With U.S. president-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration quickly approaching, the stage has been set for the world’s second-largest emitter to take renewed action on climate change that could spill over into Canada.

Biden put forward an ambitious vision for a clean energy transformation of the U.S. economy during the election campaign — pledging to rejoin the Paris Agreement and reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 

And with Democrats snagging control of the Senate after winning both seats in Georgia’s runoff elections, Biden will be able to count on steady support for his environmental initiatives.

“It’s night and day within the U.S. to go from a president who rejects science and has been rolling back fairly modest measures to one that is promising 100 per cent clean electricity by 2035,” said Kathryn Harrison, a University of British Columbia political science professor who studies climate and energy policy.

Biden will take office in the wake of a sustained effort by his predecessor to undermine key climate and environmental regulations and policies. More than 70 such rules — including vehicle emissions standards and controls on methane emissions from oil and gas — were eroded under the Trump administration, with efforts underway to weaken more than 25 others, according to a New York Times analysis.

U.S. climate action is crucial to global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: the country was responsible for 15 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2018, second only to China, according to a Union of Concerned Scientists’ analysis. 

“With or without the U.S., the world is not on track to meet the targets in the Paris climate agreement, but without the U.S. there’s absolutely no chance,” said Simon Donner, a climate scientist and geography professor at the University of British Columbia. 

Renewed commitment to climate action from a Biden administration could reverberate around the world.

“The U.S., for good and bad, is a leader economically around the world and the decisions the U.S. makes influences what other countries are willing to do,” Donner said.

Here’s where the President-elect stands on key climate and environment issues.

Biden pledged to rejoin the Paris Agreement and ramp up climate action

The United States officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement on climate change on Nov. 4, the day after the U.S. election and a year after Trump gave notice to the United Nations. 

Biden, however, has pledged to rejoin the international accord and could do so as early as February.

That would provide “a shot in the arm” for the agreement, said Ravipal Bains, a McMillan LLP corporate lawyer with expertise in corporate governance and environmental and social governance issues.

Donner agreed. Even if passing legislation remains a challenge, it will mean a lot to have the U.S. “as an international champion” for climate action once again, he said.

Biden also campaigned on a $2 trillion plan to combat climate change that includes major investments in clean energy and a commitment to eliminate carbon emissions from the power sector by 2035. 

His platform includes commitments to sign a number of executive orders “on day one” to put the country on track to meet its 2050 target and to push Congress to pass climate legislation with milestone targets and enforcement mechanisms within his first year in office. 

Biden also committed to major investments in clean energy research and innovation, clean infrastructure, including electric vehicle charging stations, and to — one day — ensure 100 per cent of new cars sold are electric. 

“He’s promising a pretty bold transformation of the U.S. economy pretty quickly,” Harrison said of the plan.

And any transformation in the U.S. is likely to spill over to other countries, according to Bains. 

“If the U.S. government takes a stance that they want to accelerate decommissioning of certain types of fuel sources, that will have ramifications in the U.S. economy and the broader global economy because many of the other economies take cues and are suppliers for the U.S.,” he said.

Emissions rise from an industrial facility in Kentucky. The U.S. was the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter after China in 2018, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Photo: Nik Shuliahin

The U.S. Senate, climate legislation and Biden’s options

Even a Democrat-controlled Senate won’t have guaranteed easy passage for effective climate legislation, experts say.

But Biden could have a meaningful impact through spending and regulation.

“The Obama administration, which Biden was a part of, showed that you can do a lot with regulations, even if you can’t pass a bill,” said Donner, pointing to the Clean Power Plan as an example.

“If it had been fully enacted, because of course Trump repealed parts of it, it would have probably reduced emissions about as much as the legislation would have,” he said.

Donner said he would expect to see Biden reverse Trump’s executive orders that weakened environmental regulations, but noted the courts could pose a challenge given the number of appointments Trump made during his presidency.

Several other initiatives, including energy efficiency retrofits, investments in public transit and electric vehicle charging stations, could be pushed forward through spending, Donner said.

Spending on climate adaptation measures may have more bipartisan support, in part because it wouldn’t necessarily have to be framed as a climate measure, he said.

“We shouldn’t discount the fact that with Biden as president, the Democrats have control of who’s appointed to run all the government agencies,” Donner added.

“That absolutely matters,” said Debora VanNijnatten, a Wilfrid Laurier University political science professor who studies transboundary environmental governance.

Under Trump, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took a marked deregulatory bent and prioritized the needs of the oil and gas industry, VanNijnatten said.

Under a Biden administration she expects “an absolute sea change in terms of what the U.S. EPA is and can do.”

‘Policies of the U.S. administration echo across the world’

Action on climate change in the U.S., Canada’s largest trading partner, should make it easier for Canada to take more ambitious climate action of its own, Harrison said, noting the federal government needs to implement additional measures to meet its 2030 targets.

Biden seems prepared to ensure other countries are pulling their weight. According to his platform, Biden would consider imposing “carbon adjustment fees or quotas on carbon-intensive goods from other countries that are failing to meet their climate and environmental obligations.”

Such climate tariffs could exert pressure on Canada and others to ensure their emissions reductions targets and regulations measure up to those adopted by Biden’s administration, Harrison explained.

A Biden presidency also offers a wide range of potential partners for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in Ottawa, VanNijnatten said, noting that a number of the initiatives Canada and the U.S. were collaborating on, such as methane emissions and fuel efficiency standards, “ground to a halt” under the Trump administration. 

Bains said Biden’s plan will also create opportunities for Canadian clean tech companies through trade — and send a signal to investors that “green investments will be a key component of America’s growth.”

“As one of the world’s largest economies and as one of the globally leading centres of power, the policies of the U.S. administration echo across the world,” he said.

That could serve as a “wake-up call that Canadian industry has to get their act together because our major trading market could be transforming rapidly and we risk getting left behind,” Harrison said.

Biden promised to scrap Keystone XL

A key concern for Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party government in Alberta will be the future of the Keystone XL pipeline.  

The province bet $1.5 billion on the project moving forward earlier this year, but Biden has said he would cancel the controversial pipeline. 

The day before the U.S. election, Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan reiterated the federal government’s support for the pipeline, which could ship 830,000 barrels of crude a day from Alberta to the U.S.

In an interview with Global News, O’Regan said “there is a very, very strong argument for the Keystone project that continues regardless of who the president of the United States is.”

“We will continue to make that argument strongly,” he added.

Construction of the Alberta section of the Keystone XL pipeline began near the town of Oyen in July 2020. Photo: Government of Alberta / Flickr

Should Biden scrap the project it could make it easier for Canada to meet its climate targets if the cancellation wards off an anticipated increase in oil production, Harrison said.

But it’s likely to increase pressure from the industry to build the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline, she added.

Bains, however, said given the scope of Biden’s clean stimulus plans, Keystone XL may not be among the first issues he examines.

“The Canadian government has been in favour of this project so there may be opportunities where they can engage with their American counterparts,” he said.

“Short of having specific guidance from the Biden administration on how they plan to deal with these issues, I think there will be opportunity for cooperation with respect to Alberta as well, because from a U.S. perspective getting oil from Alberta is more cost efficient than from a number of international markets,” he added.

Biden’s climate plans could affect Canada’s oil industry

Other Biden climate measures could impact the oil industry as well, including a commitment to phase out the sale of new gas-powered cars — a step that would significantly reduce U.S. oil consumption, Harrison noted.

Donner said simply shifting U.S. government procurement to electric vehicles could have a significant impact.

Any measures that increase the supply of green energy and reduce U.S. demand for oil are likely to affect the Canadian oil and gas industry and more broadly the transition to a clean economy in Canada, according to VanNijnatten.

“The quicker that transition happens in the U.S., the quicker the transition is happening in Canada,” she said.

The Trudeau government may also encounter less pushback from industry on climate measures if Biden moves forward with similar initiatives, in turn alleviating Canadian concerns of a competitive disadvantage.

Permanent protection for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The Hulahula River flows north to the Beaufort Sea, from the Brooks range mountains in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

Biden’s platform includes a commitment to permanently protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area of roughly 8 million hectares in northeastern Alaska that includes the critical calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd, from oil and gas development. 

In August, the Trump administration took another step toward allowing oil and gas development in the previously protected area, when the U.S. Secretary of the Interior signed a decision approving the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program. The decision made about 8 per cent of the area available for oil and gas leasing. 

Trump’s efforts to open the area to development have met with major political opposition and lawsuits from the Gwich’in Steering Committee and environmental groups, concerned about the threat to wildlife, food security, and culture. 

Alongside protections for the refuge, Biden said he would push for a global moratorium on offshore drilling in the Arctic.

Biden climate action could ease impacts of U.S. wildfires

While commitments to reduce emissions in the coming years may help avoid the worst effects of climate change, it is already taking a toll in the U.S. and Canada. 

Hotter, drier weather, for instance, has dramatically increased the risk for wildfires each year.

In California alone, wildfires burned more than 1.7 million hectares this year — an area almost three times the size of Prince Edward Island — destroying more than 10,000 structures and killing 31 people.

San Francisco covered in an orange haze during the 2020 wildfires. Photo: Thom Milkovic

While B.C.’s own wildfire season was relatively quiet, smoke from fires along the west coast of the U.S. blanketed southern B.C. for days.

Biden pointed to the fires as evidence of the need for concerted action on climate change.

“If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze,” Biden said during a September campaign stop in Delaware, USA Today reported. 

“We need a president who respects science, who understands that the damage from climate change is already here and unless we take urgent action, it’ll soon be more catastrophic.”

For those communities already impacted by natural disasters, Biden promised investments in efforts to adapt to climate change, creating new jobs and more resilient communities.

—With files from Julien Gignac

Update Jan. 8, 2021: This article has been updated to reflect the results of Georgia’s runoff elections.

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With the U.S. presidential election just weeks away, the fate of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — the largest intact wilderness in America — seems to rest in the hands of candidates Donald Trump (decidedly pro drilling) or Joe Biden (decidedly not).

But whether or not industrial development goes ahead in a 1.6 million-acre parcel of the treasured Alaskan refuge, which provides important calving grounds for the threatened transboundary Porcupine caribou herd, could also come down to Canada.

Although in August the U.S. Department of the Interior gave the go ahead to the most aggressive lease program possible — which would open up the entire coastal plain of the refuge to potential drilling — here are all the ways Canadians could get in the way.

But first, what’s the deal with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, again?

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is roughly 19.6 million acres (8 million hectares) of vast wilderness in northeastern Alaska that was set aside decades ago as a haven for wildlife and outdoor recreation. It’s home to a myriad of species including polar bears, migratory birds and the Porcupine caribou, a herd that undertakes one of the longest land mammal migrations on Earth.

There have been attempts in the past to get at oil reserves that lay beneath the refuge, including through exploration activities in the 1980s. But industry has been prevented from moving ahead with any major development, until now.

That’s thanks in part to a 2017 tax bill President Trump used to promote oil and gas activities and open up a portion of the refuge to potential drilling. The bill made way for at least two lease sales in the Arctic refuge by 2024, initiating an environmental assessment process that culminated in a record of decision that allows drilling in what is known as the 1002 area this past August.

Map showing overlap of 1002 area lands and the Porcupine caribou herd range. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Former vice-president Joe Biden has pledged to permanently protect the refuge as part of his campaign commitment to preserve the Arctic and tackle climate change.

Canada and the U.S. have a bilateral treaty to protect caribou

In 1987, Canada and the U.S. signed a treaty to ensure the Porcupine caribou herd and its habitat is protected by minimizing possible long-term impacts while balancing subsistence harvesting.

That treaty has now become the focus of talks between the Yukon and federal governments, along with other interested parties such as Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, the Gwich’in Tribal Council and the government of the Northwest Territories.

Pauline Frost, Yukon Minister of Environment, told The Narwhal the treaty may provide Canada with legal grounds to push back against the August decision.

“It fails to consider impacts to food security in the North,” Frost said. “It’s clearly for financial gains and quick access. It doesn’t consider long-term, specific impacts. It doesn’t correlate with how we do business in Yukon, how we do business in Canada, in terms of effective land management.”

Ian Waddell, a former NDP MP and B.C. MLA, told The Narwhal in 2018 that the treaty could be used to “raise a little hell” with U.S. counterparts. In an interview this week, he said this could take the form of diplomatic letters to the U.S. government.

“It gives us at least something to hang our hat on,” he said. “It’s not a big coat rack, but it’s something, and it can open up the dialogue.”

Jonathan Wilkinson, minister of Environment and Climate Change, said in a statement that the federal government has “significant concerns” with development in the Arctic refuge, noting bilateral agreements with the U.S. government are designed to not only protect the Porcupine caribou herd but also polar bears and migratory birds.

A spokesperson at Wilkinson’s office declined an interview.

The Yukon government has already proven it is willing to intervene in the issue. Last year it made a submission to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, calling for a complete redo of what the territory considered spotty preliminary environmental assessment work.

Frost, who is Gwich’in from Old Crow, said the record of decision has impacted all Gwich’in nations, which are concerned about the caribou because they are so intricately connected to their culture.

“It affected me, it affected my whole community, it affected my family,” she said. “It’s certainly something, as a Gwich’in person, that I take to heart …” 

Frost wouldn’t elaborate on the details of forthcoming talks between Yukon and the federal government, but said the record of decision and the treaty will be front and centre.

Members of the Porcupine caribou herd in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

Canadian banks may withhold funding for Arctic refuge drilling

Last week, the Royal Bank of Canada, the largest financial institution in the country, became the first Canadian bank to refuse to finance any oil and gas development in the Arctic refuge. 

“Due to its particular ecological and social significance and vulnerability, RBC will not provide direct financing for any project or transaction that involves exploration or development in the ANWR,” reads RBC’s updated policy guidelines for sensitive sectors and activities posted on Friday. 

A spokesperson told The Narwhal that the bank has never financed oil and gas development in the region and that the policy change was a “proactive” decision to ensure it stays that way.

A delegation made up of Gwich’in and members of the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society have been putting pressure on not only RBC but other major banks such as TD Canada Trust, Scotiabank and the Royal Bank of Montreal since last December. 

The move follows several U.S. banks, such as Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo, which, earlier this year, publicly stated they would refuse to finance oil and gas development in the refuge.

Chris Rider, the executive director of the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said he hopes other banks in Canada follow RBC’s lead. If they do, that will help highlight the financial risk in store for companies bold enough to consider oil and gas development in the refuge. Severing the flow of cash earmarked for development in the area could thwart any attempt by companies to follow through with their plans, he added.

Dana Tizya-Tramm, Chief of Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, said RBC’s commitment marks the first time a Canadian bank has taken meaningful strides to consult with affected First Nations and make a decision based on those deliberations.

“This is about leadership,” he told The Narwhal. “What we need more is courage, and we’re looking to the courage of financial institutions in Canada to stand in partnership with Indigenous people and stop ecocide.”

On the trail of the Porcupine caribou herd

Canadians are joining legal disputes against drilling in the Arctic refuge

Several groups, including the Gwich’in Steering Committee, the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and the Alaska Wilderness League, are taking the Department of the Interior to court over its handling of the environmental assessment process.

The National Audubon Society and the Center for Biological Diversity, among other U.S. groups also launched a lawsuit against David Bernhardt, the secretary of the Department of Interior, who signed off on the record of decision.

Last month, attorney generals of 15 states sued the Trump administration’s move to open up part of the refuge to development, too.

Malkolm Boothroyd, campaigns coordinator with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Yukon, wrote in an opinion piece for The Narwhal that his organization’s lawsuit “challenges the legality of Interior’s environmental review,” stating “the environmental review gave little heed to the seven original purposes of the Arctic refuge, like protecting wildlife, wilderness and subsistence.”

His group, along with 12 others, allege that the Department of the Interior “broke the law by disregarding the refuge’s original purposes and failing to safeguard those purposes through the design of its oil and gas leasing program.”

Adam Kolton, the executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said that if Trump is re-elected, litigation will continue, noting there are currently four lawsuits in motion that challenge the record of decision, including one brought by Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“If Trump wins, these are still going to be active lawsuits, and, depending on the outcome of that litigation, the administration could be forced to redo its work, and this could substantially delay plans to offer the area to lease,” he said. “We think the administration really sidelined scientists, sidestepped environmental laws and went about this in a really reckless fashion.”

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

What would the fight to protect the Arctic refuge look like under Biden?

If the Democratic party wins the U.S. election, the battle to keep oil drilling out of the refuge might all but evaporate. 

Biden has pledged to permanently protect the Arctic refuge, calling Trump’s move to open oil and gas development there and in other areas an “attack on federal lands and waters.” 

He has several campaign commitments that involve greater protection for the Arctic, including a moratorium on offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean and prioritizing climate change at the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental body that seeks to address problems faced by people who live in the area. 

Tizya-Tramm said that Biden’s campaign suggests that advocacy efforts in both Canada and the U.S. are working.

“We’re almost there,” he said, adding that leaders near and far can take a page from Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, which is proving to the world that sustainability is possible.

“In our community, as we advocate for the protection of the caribou, we are charting the path in North America as Indigenous people to what renewable economies look like, to what a renewable, permanent presence on the land looks like, and there is no reason why the U.S. government cannot enjoy the same successes that a small village of 250 people north of the Arctic Circle are levying today,” he said.

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When the sun rose on the final day of our 12-day hike in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and we still hadn’t seen the Porcupine Caribou herd, the reality that we might not see caribou at all was beginning to sink in for many of us, and the collective mood was sombre.

A team of photographers, artists and Indigenous leaders had been assembled by the International League of Conservation Photographers to document the herd’s epic migration — one of the longest and harshest of any land mammal.

For the bulk of the trip, as we hiked across tussocky tundra, baren shale mountainsides and frigid Arctic rivers in search of caribou, we took the opportunity to document the myriad other flora and fauna that make up this unique ecosystem, while reflecting on the unexpectedly cold temperatures that were foiling our plans.

An unusually cold spring and summer in the northern reaches of the Yukon and Northwest Territories meant the herd’s usual migration through the safety and comfort of Alaska’s coastal plain was disrupted and rendered unpredictable.

Slightly warmer temperatures are needed to spark the mass migration of this herd that begins their near-mystical journey — one of the longest and harshest of any land mammal — for the most prosaic of reasons: fleeing a seasonal plague of mosquitoes.

We were, rather perversely, praying for a swarm of distant pests.

By day 11 we reached the edge of the Hulahula river, where, in two days time, we were scheduled to be picked up by a bush pilot.

Spirits were low as we awaited the plane. Eleven days and neither hide nor hair of the caribou we had come to see.

Then, almost miraculously, as we finished breakfast on that last day, a group of paddlers sent word of the unimaginable: thousands of caribou sighted a mere 20 kilometres from our camp.

That brief satellite message would send us scrambling 19 hours straight over harsh terrain and through a dense fog — into which one member of our party would eventually disappear.

The Hulahula river flows north to the Beaufort Sea, from the Brooks range mountains in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

The waiting game

Each year, the Porcupine caribou herd embarks on one of the longest migrations on earth. From the northern reaches of the Yukon and Northwest Territories, they make their way to the relative safety of Alaska’s coastal plain where, by late May, they calve and nurse the next generation.

I was lucky to witness the herd’s migration in the Yukon in the summer of 2016. It was a revelation to see thousands of caribou stream by at close range over the course of a few days. What struck me most then was the realization that those six-week-old calves had already journeyed 200 kilometres or more in their short lives.

Since that time, the news has been both good and bad for the herd. The Porcupine is the only barren-ground caribou herd across the north that is not in steep decline.

However, while the caribou themselves know no border, the American political climate and details buried in a controversial tax bill have created a crisis for the herd and the Gwich’in people who span northern Canada and Alaska and have depended on them for tens of thousands of years.

The ‘1002 lands’ of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge align almost perfectly with the caribou’s traditional calving grounds and Trump’s ‘Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017’ has suddenly opened up this slice of untouched Arctic wilderness to oil and gas developers, after a decades-long battle with the Gwich’in First Nations and members of the scientific and conservation communities.

Map showing overlap of 1002 area lands and the Porcupine caribou herd range. Illustration: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

I recently made my way to Fairbanks, Alaska, to join a team of photographers and artists with the International League of Conservation Photographers, as well as Jeffrey Peter, member of the Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation from Old Crow, Yukon.

“There’s a lot at stake here,” Peter said, adding his experience of becoming a father for the first time had altered his perspective on the caribou, making him take stock of the legacy he hopes to pass on to future generations.

“I’ve always been concerned about the issue, but now I’m at a point in my life where I’m able to clearly describe why the caribou are so important to Gwich’in, and help others understand that.”

For the Gwich’in, the fight to protect and prolong the life of this wild herd is no less than existential.

Jeffrey Peter surveys the landscape for signs of caribou and other wildlife in the Brooks Range mountains. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

‘Any more development in the refuge at all will wipe us out’

Bernadette Demientieff, the U.S. executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, works on behalf of the collective of First Nations to raise awareness of the refuge with decision-makers in Washington, D.C.

“Any more development in the refuge at all will wipe us out,” Demientieff told me. “This is our health and our way of life that this administration is stomping all over.”

So far, according to Demientieff, the pleas of the Gwich’in have gone unaddressed in the halls of power.

“The refuge is now open for the first time in history, so they have ignored our concerns,” she said.

“They don’t seem to understand what we’re saying. For the Indigenous people in this country, oppression and genocide continue to this day. It’s 2018 and we’re still fighting for our human rights.”

Just two days earlier, the bi-annual Gwich’in Gathering wrapped up in Tsiigehtchic, N.W.T., where a declaration was signed reaffirming the Gwich’in commitment to protect the calving grounds.

“The first Gwich’in gathering in over 150 years was held in 1988, and that was when our elders and chiefs got together, because of drilling in the coastal plain,” explained Demientieff, “so now every two years, we come together and reaffirm our commitment. Our identity is not up for negotiation.”

Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee in Fairbanks, Alaska. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

Thin ice in caribou country

When our bush plane finally dropped us off at the Collins airstrip in the heart of the Brooks range mountains and then flew away, leaving us alone with our 70-pound backpacks and a startling silence, an adrenaline rush packed with both excitement and apprehension kicked in.

We were on our way, hiking over tundra and forging rivers.

As our journey stretched on, we used a satellite phone to connect with a research biologist from the Government of Yukon. We hoped some external insight could help us pinpoint the location of the herd.

The incoming news was bad: the herd’s usual post-calving aggregation in the foothills still hadn’t begun.

We needed temperatures on the coastal plain to warm up, prompting mosquitoes to drive the herd into the foothills and then the mountains in search of higher ground.

We had planned for months — done everything we could to give ourselves the best opportunity to see the herd on our planned 12-day journey — but the caribou still weren’t on the move up into the Brooks range mountains where we hoped to intercept them.

And so, we hiked, day after day.

Expedition members traverse open tundra north of the Collins airstrip in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, on day one of the trip. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

It was obvious, even in their absence, that this is caribou country: every patch of mud bore the tell-tale tracks of earlier caribou movement, and our group followed in millennia-old caribou trails weaving through tussocks and carved into shale-covered mountainsides.

When we finally received news on our last day that there were caribou nearby, our group was elated. We quickly mobilized for a day trek, taking just the barest of essentials.

A significant portion of the herd had been spotted heading toward us, 20 kilometres from our camp.

On terrain as rugged as this, we could expect that to make for a challenging six-hour hike. As we had to return to our same camp site at the Grassers airstrip beside the Hulahula, we were lucky to be able to pack light, but realized our day could end up being closer to a 40-kilometre round-trip saga — about the distance of a marathon.

After an extended river crossing, the team stopped to wring out wet socks and re-apply tape to blistered feet. Our group broke out the binoculars and took turns peering northward down the Hulahula valley, desperately scanning for any sign of caribou.

I mounted my longest lens and noticed hundreds of tiny brown ‘rocks’ that appeared to slowly crawl across the valley slope several kilometres away.

A feeling of jubilation washed over our group as the ever-growing spectre of failure evaporated: we were finally within sight of thousands of caribou, dotting the slopes of the valley across from us.

The herd was still over an hour’s hike away and we were also conscious of the fact that we had at least another six hours to go before getting back to camp.

Sitting atop a pingo, a type of ice-cored mountain unique to the Arctic, we consumed some of the very last calories of food packed for the trip, and planned our final push to bring us close enough to document the herd.

When our northernmost vantage point was finally reached, our view opened up upon what we estimated to be nearly 10,000 caribou.

Bulls pushed up slope toward rockier precipices, cows grazed and rested periodically, while calves sprinted about awkwardly, experimenting with their frisky legs beneath them.

Porcupine caribou cover the valley of the Hulahula river in the Brooks range mountains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

A Porcupine caribou crosses a braided section of the Hulahula River. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

Caribou move along the banks of the Hulahula River. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

Lost in the fog

We had spent about two hours in the presence of the caribou and began to calculate how many hours of sleep we’d get after our long journey back.

We reluctantly packed up and headed out just as a light but steady rain began. A claustrophobic fog slowly settled over the valley.

What was already sure to be a challenging hike home became a cruel reminder that wild places like the refuge owe nobody safe passage.

The fog and rain grew heavier and our tiring team of 10 gradually began to spread out. With camp tantalizingly close, and believing navigation to be straightforward, one of our members forged ahead alone.

Just after 10 p.m. a few of us paused to scrape the bottom of our peanut butter jars and rehydrate in lieu of an actual dinner. Back on the trail, we came upon a creek that had risen to the point of raging thanks to several hours of rain.

It was immediately apparent that this obstacle would prove too much for a solo crossing — our minds turned to our friend who had pushed ahead of the group.

Had he attempted to pass and been swept down the river, it could be fatal. Searching for an alternate route, he could become lost in the unrelenting fog.

Back at camp, our fears were confirmed: our solo hiker had not arrived.

Forming a search party, pairs patrolled the edge of the river and adjacent valleys, where he may have ventured had he become disoriented.

One hour later, nothing. The night crept on. With the darkness and wet and fear settling into our bones, we hit hour two. Not a trace.

It wasn’t until after four in the morning that we’d finally reunite.

The lost team member was located back near that flooded creek, cold, wet and still searching in vain for a safe place to cross.

Rattled by this close call, our entire crew crashed hard just before 5 a.m. — just a scant few hours before our scheduled extraction flight.

We ultimately succeeded in our mission to see the caribou, but were also served a serious reminder of the harsh and unforgiving environment the caribou have to endure, even in the middle of summer.

Peering out over the sprawling grandeur of the refuge from the bush plane the next morning, I felt an exhausted mix of joy at having witnessed the caribou herd on their distant terrain and relief at our team having escaped that terrain intact.

Arctic fox remains atop a small pingo in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge serve as a reminder of the high stakes at play. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

The disturbance

For more than a decade Jeffrey Peter worked in Vuntut National park, tucked into northwest corner of the Yukon and separated from the wildlife refuge by no more than an imaginary international border.

Prior to this trip, he had never actually crossed over into the refuge. Now, having done so, he struggled to comprehend how the caribou can be so well protected on one side of the border, while their existence — and the existence of the Gwich’in nation across the north — is threatened by developments on the other.

“There are thousands of Canadian Gwich’in directly affected by this, and the herd spends a large part of the year in Canada,” he said. “If there is development in the calving grounds, we would see less and less caribou in Canada. They’re such an important part of the ecosystem and they have a big role to play on the Canadian side as well.”

Our group witnessed firsthand how something as minor as a few degrees temperature change, and something as small as a mosquito, can dictate when and where the herd will move.

And while our entire group took every precaution to not disturb the herd, we noticed how sensitive the caribou were to the presence of two-legged creatures, lurking with cameras in the shrubs a couple hundred metres away.

Having seen that, it seemed a stretch that oil and gas development in calving grounds would not have a significant effect on the herd.

Indeed, we have known for decades that human-caused disturbance on the landscape — roads, pipelines, drilling rigs and more — can have long-lasting impacts on caribou, even many kilometres away. It can cause individuals to lose weight, a devastating impact on a species that works endlessly to build fat reserves to survive the cold.

In just a few years in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, a surge of oil and gas activity near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, redistributed the Western Arctic caribou herd on the landscape as they avoided roads and developments — even going to places where the food is less plentiful to avoid the disturbance — resulting in fewer calves.

The findings of scientists are in lockstep with the traditional knowledge and first-hand experience of the Gwich’in.

For Peter, the idea of brute industrial activity in the calving grounds is unthinkable.

“For all of human history, and predating that, it’s been unspoiled,” he said.

“To have this happen in our lifetime, and look back on it decades from now asking ‘how could we have let that happen?’ It just seems so irresponsible and short-sighted.”

Expedition members cross an alpine river in the Brooks Range mountains of the refuge. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

‘We’re not going anywhere’

For the photographers on this particular trip, not seeing the caribou would have been a tremendous disappointment, but for Gwich’in the stakes are much higher.

For tens of thousands of years, Peter said, it’s been a matter of life and death whether they saw caribou.

“They had to really understand the movement of the herd and rely on traditional knowledge to allow them to survive,” he said.

“As Gwich’in, if there’s no more caribou, we lose our cultural identity, our connection to the land, to our ancestors. A lot of things get lost if the caribou don’t come back.”

The connection between the landscape, the caribou and the Gwichi’in spans multiple borders, ecoregions and hundreds of generations, and yet that seemingly robust relationship could be easily disrupted by subtle shifts in climate or a sudden re-arrangement of the political landscape.

With the Trump administration’s approval, seismic testing deploying 90,000-pound trucks with metal plates to shake the earth, could begin in the calving grounds as early as this winter.

The resolve of those determined to prevent this from happening has never been greater.  

“Our culture’s been here for thousands of years — we’re not going anywhere,” Peter said. “This is our homeland. We want to continue to be healthy, happy people. To do that, we need caribou.”

Demientieff draws strength from the solidarity she sees across the border, and has faith that the final chapter of the Porcupine caribou has not been written.

“Our relatives in Canada are standing with us. We’re not going to back down. We’re not going to step aside. We’re going to continue to stand strong, in unity and in prayers, just as our elders directed us to. This fight is not over — far from it.”

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In the mid-1970s, a young lawyer named Ian Waddell took a helicopter ride across the Crow Flats, in northern Yukon. He was accompanying Justice Thomas Berger on his visits to community after community — the so-called Berger Inquiry — to gain their input into a proposed gas pipeline from the Beaufort Sea to Alberta.

When they landed, Berger turned to him and, as Waddell recounts it, said, “You know, Ian, do you realize the magnificence of what we saw yesterday? It’s the last of North America — the eighth wonder of the world.”

That landscape the judge so admired is home to the Porcupine caribou herd, around 200,000 strong, which roam on the world’s longest land-mammal migration between Alaska, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. On the Canadian side of the border, two national parks, Ivvavik and Vuntut, protect much of the herd’s habitat.

But on the Alaska side of the border, the land and the herd that depends upon it have come under threat from oil and gas drilling after President Trump opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in his recent tax bill.

Caribou, like many large mammals, require huge tracts of relatively undisturbed land to thrive. The routes of migratory herds can be imperiled by development, such as pipelines or roads, that divides the landscape or gives easier access to predators. The area that could be opened to drilling is the Porcupine herd’s calving grounds, rich territory where the animals migrate each year to give birth.

It’s also the site of another kind of riches: the so-called “1002 area,” a potentially lucrative patch of land near Prudhoe Bay. It could contain more than six per cent of the total recoverable oil in the entire United States, at about 7.7 billion barrels.

Trump made the controversial decision to undo decades of conservation in the region, apparently, on a whim.

“I really didn’t care about it,” Trump told a congressional Republican retreat in early February. “And then when I heard that everybody wanted it, for 40 years they’ve been trying to get it approved, I said, ‘Make sure you don’t lose ANWR.’”

There may be something else Trump doesn’t know much about, though, and it could put the brakes on drilling in the refuge: a treaty, signed between the governments of Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan in 1987.

The treaty requires that the governments “take appropriate action to conserve the Porcupine Caribou Herd and its habitat,” including considering effects of activities (like, for instance, drilling), avoiding disrupting migration and considering cumulative effects on the landscape.

After Waddell’s time in the north with Berger, he moved on to politics, serving as energy critic for the federal NDP and later as B.C. environment minister. But that experience never left him, and he recently revived the treaty in an article for The Hill Times.

“Canada should now argue that the treaty provides us the right to be consulted before a drilling permit is issued in ANWR,” he wrote.

In an interview with DeSmog Canada, he explained, “If we’ve got a treaty with the United States, we could press that treaty — use that treaty — to raise a little hell.”

A small member of the large porcupine caribou herd. Photo: Peter Mather

NDP, Greens take on Alaskan drilling in House of Commons

Elizabeth May has had her eyes on the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for decades, since she was a senior policy advisor to Progressive Conservative environment minister Thomas McMillan, and later as the executive director of the Sierra Club.

Now, as head of the federal Green Party, May is the only MP to have brought the issue up in the House of Commons.

“It’s been appalling to see Donald Trump as president for many, many reasons, but this is one of those things that he might do that represents irreparable harm,” she says.

Even under Stephen Harper’s notoriously pro-oil government, Canada remained resolute against drilling in the refuge.

New Democrat MP Richard Cannings says he plans to raise the issue in the House of Commons if the drilling plan goes ahead.

“This is what this treaty was drawn up for — this kind of situation,” he said, noting that the Liberals are under pressure to protect caribou and that this “might be an easy win for them,” to make some progress on protecting one of the last intact herds.

Gwich’in sounding the alarm

Its habitat is a place Cannings, like Waddell, is familiar with from time spent on the land in his former life as an ecologist. As was the case for Waddell, the northern Yukon left an impression that he carried with him to Ottawa.

“I think that Canada should stand up for the Porcupine caribou herd, for the First Nations that have relied on that herd over the millennia, because our whole ecosystem up there is related.”

The Gwich’in have been sounding the alarm on drilling in the refuge since Trump’s election.

“The Gwich’in call this area ‘Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit,’ the Sacred Place Where Life Begins,” Vuntut Gwich’in Councillor Dana Tizya-Tramm told DeSmog Canada in November, a year after Trump’s victory.

“It is a keystone in the ecosystems of the Arctic, and the heart that beats outside of the Gwich’in chest.”

Tizya-Tramm expressed horror at the idea of degrading the habitat the caribou depend on, emphasizing the interconnected and fragile nature of the coastal plain, which has been described as the Serengeti of North America.

Cannings says the Gwich’in would be consulted and involved in negotiations with the U.S. over the treaty.

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In the remote north-eastern corner of Alaska, just under 20-million acres have been set aside as a federal protected area since 1960. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has recently come under threat, however, with President Donald Trump’s Department of the Interior proposing lifting restrictions on seismic exploration.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain has been described as America’s Serengeti, and is the year-round or migratory home to numerous species that are uniquely adapted to the conditions found within this rare expanse of undeveloped wilderness along the Arctic Ocean.

Over tens of thousands of years, both the Porcupine Caribou herd and the Gwich’in people have come to depend on the integrity of that coastal plain for their survival.

“The Gwich'in call this area ‘Iizhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit,’ the Sacred Place Where Life Begins,” explained Vuntut Gwich’in Councillor Dana Tizya-Tramm via email.

“It is a keystone in the ecosystems of the Arctic, and the heart that beats outside of the Gwich'in chest.”

Oil and gas lobbyists have had the Refuge in their sights from the outset. For decades now, for every push to open up the wildlife refuge to oil and gas development, multiple generations of Gwich’in have stood up to protect the land and the herd that has sustained their way of life.

Disturbance to the landscape can upset a delicate balance between the wildlife that makes its home on the coastal plain.

Brooks Range mountains tower behind lush arctic tundra in Yukon's north slope region. Photo: Matt Jacques | DeSmog Canada

“In a miracle of phenology [the interaction of climate, habitat and plant/animal cycles], Porcupine caribou cows arrive at the coastal plain just as the first flush of spring growth provides a burst of nutrients to them, just as they all deliver their calves at once,” said Yukon Conservation Society energy analyst Sebastian Jones in an emailed response to questions from DeSmog Canada.

“In the first few critical days of a caribou calf’s life, predation is the main hazard. Until they have found their legs, they are easy prey to wolves and bears.”

To the west of the Arctic Refuge, high levels of industrial activity are already taking place, and to the south and east of the narrow coastal plain area where the caribou calving takes place, steep mountain ranges mean less nutrients and more predators.

“There is simply nowhere else suitable for the caribou to go,” said Jones.

Exploration Freeze Beginning to Thaw Under Trump

There have been numerous victories and setbacks in what has been a sustained effort over that time, but for many, any sense of relief or optimism brought about by President Obama’s 2016 move to freeze arctic oil and gas exploration in the Arctic has now vanished.

President Trump’s 2018 Budget includes instructions to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to raise an additional $1B over ten years. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski — Chair of the Committee — has used the opportunity to champion a renewed push to open the coastal plain to oil and gas exploration. Earlier this month Murkowski introduced legislation that would give a green light to exploration in the Refuge. Republicans have now taken Murkowski’s bill and folded it into their tax reform bill.

“There is palpable concern among the quiet people of our community of 250 people,” said Tizya-Tramm.

“I've even had children as young as 8 years old ask why this is happening and if we can talk with the President, and what they can do. It is hard to see the sincere concern in our youth’s eyes. I encourage them and tell them that we will beat this, as we must.”

Jones said that since the current proposal is exploratory in nature, the true scope and scale of potential activity in the area remains to be seen.

“It depends on what they find. If the feverish dreams of the oil men come true, it will be another Prudhoe Bay — decades of drilling, all-season roads, pipelines, and oil spills.”

For the Gwich’in, Tizya-Tramm says the development would mirror the expected impact on the caribou herd.

“Our entire existence will dwindle with any presence in their calving grounds, period.”

#Trump Eyes #Arctic Wildlife Refuge for #Oil Drilling, Alarming Gwich’in https://t.co/YPUnR7fUHy #ANWR #Arctic #WildlifeConservation @MattJacques

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 22, 2017

‘Delicate like Fine China’

“People need to understand just how delicate this area is,” says Tizya-Tramm.  

“Traditionally we stayed out of the Coastal Plains altogether. Tundra is a very sensitive and even seismic testing will scar the land with permanent trails. These caribou have been seen to purposefully stay far away from a soup can laying on the ground. Caribou populations have fallen exponentially in Alberta and other regions where there is development.”

Arctic cottongrass, mosses, other plants and lichens vital to the Porcupine Caribou can take decades to recover from industrial damage, sometimes taking decades to return.

“The picture that arises here, and well known to our people, is that nature is a fine-tuned system. And up in one of the harshest regions in the world, it is especially delicate like fine china. We cannot limit the options of animals that exist in the narrow opportunities afforded to them, especially one of the healthiest remaining herd of caribou left,” explains Tizya-Tramm

Murkowski and supporters have pitched fossil fuel exploration in the area as a quick solution to the American budget deficit, presenting minimal impacts within the coastal plain calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou.

Murkowski tweeted in November in defense of changes in oil and gas development since ANWR was established.

The size of development pads has decreased by nearly 80% since the 1970s. New technologies have expanded the subsurface reach of the newest rigs by 4,000% over the same period. Many exploration wells are now built using ice roads and ice pads—leaving no impact to the tundra.

— Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) November 15, 2017

“Many exploration wells are now built using ice roads and ice pads — leaving no impact to the tundra,” she wrote. 

Jones dismisses any notion of low-impact exploration or development in the area.

“This exploration is supposed to be restricted to winter on ice/snow roads and drill pads; here are multiple problems with this,” he says. “Drill rigs are massive and require multiple large loads, in turn requiring very robust roads. It is not a trivial exercise building ice roads on the tundra sufficient to deploy an oil rig. In recent years, consistent with global warming, it has become less common to have adequate snow to build winter roads, so it may not even be possible.”

Gwich’in Gearing Up for a Fight

While the momentum to open up the Arctic Refuge to development seems to be gaining, Gwich’in and supporters have been stepping up their activity as well.

The Yukon Branch of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society has launched a nationwide petition, lobbying Prime Minister Trudeau to speak up against development in the Arctic Refuge.

A delegation of Gwich’in and other Canadian officials, including Yukon MP Larry Bagnell travelled to Washington, DC earlier this month in the hopes of influencing senate votes on the issue. Upon returning, Bagnell spoke about the trip and raised the issue in the House of Commons.

For Tizya-Tramm and Gwich’in in both Canada and Alaska, the battle has been all-consuming.

“I have been working late into the night and weekends for over a month now simply trying to keep pace,” Tizta-Tramm said.

“This is a time to call upon all of our people and the strong partnerships we have forged over the years.”

The Gwich'in Steering Committee held emergency meetings in Fairbanks earlier in November that brought together tribal leadership, Elders, and community members.

“There we once again came together seeking guidance and unity. To be of one mind, one heart, so that we may speak with one voice.”

Image: Porcupine Caribou crossing the Blow River in north-western Yukon. Photo: Matt Jacques | DeSmog Canada

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.