When I graduated in July I was awarded a grant to travel to Alberta, Canada, to make a solo documentary about the oil/tar sands. Although the tar sands are rarely mentioned in the UK, they are in fact the largest construction project and single site of capital investment on earth, and over the past decade they have become the lynchpin of Canadian politics, more important than Justin Bieber, hockey riots, Quebec separatism and even Rob Ford.
The tar sands are colossal fields of bitumen, mixed in with sand, peat and ice, over an area the size of England itself. They’re the third largest deposits of oil in the world, behind those of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. They take about four times as much energy to mine as conventional crude, as well as much more water, and no-one has worked out how to dispose of the toxic waste. They also leave heavy metals in the river, which is being linked to a spike in rare cancer rates in native communities downstream. But the energy industry has now decided to refer to them as ‘oil sands’, because it sounds cleaner, and in fact the way one chooses to refer to them has become a sort of preemptive signifier of your allegiance.
While I was there I travelled about 1200 miles by Greyhound bus in -30ËšC, interviewing the Irish doctor who first discovered the rare cancers, a native fur trapper in his shack in the middle of the freezing prairies, a disgruntled politician, and a First Nation (native) community trying to sue Shell Oil. Despite my best efforts, the oil companies themselves declined to talk to me. I’m not quite Louis Theroux, but the experience has been enlightening.
