The trackless tundra reaches a fork in the road this weekend as scrutiny begins of a massive uranium mine proposed for a pristine patch of the central Arctic.
Sunday night will see the first of two weeks of community meetings in seven Arctic hamlets to set terms for an environmental review of the $1.5-billion Kiggavik project. The mine is proposed for just west of Baker Lake, Nunavut, by French uranium giant Areva.
Everyone from federal scientists to Inuit hunters agrees the project could have major impacts on the land and wildlife. And with at least a dozen other major uranium projects in the pipeline for the area, there's agreement that how the Nunavut Impact Review Board balances Kiggavik's effects with the need for jobs will define the so-called barren lands for a generation.
"Where do we draw the line?" asked Joan Scottie, a hunter from Baker Lake who has fought uranium development for 20 years.
"How many mines do we need? How much money do we need?"
Kiggavik is the first uranium mine to come before the board and the first proposed in the wildlife-rich Thelon Basin.
It would consist of one underground and four open-pit mines. It would empty part of a lake, build a road through habitat crucial to a declining caribou herd and stretch a bridge across a Canadian heritage river. Planes loaded with radioactive concentrate would take off from its airstrip and barges with the same cargo would leave from its dock on Baker Lake.
It would provide at least 400 jobs, many reserved for local Inuit. Its annual payroll would be $200 million for at least 17 years.
Areva spokesman Barry McCallum says Kiggavik could be a game-changer for the whole region. Its mill could serve other uranium mines, lowering their costs and making them more economic.
"Mines are feasible earlier or with less production if they have an existing mill," he said. "It could be the start of a mining life considerably longer than the Kiggavik mine."
Monte Hummel of the World Wildlife Fund calls Kiggavik "precedent-setting."
"It isn't just this particular project that's on the line, it's the future of uranium development in Nunavut," he said.
Almost all uranium mines face similar environmental concerns, especially ones about the transportation of radioactive concentrate and the storage and disposal of radioactive tailings. Once standards are set at Kiggavik, they'll probably apply to any mine that follows, said Hummel.
"Once they get resolved around this mine, you've got a precedent."
Industry will be paying careful attention to the Kiggavik environmental assessment, said Mike Vaydik of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Chamber of Mines.
"We'll be watching very closely," he said. "This will set the tone for other projects."
The Inuit remain conflicted over uranium mining.
Of 80 Baker Lake residents who filled out the review board's comment form, 40 were willing to consider the project and 40 opposed it outright.
"I don't want the caribou to get sick," wrote Fiona Angoctajuak. Philip Putumiraqtuq penned, "employment has to increase in Baker Lake and Nunavut."
A 2007 decision by the group that oversees the Nunavut land claim to lift a moratorium on uranium mining was controversial. So was the decision by another Inuit group to invest in a uranium mining company.
Kiggavik's risks are real.
"Environment Canada is of the opinion that there is potential for this project to cause significant adverse environmental impacts," the department wrote to the board. Indian and Northern Affairs as well as Fisheries and Oceans reached similar conclusions, as did groups such as MiningWatch Canada.
Concerns were raised about everything from Areva's plans to transport uranium concentrate to its plans to dispose of tailings by dumping them back into the hole from which they came.
Ross Thompson of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board points out the mine would be located on the Beverly herd's post-calving ground.
"It's very critical that extra stress not be put on the cows and their new calves," he said.
The herd -- vital to Inuit diet and culture -- has nearly disappeared and doesn't need any new challenges, said Thompson.
McCallum said Areva is committed to listening. The company began meeting with locals in 2005, three years before it filed a project proposal. Areva has had an office in Baker Lake since 2008 and has flown more than 100 people to have a look at its uranium mines in northern Saskatchewan, where it's been operating for 30 years.
Wildlife managers praise Areva's financing of caribou research.
"Caribou must be protected," said McCallum. "We would not expect to be supported if we couldn't demonstrate that caribou would be protected from the operation.
"Waterways will have to be protected. Impacts on wildlife downwind would be a concern.
"This is what people have been telling us, so these are some of the things we believe will get attention in the environmental impact statement."
That report, in which Areva must explain how it will answer those concerns, is to come after the current meetings determine its range and scope. The guidelines are expected this fall and the whole project is to go to public hearings some time in late 2011.
By then, Joan Scottie hopes Inuit will have had enough time to choose which fork in the road they want to follow.
"It's not just (this) mine that we are concerned about," she said. "There's going to be so many projects and I don't think many Inuit are aware of it.
"Once the mine goes, that's it. It will be politically impossible to stop other companies from opening uranium mines in the middle of our calving grounds, in the middle of our hunting grounds.
"We have so much uranium in our hunting grounds."
