Joel Jackson
Photo by Colin Arisman
“I started hearing about transboundary mines over 30 years ago. There was a young man on the Stikine River, I believe it was. He was from Canada — the headwaters. He was kayaking through Southeast Alaska, spreading the word. And he stopped in here because he wanted to let people know about the mines that were being planned way back then. And how it would affect the rivers.
It would affect our people, and the salmon we eat. I’m hoping that we can get a true weight of how much fish each person eats in our community. It’s very high. Myself, I probably eat salmon about three or four times a week, as it’s fresh.
I remember watching a documentary about gold mining in Peru. And the guy went in and toured the gold mine, and then went into the surrounding community. And they were telling him how much it affected their way of life, and catching fish in those rivers. The mining companies were saying they were taking every precaution to be sure they didn’t pollute the river. And one of the village leaders said they could only eat so many grams of fish a week, because of the heavy metals in these rivers.
Is that what we’re coming down to now, if these mines start leaching those heavy metals into our rivers?
“The Red Chris Mine in Canada has a huge tailings dam. It’s 341 feet, and I saw that they’re going to make it even bigger. And it’s pretty similar to that Mount Polley dam. And our area is prone to earthquakes, and that's really concerning to me.
The lesson we learned from the Mount Polley dam failure — that river will probably never be the same. … Even if there’s money put aside to clean it up, it won’t ever be the same again.
It’s not if, it’s when. Anything manmade, we know it’s going to fail. There is just no way around it.
It’s terrible. We can’t stop something like this, and we know it’s coming. It’s like watching a train wreck coming at you. How do we stop it?
My father always told me, never let fear into your decision-making. When I started to run around on boats, he said ‘never panic. Always think there’s a way out of it.’ He said once you start panicking, that may be the end of you. I always remember that.”
—Joel Jackson, President, Organized Village of Kake