equally horri>c, permanently poisoning the drinking water of
caribou and Inuit alike, as has been the case near so many former uranium mines around the world. Most of those mines
were adjacent to indigenous communities whose members were
either unaware of the hazards or so impoverished that they were
willing to accept the risks of uranium mining in exchange for
some of the pro>ts, even if only a
modest hourly wage.
WHAT IS UNFOLDING in Nunavut is emblematic of a worldwide
challenge to the sovereignty of
indigenous communities in
Africa, Asia, Australia, and North
and South America, beneath
which roughly 70 percent of the
world’s uranium resources are
located. (About two-thirds of
prospective uranium deposits in the U.S. are under or adjacent
to Native American land.) The demand for U O from an indus-
38
try hoping to grow exponentially over the next two or three
decades has driven uranium prospectors to the most accessible
deposits. That doesn’t necessarily mean places where high-grade ore is close to the surface; more likely, it means under or
near the homelands of those least likely to oppose or resist mining: economically desperate and politically marginalized indigenous peoples.
Uranium prospectors and miners meet much stronger opposition from more a<uent communities, like the one I visited on
my way to Nunavut. Sharbot Lake is a small rural community
about sixty miles west of Ottawa. Not far from the lake, Frontenac
on Hopi and Havasupai lands, where mines are proposed adjacent to
the Grand Canyon. “It is unconscionable to me that the federal government would consider allowing uranium mining to be restarted
anywhere near the Navajo Nation when we are still suffering from
previous mining activities,” Joe Shirley Jr., Navajo Nation president,
explained at a congressional hearing on opening uranium mines in
the Grand Canyon area. To the north, the Lakota organization Owe
Aku (Bring Back the Way) is an intervener in a Nuclear Regulatory
Commission hearing to allow the Canadian corporation Cameco to
expand its Crow Butte uranium mine, just over the Nebraska border
from the reservation.
I recently traveled to Australia, the country with the largest known
uranium reserves in the world. In my Sydney hotel room the television
Ventures, a small uranium-prospecting company (aka a “junior”)
has staked a few claims, drilled out some core samples, and
declared its intention to one day mine the property. That plan is
being strongly resisted by two bands of the Algonquin tribe,
which has long claimed treaty rights to much of the region. One
leader of the Ardoch Algonquin
band, Robert Lovelace, has been
>ned $25,000 and sentenced to a
six-month prison term for
attempting to block access to the
exploration site.
Were the Algonquins >ghting
Frontenac on their own, they
would almost certainly lose, and
Frontenac would soon be breaking ground—although perhaps
not on claims they have staked
directly over Algonquin burial
grounds. However, Sharbot Lake
is also a popular cottage community and tourist destination for
prosperous “settlers” from Ottawa, Toronto, and other urban
areas of southern Ontario. They too have been actively opposing the mine. (Incidentally, not one settler has been >ned or
imprisoned for blockading the road to the site, which many
have done.)
No one I spoke to in the area, Indian or settler, or later in
Ottawa believes that Frontenac, which is rumored to have spent
more money on lawyers than on exploration, will ever be able to
mine uranium near Sharbot Lake, even if Canadian courts continue to suppress and imprison First Nation opponents, which
they have. Six more leaders from a nearby mine site are now
serving time in a Canadian prison.
broadcaster summarized Australia’s economic strategy: “We dig it up,
and they buy it.” The mining industry, in a world bent upon combusting and consumption, looks to be very healthy. Australia’s uranium
mines include the Beverley Mine, which is in the territory of the
Kuyani and Adnyamathanha peoples. Olympic Dam (operated by BHP
Billiton—the largest mining corporation in the world) is the country’s
second-largest uranium operation and is in the traditional territory of
aboriginal people as well. In fact, most major mining operations in
Australia are within aboriginal territory. These are some ancient civilizations—resilient in the face of a deep history of genocide and
destruction, which continued well into the twentieth century.
Aboriginal people did not even get the right to vote until 1967. Due
to their relative isolation in the outback, many of these tribes have
