But from those depths comes another chapter in Fort Nelson First Nation’s energy story, one that is green, and that it controls. Using royalties that the band office received from oil prospectors over decades, the community is now embarking on an entirely different transformation, looking to the future and developing a geothermal plant out of an orphaned oil well. It’s called Tu Deh-Kah, a Dene phrase that translates to “boiling water.” The First Nation hopes that the plant will go online in 2027, becoming one of Canada’s first electricity-generating geothermal facilities – and possibly the first one to be purely geothermal. Currently, the only large-scale plant is the dual natural gas and geothermal Swan Hills project in Alberta.

“We want to see a sustainable energy project in our territory that we own,” says Taylor Behn-Tsakoza, a community liaison officer with Tu Deh-Kah.

For Jim Hodgson, CEO of Deh Tai Corp., Fort Nelson First Nation’s economic development company, the project is steeped in pride.

Tu Deh-Kah is 100% Indigenous-owned and poised to generate seven to 15 megawatts, nearly enough to power the First Nation and Fort Nelson, the adjacent municipality of the same name.

Hodgson is an old-school oil and gas man who has worked in the industry for decades. Now, he is carrying over his expertise, and he’s not alone. Many in the First Nation have worked in the oil and gas sector, which Hodgson says gives them a skill set that transfers well to geothermal development. The burgeoning industry presents new opportunities for First Nations as the world drives toward an energy transition that leaves fossil fuels behind.

First Nations, Inuit and Métis people are already at the forefront of the energy transition in Canada, as partners in or beneficiaries of roughly 20% of the country’s electricity-generating infrastructure – virtually all in renewables. But oil and gas remains the largest private employer of Indigenous people in Canada, with 10,800 Indigenous workers, according to the most recent data from Ottawa.

As Indigenous communities around the globe forge transnational understandings of how to ensure that their interests are protected, can this renewable power help First Nations transition to the net-zero age?

The ‘whole moose’ approach

Tu Deh-Kah is not a traditional geothermal power-generating plant. For decades, geothermal has relied on the extreme heat of volcanic and high-temperature regions. But unlike the geyser-powered plants of Northern California or the volcanic heat of New Zealand, this project relies on a newer form of geothermal rooted in the sedimentary basin of Western Canada, which has traditionally housed rich oil and gas fields. “But there is a lot of heat in the earth,” says Jeremy O’Brien, the energy segment director for Seequent, a geoscience company that works closely with geothermal proponents to map the subsurface for geothermal projects.

Geothermal power plants do not burn fuel to generate electricity; instead, hot brine is pumped from deep inside the earth and used on the surface as direct heat or to produce electricity. All told, the plants emit 97% less acid-rain-causing sulfur compounds and 99% less carbon dioxide than fossil fuel power plants of similar size, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Traditionally, geothermal projects in volcanic regions can run as hot as 250°C to 300°C. In contrast, Tu Deh-Kah expects its heat to operate between 107°C and 120°C. The lower heat means less power-generation efficiency, which is partly why projects on sedimentary-basin geological formations are lagging behind volcanic or geyser-based ventures. But O’Brien thinks there is an opportunity for oil and gas regions to transition to geothermal plants within basin regions. There is both expertise in drilling and deep knowledge of the subsurface, he says. “I think the technological crossover is really important.”

Tu Deh-Kah also carries the ethos of what Behn-Tsakoza calls the “whole moose” approach. “When we harvest the moose, we use everything; you would never even know we were there.”

We want to see a sustainable energy project in our territory that we own.

— Taylor Behn-Tsakoza, community liaison officer, Tu Deh-Kah 

For example, the Tu Deh-Kah team plans to use the gas that remains deep in the old well to ensure that every element of the project is given a use, as if it were a moose. The First Nation is also exploring methods to extract lithium, a coveted critical mineral in the energy transition, from the brine, which it can then sell. And it has finished building a 2,000-square-foot greenhouse near the community’s school, Behn-Tsakoza says. It is the first of several that the First Nation plans to heat with the geothermal plant. The ambition is to grow enough commercial produce to “feed the North,” she says. Fort Nelson is an hour and a half south of the Northwest Territories border and on the transportation route to Whitehorse.

“Who knows what the future holds,” Behn-Tsakoza says. It’s a message she has tried to get across at dozens of community meetings, where she explains the project to local residents and receives their input and concerns.

Hodgson notes that the band office has held the project to the same standard that it would apply to any other company. “We don’t get it passed just because we’re owned by them,” he says. Band administrators conducted the required environmental and archaeological assessments and the project is now awaiting a final investment decision from the community’s council and membership. In February, the project received $1.2 million from Natural Resources Canada through the Indigenous Natural Resource Partnerships program, which is designed to increase the participation of Indigenous communities in the clean energy economy.

At the grocery store, Behn-Tsakoza sometimes runs into Elders who have their doubts about the project. “Has the project failed yet?” they’ll ask her. “Nope, I don’t think it’s going to,” she responds.

The reality is that geothermal in sedimentary basins remains relatively unproven on the continent. That has led to skepticism of the project’s viability, and its green credentials.

The Elders thought they had a “told-you-so moment” recently when project proponents discovered a lot more gas underground than expected. The former oil well extended approximately 1,500 metres into the earth; the geothermal project goes deeper, some 2,000 metres. But more sour gas remained deeper in the well than initially projected, and the geothermal project ran into it, raising an engineering and operational problem for the Tu Deh-Kah team, who are now figuring out what to do with it.

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Since the discovery, Behn-Tsakoza has been hearing it from Fort Nelson Elders at the grocery store. “See, this project isn’t going to be as clean as you think,” they say. “Whoa, whoa, whoa: our mission hasn’t changed,” she tells them – that is, to reap the benefits of a truly sustainable project. “Our vision hasn’t changed.”

Fort Nelson First Nation is not the only Indigenous community to cast its eyes to the promise of geothermal, though not without a strong sense of caution.

Jessica Eagle-Bluestone acts as an Indigenous liaison for Geothermal Rising, an international geothermal industry association. She says many tribal nations in the United States are “waiting to see if the technology improves more over the next couple of years” before venturing in. She says a lot of economic and structural risk remains with some old oil wells, depending on their integrity. But she believes there’s opportunity. While studying at the University of North Dakota, Eagle-Bluestone won a U.S. Department of Energy competition for developing a concept for a project to convert an old oil well in her home community in North Dakota into a geothermal plant. “It’s definitely on the radar of tribes,” she says.

O’Brien says that North American developers just need to look to Europe for successful sedimentary-basin geothermal developments. In Paris, geothermal is powering around 250,000 homes. In Munich, numerous geothermal plants provide a significant chunk of the city’s heating. “We see that potential starting to roll through,” he says.

The Dixie Meadows warning and the Indigenous geothermal declaration

Like any major energy project, geothermal development can fall victim to mistakes and the antipathy of Indigenous Peoples, often as a result of poor site selection and lack of meaningful consultation.

In Dixie Meadows, Nevada, a controversial geothermal project has led to court challenges from the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe and the Center for Biological Diversity. The project’s plant is proposed to be built on a spiritual site for the tribal nation, cutting off the community from the location that is home to their creation story. The site is also home to a unique species of toad that is at risk of extinction if the project goes ahead.

The main issue here has been a lack of meaningful consultation that incorporates the interests and values of the Fallon Paiute Shoshone. Scott Lake, a litigator for the Center for Biological Diversity, says that during the consultation there was an emphasis on “process over outcome,” which didn’t take the concerns of the tribe seriously. As a result, the community launched a legal challenge over concerns about the impact the project would have on its religious and historical site. “No one started out on a crusade against geothermal energy – it just happens to be right where they view their creation site,” says Lake, who is working with the Fallon Paiute Shoshone to litigate against the project. “I mean, it’s just a really terrible place [to put it], and that’s the issue we’re dealing with.”

For Lake, unless thoughtful decisions on site selection are informed by meaningful consultation and free, prior and informed consent, projects like the geothermal plant in Dixie Meadows will run up against opposition. He says the United States is behind other countries in upholding the spirit of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and its meaningful- and early-consultation principles. “At the end of the day, it’s an efficiency issue,” he says. “Do you want to push through projects that are going to get litigated and delayed, or do you want to find, you know, situations where there’s not as much conflict?”

Do you want to push through projects that are going to get litigated and delayed, or do you want to find situations where there’s not as much conflict?

— Scott Lake, litigator, Center for Biological Diversity

A bid to chart a better path forward emerged last year at the first-ever Indigenous Geothermal Symposium in Hawaii. Indigenous leaders in the geothermal space came together and developed the Geothermal Indigenous People’s Declaration. The declaration calls on the wider geothermal community to uphold UNDRIP, to consult early in the process and to ensure that Indigenous nations benefit from the project, while not compromising their duties as land stewards.

Aroha Campbell is a kaitiaki consultant and one of the leading voices in developing the declaration. Decades ago, she saw geothermal plants built across the Maori homeland without benefits to local communities. She has dedicated her career to changing that equation and has negotiated partnerships with geothermal developments that earmark funding for Maori community initiatives, including cultural camps and housing.

For Campbell, the declaration is a starting point for all Indigenous nations across the world wrestling with the potential and pitfalls of geothermal. Campbell believes each Indigenous nation can take the declaration to their homelands and place it on the negotiating table with developers. The hope is to help the industry understand what working with Indigenous nations on geothermal projects will look like. Until then, Indigenous nations must keep their networks among kin strong.

“I believe the best thing that could happen for Indigenous people in geothermal is sharing,” Campbell says. “The good and the bad, and that sharing of the stories in regards to the developers as well, and the likelihood that all of our stories are very similar.”

Matteo Cimellaro was the Indigenous affairs reporter for Canada’s National Observer, with whom this story is co-published. He now reports on the public service for the Ottawa Citizen.

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The criticism and attacks roared in from Freedom Convoy leaders, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who slammed it as “censorship.” For two weeks, Angus’s office was inundated with calls from people hurling slurs at him and threatening death – including vows to force crude oil down his throat. 

“When I saw that kind of reaction I thought, well now we’re in a moment where, for the first time, we’re really taking on the lies of oil and gas in Canada,” he says. 

Similar to Canada’s ban on tobacco advertising that was enacted in 1989, Angus’s proposed Fossil Fuel Advertising Act ties the massive advertising budgets that promote oil and gas to the issue of human health. 

“Air pollution caused by fossil fuels leads to millions of premature deaths globally, including tens of thousands of premature deaths in Canada alone,” the bill says. It points out that air pollution is a major cause of respiratory illnesses, cancer, adverse pregnancy issues, cardiovascular complications and diseases affecting children.  

In response to this, the bill would prohibit the promotion of a fossil fuel in a way that suggests they’re environmentally friendly or beneficial for Indigenous Peoples.   

The bill would also prohibit any promotion of a fossil fuel that suggests that its production or emissions are less harmful than other fossil fuels. 

Exempt from the ban, Angus says, would be anyone expressing their own opinions in a newspaper article, even if they are employed by an organization that lobbies for the petroleum industry. But fossil fuel companies would not be able to claim they are part of the solution to the climate crisis, as some now do, he says. “Some guy who wants to put on bumper stickers about how much he loves oil and gas, go for it. This is about corporate advertising.”  

For decades, the fossil fuel industry has notoriously engaged in campaigns of misinformation and misdirection to make false environmental claims. And oil companies have actively worked to stymie, muddle or dismiss science that pointed to catastrophic climate change linked to the burning of oil and gas, despite having full knowledge of the accuracy of those predictions. 

The idea for the bill came from the medical community. “You should not be able to say anything environmentally positive about industries that pollute so much,” says Leah Temper, with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), which is among 35 health organizations that spearheaded a campaign two years ago urging the federal government to ban fossil fuel advertising.  

It’s not the first call for a ban. In 2022, France became the first European country to ban fossil fuel advertising. Various cities across Europe have taken similar steps. But in Canada, organizations such as the Competition Bureau or Ad Standards are too slow or opaque when called upon to investigate greenwashing complaints, Temper says.  

Getting the health alliance’s message out on fossil fuel ads has been an “uphill battle”, she noted. Several stories circulating online have suggested that the bill would criminalize any sort of speech in defense of fossil fuels, a claim that has been debunked.

Meanwhile, in an op-ed in the National Post, Stephen Buffalo, the head of the Indian Resource Council, an organization that represents oil and gas-producing First Nations, denounced the bill as the “most egregious attack on civil liberties in recent Canadian history” and “a direct assault on Indigenous peoples.”   

“Properly handled resource development is, for most of our communities, the only realistic way out of the current welfare trap,” said Buffalo. “We will not allow a small number of thought-control advocates to stop us from making decisions about our economic future.” 

But other First Nations leaders say Angus’ bill is necessary. In a statement, the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs called on the government to address ads that “create confusion and distort public opinion” about the environmental gains from using LNG (liquid natural gas) as a transition fuel.

“False ads pose a direct threat to climate progress, and we must have the ability to make informed decisions and mitigate climate impacts,” said Naxginkw, Tara Marsden, sustainability director for the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs.

Private member’s bills rarely get passed, but they do drum up awareness. 

Angus says his bill is an attempt to trigger a long overdue conversation. “Canada is a petro state,” he says. “If we can start talking about the decades of misrepresentation and lies by oil and gas, what they knew, what they covered up, like Big Tobacco, that changes how we see the issue and makes us recognize that we’re going to have to take a stronger position.”  

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While these measures are a step forward, they don’t give Indigenous communities a say over the financing of particular projects or exclude new fossil fuel financing – two key demands of the bank’s critics. But these concessions do open the door to dialogue with communities and investors on these critical issues.

The compromises came after weeks of negotiation with investors who supported Indigenous and Black leaders and their allies assembled at the bank’s annual general meeting in April, the largest showing of these community members at an RBC AGM.

Under an investor agreement with the British Columbia General Employees Union, the bank will appoint an independent auditor to conduct an Indigenous and racial equity audit to determine whether the bank’s business practices are consistent with human rights policies. Of critical importance to Indigenous communities is the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of projects it finances.

“A credible Indigenous rights policy must include the right to say ‘no’ and to have that ‘no’ respected,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) in an email after the meeting. He noted that RBC has already acknowledged this principle in a thought leadership brief. “Reports and slogans are nice, but what really matters is action, and specifically whether the bank continues to fund projects that do not have the FPIC of impacted communities.”

The audit is part of a package of commitments made by the bank that include respect for FPIC responsibilities under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It also includes enhancement of social and environmental due diligence on client activities on Indigenous lands and communities for transactions above a certain threshold.

RBC also took a step forward on climate change disclosure under pressure from shareholder New York City Pension Fund and agreed to publish its ratio of renewable energy financing to fossil fuel financing.

The ratio – called the energy supply ratio – is an important metric that will give investors better understanding of how well aligned RBC is with goals to limit global temperature increases to 1.5ºC. It will significantly simplify how critics hold the bank to account, and how investors measure its performance.

According to BloombergNEF, global financial institutions must achieve an energy supply ratio of 4:1 low-carbon energy to fossil fuel financing this decade to keep global warming within 1.5°C. A recent report estimated RBC’s current energy supply ratio at just 0.4 to 1. The United States megabanks Citigroup and JP Morgan also agreed to disclose the same information.  As three of the largest banks financing fossil fuels in the world, this disclosure is expected to have major impact.

“As leading public investors, we expect that energy supply ratio disclosure will become a new standard for the banking sector,” says Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, who oversees the city’s public pension funds.

Further to these changes, RBC agreed earlier this year to triple its renewable energy financing to $15 billion by 030.

As Canada’s biggest bank and the eighth largest in the world, RBC co-finances a broad range of projects and companies in pipelines and petrochemicals, two of the largest fossil fuel sectors. Many of these projects have galvanized local and international opposition because they have been built without community consent, or threaten to accelerate carbon dioxide emissions, air and water pollution and damage to forests, waterways and wildlife.

At its annual meeting last year, the bank required Chiefs and other Indigenous community members to watch and participate from a separate room, prompting accusations of ‘segregation.’ This year, community members who represented shareholders or who held proxies for investors were allowed to participate in the same room as management and directors but their comments were restricted to one minute, a limit that community members found disrespectful and insulting.

A credible Indigenous rights policy must include the right to say ‘no’ and to have that ‘no’ respected.

 

– Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs

“You travel all that way to look them in the eye, tell them your truth, make sure they understand exactly what their money is doing to us, to the democracy of this country, and to climate change,” says Chief Na’Moks, a hereditary chief of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in northwest British Columbia, in an interview after the meeting. “And then they give you 60 seconds to speak on it.”

RBC led a syndicate of banks in 2019 providing $6.1 billion to finance the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline in northwestern British Columbia without the consent of the Wet’suwet’en chiefs. The project, now nearing completion, threatens a vast swath of wild habitat and will dramatically increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Opponents of a number of other American and international projects co-financed by RBC with other banks also spoke at this year’s AGM. This  included the Enbridge Line 3 gas pipeline in Minnesota, the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia, the East Africa Crude Oil pipeline in Uganda and Tanzania and a proposed new plastics plant in the primarily-Black, heavily-polluted community of St. James, Louisiana.

In the meeting, RBC chair Jacynthe Côté said the bank instituted the one-minute policy to give a broader group of shareholders and proxy holders an opportunity to ask questions. “After the last AGM, we’ve been hearing voices of shareholders, and we’re going to listen and hopefully again do better next year,” Côté said.

Phillip says RBC’s actions to limit participation at its annual meeting were “deplorable,” adding it’s now up to the bank to demonstrate whether it is serious in addressing Indigenous and racial rights and climate change.

What Phillip is suggesting – an effective veto over financed projects –  is a far-reaching action that would establish limits on RBC’s right to approve millions – perhaps even billions – of dollars in new project financing.

The investor agreements represent “positive steps in the right direction,” he says, but there is still a long way to go. “What matters now is whether and how it changes RBC’s decisions, which can directly determine the health and wellbeing of communities and the planet.” 

Eugene Ellmen writes on sustainable business and finance. He is a former executive director of the Canadian Social Investment Organization (now Responsible Investment Association).

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Grassy Narrows First Nation, in northwestern Ontario, is an Anishinaabe community of some 1,500 people. Between 1962 and 1970, a paper mill owned by Dryden Chemicals dumped about 9,000 kilograms of mercury into the English-Wabigoon river system, contaminating the fish with levels of methylmercury up to 50 times higher than what was considered safe and poisoning the people who ate them. The community relied on fish not just for sustenance, but for their livelihood, so their local economy was also devastated.  

Today, 90% of Grassy Narrows residents are believed to suffer from symptoms of mercury poisoning, which attacks the nervous system and can result in tremors, insomnia, memory loss, neuromuscular effects, headaches, and cognitive and motor dysfunction.  

Researchers have now identified the intergenerational impact of mercury poisoning on the behaviour, emotions and suicide attempts of Grassy Narrows children.  

“In the ’70s, following the mercury discharge, youth suicide in Grassy Narrows went from zero – it had been unheard of before that time – to very high,” said Donna Mergler, the lead author of a new study published in the peer-reviewed Environmental Health Perspective journal, at a press conference this week at Ontario’s provincial legislature, where the study’s findings were unveiled. Over an 11-month period in 1977/1978, 26 young people between the ages of 11 and 19 attempted suicide.  

“That is an incredibly high rate,” said Mergler, a physiologist and professor emerita in the Department of Biological Sciences at the Université du Québec à Montréal.  

Those numbers remain high today, with mothers reporting that 41% of girls and almost 11% of boys between the ages of 12 and 17 have attempted suicide – figures that are three times higher than in other First Nations.  

The study uses data collected from a questionnaire conducted in 2016 and 2017 related to 80 mothers and 162 children from Grassy Narrows, along with historical data from biomonitoring programs that collected blood samples from umbilical cords and children’s hair. That allowed researchers to trace how mercury was passed to children in utero.  

Most of the women who participated in the study were born between 1962 and 1993.  

They were exposed to mercury poisoning prenatally, through their mothers’ consumption of fish, and subsequently as children, teenagers and adults. Researchers also found correlations between grandfathers who had been fishing guides, using the indicator as a proxy for mercury exposure in the family, and mental health and behavioural issues faced by their grandchildren, the children of today.  

“You can see this cascade of effects,” Mergler said. “We found that the mother’s childhood mercury exposure is associated with today’s nervous system disorders, as well as a psychological distress.” 

Researchers found that the effect of mercury exposure may have been compounded by the intergenerational trauma of the residential school system, in which Indigenous children were taken from their communities and sent to government-funded boarding schools, often administered by Christian churches, where many were abused and died.  

For Rudy Turtle, the chief of Grassy Narrows First Nation, who also spoke at the press conference, the study confirms “what we’ve been fearing all along.”  

We’re in an emergency in our home.

 

– Chrissy Isaacs, Grassy Narrows resident

“The impacts of mercury have been very devastating in terms of our economy,” he said. “Our way of life has been totally destroyed. One-hundred percent we’ve been unable to continue our traditional activity.”  

“We’re in an emergency in our home,” said Grassy Narrows resident Chrissy Isaacs, in a recording played at the press conference. “Even on social media you see people saying that they feel like they don’t want to live or they don’t know how to deal with what they’re going through.”  

Isaacs said that her niece recently died by suicide. “It’s not their fault,” she said. “It’s a part of the sickness from the dumping of mercury, and I feel like we need to make people aware of that.” 

Multiple studies have exposed the devastating toll the mercury dump has had on Grassy Narrows, a community that has fought for the government to acknowledge the devastation and deliver accountability. One study released in 2020 found that residents who died prematurely before the age of 60 had five times more mercury in their bodies than those who lived past 60. That same year, decades of lobbying by the community secured a commitment from the federal government to build a treatment centre for people suffering from the effects of mercury poisioning. But three years later, costs have ballooned, and the project has yet to break ground.  A report in 2017 suggested that the decommissioned mill was still leaking mercury. 

This week, Chief Turtle called on the government to provide “fair compensation” to his community for the devastation wreaked by the toxic dump. The researchers said they hoped the study would help restore the health and well–being of Grassy Narrows residents.  

“This study was possible only because of the leadership of the people of Grassy Narrows, who fought for decades to expose and correct the health impacts wrought by [mercury] contamination of the English-Wabigoon River system,” noted Sarah E. Rothenberg, of Oregon State University, in an a separate Environmental Health Perspectives article.  

“Because of their advocacy and bravery, the results of this study may inform interventions that could benefit millions of people living in vulnerable communities where [methylmercury] exposure is elevated.” 

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