Solar panels empower indigenous people in Canada's north

By Chris Arsenault, Thomson Reuters Foundation

8 Min Read

BEHCHOKO, Northwest Territories, Canada (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Daniel T'seleie, an indigenous activist in Canada's far north, is campaigning to help his people wean themselves from a worrying dependence on imported fuel and food, recover old traditions and win greater autonomy from the government.

In a region with nearly 24 hours of daylight in the summer, one way to help meet his goals seems obvious: more solar power.

"Right now a lot of communities in the Northwest Territories are dependent on diesel-generated electricity, along with store-bought food," said T'seleie in an open air interview near Behchoko, a clutch of small wooden houses nestled along the shores of Great Slave Lake.

Standing beside spindly jack pine trees growing from thin soil on the hard granite rock that covers much of northern Canada, T'seleie sees renewable energy as the force which could respond to the region's complex, intertwined challenges.

Canada's north is particularly vulnerable to global warming, which is making it harder for indigenous people to continue their traditions of hunting and trapping on the land, as ice sheets are melt and caribou herds collapse.

And although indigenous people want what they call a "nation to nation" relationship with the Canadian government, they largely depend on it for diesel fuel in order to keep warm.

By harnessing renewable energy, T'seleie believes indigenous communities could gain more freedom from the state and revive ancient cultural practices, while doing their part to combat climate change which is hitting them particularly hard.

"Any way that communities can produce energy at a local level produces independence," said the 34-year-old, sporting a baseball cap and jeans, the informal dress common in Canada's rugged north.

The Northwest Territories has seen a surge in the use of solar power over the last five years, after the regional government spent about $50 million to boost renewable energy production and improve efficiency, said Jim Sparling, the territory's senior climate change manager.

"On a per capita basis, we are second only to Ontario (Canada's most populous province) for installed solar capacity," Sparling told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in the territorial capital Yellowknife.

The huge and sparsely populated northern territory has fewer than 50,000 residents, about half of whom are indigenous, many from the Dene Nation, a tribal people who traditionally hunt caribou.

Solar power still represents a fairly small part of its energy consumption, though the level is rising, said Sparling.

Private individuals and companies in the territory are also installing solar panels on their own to try and bring down their energy bills and cut dependence on imports, he said.

That combination of rising use of renewable and better energy efficiency has allowed the province to hold its climate-changing emissions stable at 2005 levels despite a rise in the population and a growing economy, Sparling said.

The territorial government plans to be part of a Canadian delegation going to Paris for a U.N. climate summit in December, aimed at reaching a new global agreement on climate change.

Average temperatures in parts of the northern territory have already risen more than 3 degrees from pre-industrial levels, Sparling said.

Scientists say average world temperatures should not rise more 2 degrees if the world is to avoid the worst disasters associated with global warming.

"We have to scale up the ambition," Sparling said. "We are very vulnerable if this problem gets worse."

North of the Arctic Circle, the village of Colville Lake, with fewer than 200 residents, is in the midst of a major switch from diesel power to solar.

Last year, the mostly indigenous community faced weekly power outages. But after a new solar power system was set-up, the area is now nearly self sufficient in electricity production during summer months when the sun shines almost round the clock.

It still needs to import fuel for the winter, but officials believe the new investments will lead to a 30 percent drop in diesel consumption, helping the environment and saving money.

Other small northern towns are looking to mimic the project to save cash and allow people to maintain traditional lifestyles by being less dependent on expensive imports.

"In the last 10 to 15 years there has been a huge push from (indigenous) communities to try and support themselves," said Ashlee Cunsolo Willox, an indigenous studies professor at Cape Breton University and a researcher on climate change impacts.

As global warming leads to the thinning of Arctic sea ice and changes in the habits of northern animals, the region's indigenous inhabitants are struggling to adapt their lifestyles while holding onto old traditions, she said.

The caribou population has collapsed in parts of the territory in a development experts link to climate change, and melting ice makes it harder for hunters to navigate the land in search of other animals to hunt.

"The north is the fastest changing geography in the world," Cunsolo Willox said in a phone interview. "There is a lot of concern that traditional knowledge and skills will be lost with climate change."

Building greater self sufficiency – including by adapting cleaner, cheaper energy – may be a strategy for holding onto the old ways, activists say.

T'seleie, a law school graduate, said he previously tried to work through Canada's court system and treaty negotiations to win greater autonomy for his people, after what he considers years of colonial abuses.

In the 1920s, Canadian colonial administrators declared the government's aim was to "get rid of the Indian problem" by ending indigenous cultural practices, corralling the population into reserves and forcing aboriginal children into grim residential schools.

Canada's government signed treaties with many indigenous groups, often in return for political support during periods of conflict, granting them access to parts of the land they once controlled and other benefits.

But many legal scholars and historians say the government did not honor those agreements in good faith.

After becoming disillusioned with the legal process, T'seleie decided working towards greater self-sufficiency in food and energy was the best way forward.

T'seleie is part of the first generation of indigenous people not forced to attend residential schools usually run by religious groups in other parts of Canada which took children from their parents, and forced them to speak English rather than native languages as a means of assimilation.

Sexual and physical abuse were rife at the institutions, the government now admits following years of litigation.

Health experts and indigenous leaders believe the legacy from these schools – including that many parents never learned how to raise children, as they were taken from their own parents - partially explain high rates of substance abuse, family violence and poverty in some indigenous communities.

Allowing people to stay on their ancestral land, continuing hunting and trapping practices, and learning stories and traditions from community elders are key to overcoming these problems, said Cunsolo Willox.

To support traditional practices and allow indigenous communities to live off the land as they have done for centuries, they need access to renewable energy, T'seleie said.

"A huge aspect of our lives, culture and language is lost when we can't be on the land," he said. "For me, that's one of the biggest threats of climate change."