talk. What’s the gist?

Last March, China imposed a 100 per cent tariff on Canadian canola oil and canola meal, as well as tariffs on other products. Then, a few months later, it imposed a 75.8 per cent duty on Canadian canola seed shipments.

Canadian canola farmers — and Prairie governments — were mad. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe called for “immediate action” and, along with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, called on Prime Minister Carney to make a deal with China, including dropping our tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles. But on Jan. 12, as Carney and Moe got set to head to China, Ontario Premier Ford said he was “100 per cent dead set against” any easing of the electric vehicle tariffs.

Meanwhile, Canadians haven’t forgotten China’s nearly three-year detention of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig between 2018 and 2021, a significant blow to diplomatic relations between the two countries.

This week at least, the tension could be easing. 

“What we heard loud and clear is China is looking for reliable trading partners, trading partners that don’t use energy for coercion,” federal Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson, who is also in China, said according to The Globe and Mail.

And for Carney, that’s an opportunity, not only to reduce canola tariffs.

“It is expected that within three years, this agreement will drive considerable Chinese investment into Canada’s auto-sector, create good careers in Canada and accelerate our progress towards a net zero future,” he said.

Updated Jan. 16, 2026, at 10:44 MT: This story was updated to include the latest developments in Canada’s trade deal with China.

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As a young boy growing up near the Bow River in Calgary, Kevin Van Tighem followed his father into the woods for hunting and fishing expeditions. Those trips — undertaken in all manner of weather — provided Van Tighem with “early and intimate connections” to the natural world, creating memories he treasures decades later.

It was the beginning of a life dedicated to learning from the landscapes of southern Alberta. A biologist by training, Van Tighem worked at several of Alberta’s national parks during his career, eventually becoming superintendent of Banff National Park before retiring in 2011.

Since then, Van Tighem has turned to writing as a way to share his love for the native prairies, Rocky Mountain foothills and other ecosystems that matter most to him. He’s penned hundreds of essays, articles and stories, some of which have been collected into books such as Wild Roses Are Worth It and Our Place: Changing the Nature of Alberta.

Van Tighem told us his writing is part of an effort to “re-story” our culture and help readers to feel their way back into a healthier relationship with nature. “Most of us have a very dysfunctional relationship with place,” he said. “We have built our culture around the othering of our relatives – reducing them to resources, reducing ourselves to consumers, reducing every relationship to a transaction.”

“We all need help with how we know and value our relations.”

As his latest book, Understory: An Ecologist’s Memoir of Loss and Hope, hits bookshelves across the country this fall, we asked Van Tighem to take The Narwhal’s Moose Questionnaire.

This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity — all opinions are the subject’s own.

What’s the most awe-inspiring natural sight you’ve witnessed between the Pacific, Atlantic, 49th parallel and Hudson Bay, i.e. Canada?

That is such a hard question, but I finally settled on a golden eagle I once saw in Banff. It was on the Panther River, a couple long days into the backcountry. It came in high, and I could see that it was carrying something, and then it dropped its load. Probably a marmot or something about that size. Whatever it was just dropped like a shot, and then the eagle tucked into a long, curving dive and, just when it should have crashed into the trees, swept up, grabbed its prey out of midair, and continued the same curve up to land on the side of its nest. 

I’ve never seen such a display of perfect athleticism and skill. And it seemed clear that the eagle had done it for the sheer pleasure of it. It certainly inspired awe in me.

What’s the most awe-inspiring natural sight you’ve witnessed outside of Canada?

White-throated swifts skimming along the edge of the Grand Canyon. They’re one of the fastest birds in the world, with long pointed wings and a little chittering call. The sunset light turned them pink as they went skimming past, with those layers of ancient earth memory fading into shadow below. Turn around, and it’s just a quiet evening in the ponderosa pine forest; turn back and there is that aerial dance over an enormity of time and space too immense to possibly comprehend. It was magic.

Think of three iconic Canadian animals. Choose one each to kiss, marry and kill.

Kiss: a cutthroat trout, underwater, in a mountain creek. No tongue involvement, though. There have to be boundaries.

Marry: a wolf. The places we would go together! And it would be nice to have a mate who’s also a hunting companion, and better at it than me. But then there’s those guns and snares, I suppose. Still: lovers in a dangerous time. It could be one of those tragic, doomed loves. A Boris Pasternak kind of thing.

Kill: horseflies. I know they have their place on this planet. But they’re such ruthless little thugs. Sometimes the death penalty just seems warranted.

Name a person or group doing something meaningful for the environment that everyone should know about.

At this stage of my life it’s almost impossible to name just one. I’ve been privileged to know and work with so many. 

But I think I’d name Nikki Jean and Patrick Tanner. They were inspired, after scrambling some peaks in Waterton Lakes National Park, to climb up and put smudge boxes on as many of those summits as they could in order to demonstrate the sacredness of those places to other visitors who were leaving less appropriate mementos behind. Given the importance of Ninaistako (Chief Mountain) in the Blackfoot way of being, they then went on to organize a series of hikes to its summits for other Kainai and Piikani people who had never been there. They didn’t do it as part of some grand initiative, but just because it was something they could do and it felt necessary and important. And I believe it was.

You don’t need to be some famous scientist or passionate political activist to do something meaningful for the environment; you just need to step up and step out.

Name one person who could significantly help mitigate the climate crisis if they really wanted to.

The temptation is to say Elon Musk or King Charles or Pope Leo or even (heaven help us) Gina Rinehart. But I think the one person who is most critical at helping to mitigate the climate crisis is the one we see in the mirror each morning. Each of us chooses daily how to spend our money, how to transport ourselves around, who to talk with and what to talk about. Each of us votes, and each of us has the capacity to tell politicians what they need to do to earn our votes and retain our support. 

Right now, it’s hard to have any faith in democracy — certainly here in Alberta where we have a government that seems determined to open our mountain headwaters to coal mining regardless of the opposition, and even more so when we see the tragedy unfolding on the other side of the 49th parallel. But all power, ultimately, comes from people, and when people organize their lives around matters of principle, they become unstoppable. Ignore Trump; remember Ghandi.

Outdoor cats: yes or no?

No. For crying out loud. There are three billion fewer birds on this continent than when I was a kid. Why turn pampered, well-fed predators loose on those that remain when we can choose not to?

Tell us about a time you changed your mind about something, environmental or otherwise.

I’ve mostly changed my mind about domestic cattle. 

The more I look around at the ecosystems that most matter to me: native prairie and the montane foothills of southern Alberta, the more I realize that my simplistic “beef yummy; cows bad” position was in conflict with what the land was telling me. The last, best surviving tracts of healthy prairie are those that are being managed for cattle production, by ranchers. The rest have been lost to crop monocultures, urban sprawl, gravel mining and a host of other insults. Native temperate grasslands are among the most threatened ecosystems on the planet and where they survive it’s almost always because ranchers have managed to keep everyone else’s economic ambitions at bay. 

Having said that, I have no love for the intensive livestock production systems that produce much of our beef. A lot of cows are raised wrong and treated horribly. But I’ve become a strong advocate for policies that perpetuate cattle grazing as an economic use of native grasslands. These habitats survive in no small part because of cattle ranching. It would be easier if things were more binary, more black and white, but they rarely are.

Tell us about a time you tried to change someone else’s mind about something, environmental or otherwise.

One time I remember trying, and failing, was when three of us got a meeting with the Alberta government’s environment minister, maybe fifteen years ago or so. We were asking for land use changes that would reduce the devastation being wrought by motorized recreation and industrial clear-cutting in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. She brought a deputy minister with her. The minister leaned forward, asked questions, tried to look really engaged, because of course she was a politician and that was her job. And maybe she even was interested. But the deputy minister leaned back, out of her line of sight, and sneered at us through the whole meeting. I left knowing that my fifteen minutes with her wasn’t going to carry as much weight as that deputy minister’s four hours with her on their drive back to Edmonton.

Yes, you have to choose: Rocky Mountains or Great Lakes?

Rocky Mountains. I grew up with them on the western edge of my world. They inspired my imagination of the wild from before I can even remember and, later, became the places where I lived some of my best days. Nothing against the Great Lakes, but they’re outside my home range. Others, no doubt, have been inspired by them. And that’s good, too.

Researchers at Yale University, the France-based Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society and other institutions have found women tend to be more concerned about climate change than men. Why do you think that is?

I don’t know, but I do believe it’s true. Certainly in Alberta, where the oil industry has spent half a century doing all it can to divert young men into oil jobs where they become addicted to big paycheques. A lot of men — and it’s mostly men in those oil jobs, even today — become stubborn defenders of that industry. 

I think a lot of gender roles and gender perspectives are still hard-wired into our culture, so there may be a tendency for women to worry about family and community health and well-being more, and men to feel they have to be cool and just tough it out. Whatever the reason, it’s one reason why I think it’s a hopeful sign that more women are in decision-making roles and active in political life than in the past. 

But again, I’m from Alberta: we currently have some unfortunate exceptions here.

If you could dip a toe off Canada’s coastline, which ocean would it be in?

The Pacific. Those waters lap against the shores of Haida Gwaii, Kamchatka, the Philippines, all those places that are most unlike the places from which my ancestors came. There are five species of salmon in those waters, and in their annual spawning runs they marry the sea to the mountains behind me in ways that really fire the imagination.

What’s a beautiful or useful thing you’ve owned for a really long time?

My senses. And my health.

What’s the farthest north you’ve ever been and what did you do there?

When I retired, my nephew Graham called me from Whitehorse and said that, after all the years that he had spent tagging along on hunting trips with me in southern Canada, he’d like to treat me to a caribou hunt. We ended up at a small lake near the head of the Pelly River. Only thing is, there were no caribou there. We ended up with a moose instead, and I drove almost non-stop back from Whitehorse, through unseasonably warm weather, to get my two quarters of that animal home so that we could get it into the freezer before it spoiled. We ate Yukon memories for a couple years, and they were all good.

What’s one way you interact with the natural world on a daily basis?

Of late, I find myself either walking along the Highwood River floodplain through cottonwood forests or sitting beside the Oldman River listening to what it has to say. It has a great deal more to say than I can understand, but I believe it’s worth listening anyway.

If you could ask one person, alive or dead, about their thoughts on climate change, who would it be?

It might be interesting to get Mark Twain’s opinion. It might not be well-informed, but it would certainly be colourful.

Yes, you have to choose: smoked salmon or maple syrup?

Smoked salmon, if I really have to choose. Salmon are like bison or northern caribou – they are sacred beings that feed our souls and our relationship with the world as much as they feed our bodies. But fortunately, I don’t have to choose: we can get smoked, maple syrup-cured, wild sockeye salmon here. Canada, eh?

Who, in your life, has had the greatest impact on your connection to nature?

I would have to say my father, Jack Van Tighem. Dad was an introvert, a man of rigid principles, who allowed himself and his family few indulgences. He worked hard, and he worked long hours, because of his value system. And on weekends, or during his vacation time in summer, he fished and hunted. In his view, that’s what Saturdays and holidays were for, regardless of the weather. I think a couple times I came close to serious hypothermia while fishing in sleet storms or hunting during prairie blizzards. 

But that regimen of getting out into nature, in all her moods, at all seasons, was what brought me into early and intimate connections with the places and fellow beings that now pretty much form my identity. I still find myself dwelling on memories from those brief childhood years tagging along behind Dad.

Whose relationship with the natural world would you most like to have an impact on?

Everyone’s, I guess. We are such a disconnected culture; most of us have a very dysfunctional relationship with place, with other beings, with the real world. We have built our culture around the othering of our relatives — reducing them to resources, reducing ourselves to consumers, reducing every relationship to a transaction. I overstate it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fundamentally true. My latest book, Understory, goes into this more deeply.

In my writing, I try to do my part in re-storying our culture, in hopes that some readers at least will start to rethink and re-feel the way we live. We are not in a good place these days, and we may be heading for some very dark times. I don’t have any particular demographic or target I would like to have an impact on; our problem is cultural and so it involves almost all of us. We all need help with how we know and value our relations. So I suppose the answer is: everyone’s. I’m still working on myself, frankly.

Would you rather be invited to Victoria and David Beckham’s Muskoka cottage, or Harry and Meghan Sussex’s B.C. escape?

I think I’d choose the Beckhams’ Muskoka cottage, mostly out of curiosity. I don’t know Ontario’s landscapes very well. First thing I’d do is ditch both of them, and head off into the woods with my binoculars and a sandwich. There’d be some things worth meeting there, I’m sure. Trilliums, maybe. Prothonotary warblers, perhaps. Beckhams and Sussexes, though? Meh.

Camping: yes or no?

Yes. But at my age that comes with new issues. Like getting up and down off the ground: it’s not as straightforward as it was back in the day. And those dark night visits to the outhouse, of which aging increases the frequency. But the patter of rain on a tent fly, the sound of birdsong through canvas, the smell of morning coffee mixed with woodsmoke — of course it’s yes.

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The Alberta government paid more than $30 million on behalf of delinquent oil and gas companies in 2024, The Narwhal has learned. The companies failed to pay rent owed to landowners for the use of their property for oil and gas activities. 

This represents a 4,500 per cent increase in the amount of money the government is paying for these missed payments since 2010. 

Companies are required to pay rents to landowners for oil and gas activity, whether to drill a well or install another related facility. When they don’t pay, landowners can apply to a tribunal to have those rents paid for by the province.

The payout is supposed to be a stopgap to make sure landowners aren’t out of pocket, with the government going after delinquent oil and gas companies to get them to repay the money.

In reality, that rarely happens.

Data obtained via a freedom of information request shows just $167,000 — less than half a per cent of the total paid out in 2024 — was recovered from oil and gas companies. 

“The bottom line is … these companies don’t have any money,” Shaun Fluker, a law professor and executive director of the Public Interest Law Clinic at the University of Calgary, said in an interview. “The money has been pulled out of the ground,” he said, explaining that many of these sites are older and produce very little in the way of oil or gas.

“The Crown is not going to recover these funds,” he added.

The total paid by the government on behalf of delinquent companies since 2010 is nearly $150 million, according to data from the province’s Land and Property Rights Tribunal, an independent, non-partisan tribunal that handles landowner claims for land rent. The annual figure has risen almost every year since 2010.

“This number is rising fast now,” Fluker said. “We can now see in the distance [that we’ll reach] half a billion dollars paid by the government — and up we go.”

When asked by The Narwhal about whether the data indicated an issue with the system, Mike Hartfield, the executive director of the Land and Property Rights Tribunal said by email, “That’s a question best answered by Albertans. The tribunal is focused on doing what it’s here to do — making fair and timely decisions for Albertans following the legislated process set out in the Surface Rights Act.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas did not respond to emailed questions from The Narwhal.

Landowners can’t deny oil and gas companies access to their land, so the government promises compensation

There are currently more than 150,000 inactive and marginal oil and gas wells across Alberta. Inactive wells have not produced any oil or gas for months (or years). Marginal wells have a very low production. Taken together, they make up more than a third of all the wells in Alberta.

“There’s a huge number of so-called marginal sites out there that are inactive, but they haven’t been designated as such,” Fluker said. “The company’s not insolvent, but it’s just simply not doing anything with the facilities.”

Landowners bear the burden of oil and gas activity on their land, including disturbances to agricultural crops. Weeds, spills, leaks and soil compaction as a result of the wells can also cause issues.Land rent — also referred to as surface lease payments — is a critical way farmers and landowners are compensated for the loss of their land when it is occupied by oil and gas infrastructure. Ultimately, landowners do not have the power to refuse an oil and gas company access to their land.

As part of this arrangement, when an oil and gas company cannot — or will not — make its land rental payments, landowners can apply to the Alberta government to have the government pay rent on the company’s behalf. 

Once a landowner’s claim is verified by the tribunal, the minister of environment and protected areas issues payments to landowners from the government’s general revenue stream. The government is then supposed to try to recoup that amount from companies.

The tribunal itself has no ability to enforce repayment at that point. It can, however, terminate access rights for companies, which Hartfield noted “can serve as a strong incentive for operators to pay.” 

Fluker says the issue of unpaid land rents is “intertwined” with a number of issues when it comes to the liabilities of oil and gas companies, including an inability or unwillingness to cover the cost to clean up an old well, as well as outstanding municipal property taxes.

Unpaid land rent is in addition to unpaid municipal taxes

Land rents aren’t the only way oil and gas companies are costing individual landowners and small communities — many also owe unpaid property taxes to rural municipalities. In March, Rural Municipalities of Alberta announced that its members, made up of rural counties and municipal districts across the province, faced $68 million in unpaid taxes from oil and gas companies in 2024 alone. 

In the seven years the organization has been tracking the issue, at least $253.9 million of municipal property taxes have gone unpaid by oil and gas companies.

“The problem continues to worsen,” Kara Westerlund, the president of Rural Municipalities of Alberta, said in a statement at the time. 

“Oil and gas companies are willfully avoiding their property tax responsibilities. Yet, year after year, this issue persists due to a lack of proper industry regulation and accountability.”

Tribunal working to reduce wait times in the face of ‘exceptionally high’ landowner requests

In response to questions sent via email, Hartfield said the tribunal did not analyze trends in amounts paid out, but did note increased awareness around the compensation process, which he said was in part the result of increased engagement efforts.

Hartfield noted the tribunal has been involved in community information sessions — along with the Alberta Energy Regulator, Orphan Well Association and the Farmers’ Advocate Office — in the Alberta communities of Vegreville, Lac Ste. Anne, Delia, Stettler, Consort and Wheatland County, with more planned in the months ahead.

He also noted “advancements in technology, streamlined processes and red-tape reduction” mean the tribunal is “better equipped to manage high application volumes and continue reducing decision timelines.”

“The results speak for itself: back in 2022-23 decision timelines on these applications took as long as 12 months, whereas today we’re down to five months,” he added.

Still, Hartfield said the tribunal expects the total number of requests next year to be “similar.”

He added the tribunal has adapted “to handle exceptionally high volumes of applications — over 35,000 under the Surface Rights Act since 2016.”

‘Trying to squeeze whatever extra economic juice’ is left in wells

The Alberta government is currently developing what it is calling the Mature Assets Strategy, which “aims to maximize value and optimize resource recovery from mature oil and gas assets while effectively managing the closure of inactive sites.” Critics say this means the government is trying to prolong the life of old oil and gas wells.

“This government is interested in trying to squeeze whatever extra economic juice there is to squeeze out of these assets,” Fluker said.

But, he added, the approach so far has not dealt with the root causes of the unpaid rents and taxes problem.

“The unpaid surface lease issue is sort of like the bubbles percolating to the surface,” he said. 

“When marginal sites become even less economic than they were, companies stop paying: they stop paying the landowner, stop paying the contractors, they stop paying the property taxes,” he said. “And these are the things that percolate up.”— With files from Drew Anderson

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Will there be tariffs? Will they be 10 per cent, 25, 50? In a dizzying cycle of unrelenting news, you’d be excused for not being sure anymore.

But the latest round of tariffs could have real implications for an industry they don’t intend to target. 

U.S. President Donald Trump has recently taken aim at steel (and aluminum). These new tariffs will have huge implications for the Canadian steel industry — which sends as much as 99 per cent of its exports to the U.S. — as well as a wide array of Canadian products, far beyond steel itself.

But you don’t (usually) get steel without coal. It’s all part of the complicated web of impacts of a trade war. 

Here’s what you need to know as more Canadian commodities — potash made headlines last week! — get caught up in tariff impacts.

What’s the latest on Trump’s steel tariffs?

The United States has implemented 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum. This is a different executive order from the one targeting all Canadian and Mexican goods that has captured Canadian’s attention for weeks. This metal-focused order was signed Feb. 10, and set the stage for tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to the U.S. beginning March 12.

In a flurry of threats this week, Trump abruptly promised to double the tariffs, meaning there would be 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian steel imported into the country. Then, just as abruptly, he backed down. 

Still, as of Wednesday, 25 per cent tariffs are now in place on steel and aluminum from Canada and the rest of the world. Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, calling Trump’s tariffs “completely unjustified, unfair and unreasonable,” announced dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs in response.

This is not the first time Trump has brought in tariffs like these. Tariffs on Canadian steel also went into effect in 2018 during his first administration (also 25 per cent) and were lifted in 2019.

Back to basics: what’s steel used for?

Steel is one of the world’s most ubiquitous and important building materials, used in nearly every building, vehicle, machine, plane, ship, public transit system and bridge on the planet. 

The International Energy Agency has projected global demand for steel will increase by more than a third by 2050. Steel will, in part, help build new infrastructure such as wind turbines, electric vehicles and high-speed trains in the cleaner, greener global economy envisioned to facilitate the push to net-zero carbon emissions.

But all that production comes with an enormous environmental footprint. According to the International Energy Agency, the steel and iron industry produces more carbon pollution than any other heavy industry. 

The industry is responsible for between seven and nine per cent of the global emissions created from the burning of fossil fuels, according to the World Steel Association.

As much as 99 per cent of Canada’s steel exports head to the U.S., according to the International Trade Administration.

What does coal have to do with steel tariffs?

Coal — known as metallurgical coal — has long been used to manufacture steel.

The steel industry is the world’s largest industrial consumer of coal, according to the International Energy Agency.

Estimates vary, but generally one tonne of steel requires about 0.7 tonnes of coal.

Wait, where does steel come from, exactly?

Steel is an alloy — a mixture of iron and other metals. Coal is used to get pure iron, which is hard to find naturally.

No need to get your chemistry textbooks out, here’s the gist of a very technical process: coal is heated to super-high temperatures (more than 1,000 degrees celsius) to make a carbon-dense substance called coke. The coke is combined with iron ore — iron and oxygen — in what’s known as a blast furnace. So, basic heating, and then a chemical reaction that strips oxygen off the iron ore (which is way more energy intensive) — leaves you with the pure iron needed for steel. 

The majority of steel is produced this way, but some companies have been experimenting with less energy-intensive techniques, like hydrogen.

How much coal in Canada is used to make steel?

Coal mines in Canada produce tens of millions of tonnes of coal annually.

More than half of that is used to make steel — 59 per cent, according to Natural Resources Canada. The remainder is what’s known as thermal coal: coal used to generate electricity. 

The federal and provincial governments have moved quickly to phase out the use of thermal coal to generate electricity, signing on to agreements to phase out coal-fired electricity by 2030. Many coal-fired electricity plants have quickly switched to natural gas. But that hasn’t stopped thermal coal from being mined and shipped overseas.

Where is Canadian steel-making coal produced?

Coal is primarily a western product. According to Natural Resources Canada, British Columbia is the hotbed, home to 59 per cent of Canadian coal production. It’s followed by Alberta at just over a quarter of production. Saskatchewan contributes 13 per cent of Canadian coal production.

In B.C., the vast majority of coal — 95 per cent — is used to make steel.

According to the B.C. government, the coal industry in the province employs thousands of people and generates billions of dollars of revenue each year. The province notes that “coal production currently represents over half of the total mineral production revenues in the province.”

Does Canadian coal stay in Canada?

The B.C. government says most of its coal is shipped internationally via coal ports on the West Coast, while a smaller percentage gets shipped to steel mills in eastern Canada.

But since Trump has targeted all of Canada’s metallurgical coal customers around the world with new tariffs on steel, it remains to be seen whether their market could soon dry up.

That could leave the industry — especially in coal-reliant regions — rather exposed to a trade war.

What are the potential impacts of U.S. steel tariffs?

The Canadian Steel Producers Association has recently emphasized how interconnected the U.S. and Canada steel industries are, saying there is $20 billion in annual steel trade between the two countries.

As The Globe and Mail has reported, last time Trump imposed 25 per cent steel tariffs, back in May 2018, Canadian steel exports fell by around 20 per cent (they later rebounded when the tariffs were lifted). And if steel production is decreasing, it follows that the steel industry’s consumption of coal is decreasing, too.

What will happen this time? Only time will tell. But industry advocates are ringing alarm bells. 

“If we can’t get out of the tariffs, we need to hit back hard,” Catherine Cobden, president of the Canadian Steel Producers Association, told the Financial Post last month, adding the tariffs could quickly lead to a decrease in production at Canadian steel plants — and job losses.

And a decrease in steel production would almost surely impact the Canadian coal industry.

For more coverage on how tariffs are impacting natural resources and the environment around you, check out our page on Canada-U.S. relations.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

It finally happened. 

Canada and the United States are in the midst of a cross-border trade war.

In response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods and 10 per cent tariffs on Canadian energy, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced his own set of punitive tariffs on American imports. 

Potash, in particular, has been gaining attention lately for how it might get caught up in this mess. (On Mar. 6, Trump lowered the possible tariff rate to 10 per cent for potash after mounting pressure from U.S. farmers. The threatened tariffs on Canadian and Mexican products have been pushed back again, now set to take effect April 2.)

It might not have name recognition in most North American households, but this humble mineral is essential for North American food production.

And if the U.S. ends up in a situation where it can’t get it from Canada, or can’t get it at an affordable price? Well, things get tricky. Because Canada has a lot of it.

Here’s what you need to know.

What is potash, anyway?

Potash is on Canada’s list of “critical minerals” — minerals dubbed crucial to technology and a lower-carbon economy. American lawmakers have lobbied to see it designated as a critical mineral in the States, too.

A catch-all term for minerals rich in potassium (remember “K” from chemistry class?), potash is also one of three key ingredients in agricultural fertilizer.

Because plants need potassium to grow, potash is critical to food security in Canada and the U.S.

“Potash is very important to our operation,” Minnesota farmer Harmon Wilts said in a late January interview. “A very good chunk of it does come from our trading partners in Canada.”

Fertilizer is already in the ground for the 2025 growing season, but the next year and beyond are sown with unknowns. As tariffs drive up the cost of fertilizer, farmers could be forced to cut back on potassium inputs, which could be bad for yield. Before the U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods officially hit, some farmers, like Wilts, were working at breakneck speed trying to lock in a price with suppliers. 

Where does potash come from?

The Canadian Prairies are a mega producer of potash — primarily Saskatchewan, though potash is also found in small swaths of Manitoba and Alberta, too.

About a third of the global potash supply comes from 11 underground mines in southern Saskatchewan, where the remnants of an ancient inland ocean form the largest potassium deposit in the world. Canada exports about 20 million tonnes of the rose-coloured rock each year, mostly to American farmers.

More than 80 per cent of the potash used in U.S. agriculture comes from Saskatchewan mines.

As The Globe and Mail put it recently, “Canada is the king of potash.” 

What countries are the biggest potash producers?

Canada is the world’s largest producer of potash by far. Global potash production was estimated at 67.5 million tonnes in 2023, according to Natural Resources Canada. Canada (mostly Saskatchewan) contributed 21.9 million of those.

Number 2? Russia, followed closely by Belarus (sanctioned by the U.S.). China (also impacted by tariffs) and Israel round out the top five.

How is the Saskatchewan potash industry doing?

Saskatchewan really is in the driver’s seat when it comes to Canadian — and global — potash production.

The province has positioned itself “at the forefront of global critical minerals production.” The province is, in its own words, “a critical minerals powerhouse” at a time when the minerals increasingly sought after.

That’s because, according to the provincial government, Saskatchewan is home to the world’s largest reserves of some critical minerals: high-grade uranium, used to produce nuclear energy — and, you guessed it, potash.

The Saskatchewan government has been busy bolstering the sector, which it dubs “vital for modern living,” offering incentives and a blueprint for extracting more critical minerals in the province. 

The primary focus outlined in its critical minerals strategy is on the three things it already extracts — potash, uranium and helium — but it also wants to increase exploration for 27 of the 34 critical minerals listed by the federal government which exist in Saskatchewan. 

It remains to be seen how Saskatchewan’s plan will be impacted by U.S. tariffs. (Canada isn’t immune to both political and environmental factors affecting the potash industry: in 2023, rail strikes and wildfires hurt production.)

What are Canadian politicians saying about exporting potash to the U.S.?

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has already publicly urged Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe to stop exporting potash to the U.S.

“I consider Scott Moe a good friend of mine … and I’ve talked to him. We need to make sure America feels the pain,” Ford told reporters on Tuesday.

“Without potash down there, [the United States] doesn’t have a farming system. When it comes to uranium, they’re using that to enrich their uranium down in the U.S. for their nuclear energy.”

“Everyone wants [Moe’s] uranium, but ship it out to other places.”

Moe has acknowledged how his province holds the cards in this area.

“It’s very difficult to one, get potash from another [country] into the Midwest, and two, the next area you’d be looking at is Russia,” Moe told reporters last week.

How will potash tariffs impact U.S. farmers?

“My stomach starts to turn just a little bit,” Wilts, the Minnesota farmer, said in a late January interview. “As a farmer, we can control the things we can control … but when it comes to something like tariffs — that is totally out of our control and very frustrating.”

By most accounts, farmers will feel the impacts of U.S. tariffs, and bear many of the costs. The CEO of Nutrien, a Canadian fertilizer company, was blunt about the effects. “Frankly, costs of this [tariff] will be borne by the U.S. farmers,” he said during a February conference call. “U.S. farmers will likely feel the impact after the spring planting season.”

Spring planting season? In much of the U.S., that’d be around … now.

— With files from Drew Anderson and Julia-Simone Rutgers

Updated on March 7, 2025, 11:16 am PST: This story has been updated to include Trump’s lowering of the possible tariff rate on potash after mounting farmer pressure in the U.S. — and the new date for possible tariffs coming into effect.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Much ink has been spilled over research from the University of Alberta that asked focus groups to “draw an Albertan.” Overwhelmingly, participants drew a man — a farmer or cowboy standing outside, near mountains or foothills or fields.

They may as well have been drawing Corb Lund. 

The Juno Award-winning country artist often wears a wide-brim cowboy hat and hails from a rodeo family in the foothills — but he is anything but a stereotypical Albertan, especially when it comes to his politics. His anti-partisan and complicated views afford him an everyman’s edge when he wades into the issues facing the province’s environment.

And wade in he has, particularly when it comes to coal mining on the eastern slopes of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains.

“I don’t know how many times Albertans have to fight these foreign coal companies and how many times we have to tell them no,” he has said, labelling governments and coal corporations as “crooked.”

Lund’s family ranch is just north of the 49th parallel, a landscape he rode “every inch” of on horseback with his grandfather. The values of stewardship and conservation he learned there have made him into a fierce advocate for protecting grasslands, rivers and mountains. He employs his country twang and singing about everything from the degradation of wildlife habitat to … stuck trucks.

Here, Lund answers The Narwhal’s new Moose Questionnaire, which digs into our connection to the natural world. 

This interview is edited and condensed for clarity — all opinions are the subject’s own.

What’s the most awe-inspiring natural sight you’ve witnessed between the Pacific, Atlantic, 49th parallel and Hudson Bay, i.e. Canada?

I might be a little biased, but the Rockies, for sure.

What’s the most awe-inspiring natural sight you’ve witnessed outside of Canada?

The Australian outback is pretty incredible in its own bleak way. That’s some pretty cool, desolate country.

Think of three iconic Canadian animals. Choose one each to Kiss, Marry and Kill. 

Kiss: Porcupine.

Marry: Cow Elk.

Kill: The ‘iconic-in-its-absence-in-Alberta’ rat. Ick.

Name a person or group doing something meaningful for the environment that everyone should know about.

I’ve been working with some pretty impressive people that are neck deep in the fight against coal mining developments in the eastern slopes of Alberta’s Rockies, currently the Grassy Mountain project near Crowsnest Pass. David Luff, formerly of Premier Lougheed’s staff. Mandy Olsgard, a toxicologist formerly with the Alberta Energy Regulator. Katie Morrison with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. Laura Laing, John Smith and the Blades family, generational ranchers who are pushing back against having their land and water ruined by foreign coal speculators.

Tell us about a time you changed your mind about something, environmental or otherwise.

I changed my mind about the competence of our politicians that make crucial decisions about our water supply after meetings with many of them, from all sides. I don’t ‘trust the system’ about anything anymore, regardless of party. Tribalism has killed critical thinking.

Tell us about a time you tried to change someone else’s mind about something, environmental or otherwise.

I’ve spent three years trying to change our provincial government’s minds about open pit coal mines in the slopes of our Rockies, with little or no success. They’re going to ruin our ground water for a few hundred short term jobs, just like in the Elk Valley, across the line in B.C.

Yes, you have to choose: Rocky Mountains or Great Lakes?

Rockies.

If you could dip a toe off Canada’s coastline, which ocean would it be in?

I’ve done all three. Up north was coldest.

What’s the farthest north you’ve ever been and what did you do there?

I’ve played music in Inuvik. My dad was a vet and has been farther north than that overseeing the Inuit muskox harvest.

If you could ask one person, alive or dead, about their thoughts on climate change, who would it be?

I’m very concerned about the world’s environmental focus being solely on climate change. I wish that one issue didn’t take up ALL the oxygen in public ecological discussions. 

No one ever asks about the terrible conditions of the oceans, global pollution, loss of biodiversity, eradication of native grasslands. Why is climate change the only issue anyone brings up? The singular focus around this concerns me. 

With eight or nine billion of us on the planet, the sheer scale of our impact has us facing many, many crucial ecological challenges.

Yes, you have to choose: smoked salmon or maple syrup?

Grass-fed Alberta beefsteak.

Who, in your life, has had the greatest impact on your connection to nature?

Probably my maternal grandfather, Eddie Ivins. We rode every inch of our family ranch when I was a kid and he impressed upon me the importance of maintaining the native grasslands. He was obsessed with his grass health. Ranchers are underrated as conservationists.

Enjoying the Moose Questionnaire? We’re going to ask as many artists, athletes, politicians and cultural personalities as we can to answer it, so let us know if you have suggestions.

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Earlier this month, I found Margaret Atwood sitting backstage at Edmonton’s Jubilee Auditorium. The petite, and very poised, 84-year-old was there to talk to a sold-out crowd. Fans clutching novels, some wearing red cloaks, were gathering by the hundreds. She was to go on stage in half an hour. She never prepares, she tells me. “I’m not a politician,” she says. “I don’t have talking points.”

She does, however, have ideas. Lots of them. Atwood has published dozens of books — fiction, poetry and more —  since her debut novel, The Edible Woman, came out in 1969.

Since then, she’s become a literary sensation, winning the Booker and the Giller and pretty much all the others. She’s never been shy about bringing forward bold ideas or visions of the future — many consider the early 2000s Oryx and Crake trilogy to be extinction crisis prophecy — and has occasionally expressed complicated views that have “arguably annoyed everyone.”

But she perseveres in public life. And through the decades, Atwood has been keenly aware of the intersection of environmental values and her livelihood as a writer.

“The preservation of an environment similar to the one we have is a precondition of literature,” she said back in 2010. “Unless we can preserve such an environment, your writing and my writing and everyone else’s writing will become simply irrelevant, as there will be nobody left to read it.”

Atwood has dedicated significant resources to conservation, including through the non-profit bird observatory she founded with her late husband, Graeme Gibson.

Here, Atwood answers The Narwhal’s new Moose Questionnaire, which digs into our connection to the natural world. 

This interview is edited and condensed for clarity — all opinions are the subject’s own.

What’s the most awe-inspiring natural sight you’ve witnessed between the Pacific, Atlantic, 49th parallel and Hudson Bay, i.e. Canada?

Glacier calving, up around Lancaster Sound.

What’s the most awe-inspiring natural sight you’ve witnessed outside of Canada?

Mount St. Helens in eruption.

Think of three iconic Canadian animals. Choose one each to Kiss, Marry and Kill. 

Kiss: Snowy owl.

Marry: Northwestern wolf: such good dads!

Kill: Pelee Island chiggers. So annoying, and contribute nothing I can think of to the general welfare. They may not be iconic exactly, however.

Name a person or group doing something meaningful for the environment that everyone should know about:

Pelee Island Bird Observatory.

Name one person who could significantly help mitigate the climate crisis if they really wanted to:

Xi Jinping.

Outdoor cats: yes or no?

No. See Angel Catbird.

Tell us about a time you changed your mind about something, environmental or otherwise.

“Recompose” burial is better than cremation. It turns the dead quickly to compost that can be used in the garden.

Tell us about a time you tried to change someone else’s mind about something, environmental or otherwise.

He’s not right for you.

Yes, you have to choose: Rocky Mountains or Great Lakes?

Great Lakes.

Researchers at Yale University, the France-based Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society and other institutions have found women tend to be more concerned about climate change than men. Why do you think that is?

Children. Women invest more biomatter in them. They don’t like to think of their children being starved, drowned, burnt up in forest fires or killed by invasive climate-warming microbes, all of which are increasingly affected by a warming climate.

If you could dip a toe off Canada’s coastline, which ocean would it be in?

Atlantic, south shore of Nova Scotia.

What’s a beautiful or useful thing you’ve owned for a really long time?

My teeth. Useful.

What’s the farthest north you’ve ever been and what did you do there?

Grise Fiord, Ellesmere Island. I saw the monument to the people who were forcibly relocated there without adequate supplies.

What’s one way you interact with the natural world on a daily basis?

Dump biostuff into my compost bin.

If you could ask one person, alive or dead, about their thoughts on climate change, who would it be?

Graeme Gibson, because I’d like to talk with him again. I know what he’d say though. It isn’t printable.

Yes, you have to choose: smoked salmon or maple syrup?

Smoked salmon. Reluctantly.

Who, in your life, has had the greatest impact on your connection to nature?

My father, Dr. Carl Atwood, entomologist and conservationist, and his like-minded buddies of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Whose relationship with the natural world would you most like to have an impact on?

So much to choose, so little time. How about God? That one would have a plan ….

Would you rather be invited to Victoria and David Beckham’s Muskoka cottage, or Harry and Meghan Sussex’s B.C. escape?

Neither one, thanks. I prefer my own cottage. But thanks for asking.

Camping: yes or no?

Yes. As long as my knees can manage it.

Enjoying the Moose Questionnaire? We’re going to ask as many artists, athletes, politicians and cultural personalities as we can to answer it, so let us know if you have suggestions.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.