Clearwater River Dene First Nation and the neighboring community of La Loche are among the most economically challenged in the province, with all the accompanying social ills – crime, substance abuse, welfare dependence. But save your sympathies. Apparently, they like it that way;
Christopher Hopkins, the president and CEO of Oilsands Quest Inc., gets a steely look in his eyes when you ask him about the reason he’s moving the bunkhouses from one of the two camps his company had constructed at the Axe Lake oilsands project in the northwestern corner of Saskatchewan.
He’s moving the camp infrastructure, which can house up to 100 workers in hotel-level comfort, to the Alberta side of the border, where Oilsands Quest also has oilsand leases on land contiguous to its Saskatchewan property.
The move west to Alberta is more than symbolic to Hopkins, whose company was in the news this past June when road access to his camps was cut off on Saskatchewan provincial Highway 955 when members of the Clearwater River Dene First Nation, under the direction of Chief Roy Cheecham, refused access for vehicles or people headed to the Oilsands Quest camp.
The blockade left a lasting impression on Hopkins, who says he has no desire or plans in the future to meet with Cheecham again.
“I have told the chief. I have told anyone who will listen. We will never be caught in a blockade like that again,” Hopkins said. “And I mean it.”
That’s not the only barrier to development. Cheecham has allies in Regina.
Hopkins won’t say anything bad about the Government of Saskatchewan, but notes he had to submit 18 copies of his application to various government offices in Regina for the right to lay down more than 900 kilometres of new seismic lines, plus do additional drilling into the bitumen formation.
Many in the industry speculate that Saskatchewan’s oil sands deposits may rival those of Alberta.

Now you know why they speculate.
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