Where the Rivers Meet

Oil and gas companies now recognize that industrial projects in the Canadian North can only succeed if Aboriginal communities are involved in decision-making processes. Are Aboriginal concerns appropriately addressed through current consultation and participatory processes? Where the Rivers Meet is an ethnographic account of Sahtu Dene involvement in the environmental assessment of the Mackenzie Gas Project, a massive pipeline that, if completed, would have unprecedented effects on Aboriginal communities in the North. Carly A. Dokis reveals that while there has been some progress in establishing avenues for Dene participation in decision making, the structure of participatory and consultation processes fails to meet the expectations of local people by requiring them to participate in ways that are incommensurable with their experiential knowledge and understandings of the environment. Ultimately, Dokis finds that the evaluation of such projects remains rooted in non-local beliefs about the nature of the environment, the commodification of land, and the inevitability of a hydrocarbon-based economy.