When Wayne Ross walked the frozen streets of Inuvik this week, it was a bittersweet stroll past a life he had not expected to abandon. As he passed the apartment he had maintained in the small Arctic outpost for a decade, he thought about what he has left behind.
There is the millions of dollars of equipment sitting idle. The office space that sits empty, phone and fax lines disconnected. The hundreds of people he helped train for oil and gas work, many now drawing unemployment.
“I just about got a lump in my throat,” said Mr. Ross, who came to Inuvik in 1999 to manage a seismic exploration unit of global firm CGGVeritas, which was working to prepare the way for the Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline.
“I had a nice apartment. I drove to my office. I hired some local aboriginal people and made their lives better in most cases. And then it was taken away.”
This week should have been a moment of great celebration for Mr. Ross and the thousands of business owners and workers who have spent the last decade preparing for the $16.2-billion pipeline, which would for the first time bring Canadian Arctic gas reserves to market. A long-awaited report on the pipeline was released Wednesday, and overwhelmingly recommended it be built.
Instead, many in Inuvik, which sits at the heart of the Arctic gas play that has spurred plans for the pipeline, have watched their thriving town turn into a home for bankrupt businesses, empty offices and unemployed workers. And among those who had placed the most hope in a pipeline to lift their fortunes, there is a sense that it is too late for a dream that once flared bright. Mr. Ross, for example, left Inuvik in November. He'd like to return permanently, but is now looking at job possibilities in the U.S.
A major part of the blame, in his mind, lies with the seven-member Joint Review Panel that was charged with weighing the economic and cultural consequences of the megaproject, but which took three years longer than expected to release a 679-page report.
In that time, vast new southern natural gas supplies have reduced – some say eliminated – the need for the pipeline, and optimism has waned. The report is packed with 176 recommendations aimed at tempering the impact of the pipeline on people and animals, and “by the time all that gets sorted out and everybody is happy, the happy day may never come,” said John Holman, an Inuit man who worked as Mr. Ross's right-hand man.
The happy day, of course, is the longed-for start of construction.
Mr. Holman has not worked since October, and is now contemplating travelling to Alberta for work. He is optimistic the pipeline will one day be built, but he no longer knows when.
“The four years it took for them to get to the final report was way, way too long,” he said.
“In the meantime, most of the people that depend on the oil and gas activity up here are either long defunct or they're just barely hanging on.”
When backers of the Mackenzie project began to push for it in 2000, Inuvik turned into a hotbed of activity. In the best years, major energy companies spent upward of $200-million on exploration, employing some 2,500 workers – nearly as many as Inuvik's entire population.
This winter, the work is gone.
“Everything's dead,” said Nelson Dicks, who manages the Inuvik arm of vehicle rental company Norcan Leasing, and recalls the time he made a single order for 100 diesel pickup trucks.
At his peak, he rented out 260 trucks, mostly to oil and gas companies. He is now down to about a dozen, and depends largely on tourists to rent them.
“It's sad,” he said.
Mr. Dicks is, however, hopeful.
Where some had feared the panel would recommend major roadblocks, such as a reworking of the pipeline's route, such drastic measures were not included among its recommendations. Instead, the panel proposed a series of recommendations that some proponents say are not too onerous.
The result: Northern leaders are exuberant, a feeling Mr. Dicks can't help but share.
“If it's taken this much time [for the review panel] to do a good job, and the aboriginal people are happy with that, it's been worth it,” he said.
Mr. Dicks, who is in his 60s, admits, however, that he doesn't know whether the pipeline will come in his lifetime.
And other business leaders say years of bitter disappointment have taught them caution.
Kurt Wainman, a heavy equipment operator who had hired 120 people in hopes of cashing in on the pipeline, has slashed his work force to 20.
He no longer places much stock in the content of reports, or the hope they may stir.
“The feeling of relief will come when the pipe is ordered,” he said.
