Fort McKay Chief Jim Boucher emphasizes a highly practical side of aboriginal interest in the growing relationship with Atco. For him, this venture is all about ensuring the economic survival of his people.
“We all have interests. Fort McKay has its own interests and the resource developers have their own interests in trying to create a forum for dialogue where we all have to understand the interests that are in play with respect to our future,” he says. “I think the key ingredient is understanding each side’s agendas.”

Amid the warmth, gold and azure of Indian summer in Fort McKay, Boucher invites his teenage daughter, who stands beside him nimbly navigating the keypad of her lime green BlackBerry, to sit down and listen to this interview. After all, in the end, this is all for her and her generation.
“Our participation in the economy means that we have the means and the ability to make things happen in our community,” he says. “You look at our community and you look at our buildings and our houses – not only that, the facilities we have for youth, the programs we have for youth. I don’t think you will see that in other First Nations communities across the country.”

Relations between aboriginal and corporate worlds are not always about smashing salt crusts, nicknames and golf. Roadblocks, lawsuits and other forms of resistance often meet attempts at economic development. There are still unsettled land claims, fear of losing customary ways of life and concerns about economic benefits, the environment, and different ideas of fairness. Such barriers cannot be broken down solely by striking a symbolic blow with a small hammer at lunchtime.

Boucher opposed development in the 1970s and ’80s but changed his mind when he saw the writing on the wall. The decline of the fur trade was forcing First Nations people to seek out ways to earn wages and survive in an increasingly mixed economy of traditional and monetary modes of production. His community was no exception and its location in the heart of Alberta’s bitumen belt presented them with an obvious alternative.

In similar but more studied and documented regions farther north, a formal Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic (SLICA) reports that about 70 per cent of aboriginal households use snowmobiles. More than half use all-terrain vehicles. Up to two-thirds use trucks, rifles and other modern implements. It all costs cash. The study, done by international university researchers and financed by governments and indigenous organizations from Arctic countries, underlines the importance of a mixed economy to indigenous populations.

Boucher’s daughter, thumbing her BlackBerry, certainly belongs to a generation that depends on goods that cannot be bartered for with fox furs or picked berries. The chief trapped when he was younger but grew up into a sharply dressed, articulate product of the global order. He has learned the rules of a game that will give the next generation the potential to sustain themselves economically.
Asked what he sees are the fruits of co-operation with companies active in the region, Boucher points to the Fort McKay First Nation’s daycare and elder care facilities.

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