About The Trip
Return to the Tar Sands: A Bicycle Caravan
Start Date: August 11 2008 in Edmonton (we will shuttle to Fort McMurray)
End date: September 2-6 2008 in Calgary
(End date will vary depending on school start dates and group consensus)
SYC is the largest youth environmentalist movement in Canada. Run by youth, for youth, we are active in close to 100 high schools, colleges and universities. We organize the Sustainable Campuses and Sustainable High Schools initiatives, summer workshops on activism and social justice (Youth Action Gatherings), and bicycle tours to raise awareness on major societal concerns such as climate change, market deregulation unsustainable development projects (Climate Change Caravan, Deconstructing Dinner Caravan, etc.).
Project and Mission
In 2007 a group of Sierra Youth Coalition (SYC) members, hailing from all regions of Canada, got on their bicycles and rode 1300km from Watertown in southern Alberta to the tar sands exploitations near Fort McMurray and Fort McKay. The To The Tar Sands Bicycle Caravan was a great success and, this summer, SYC wants to relive the experience by organizing a second trip starting in the tar sands and heading south. We want to continue what we started last year: learning on-site about the issues surrounding the tar sands; witnessing the devastating impacts of development; working in solidarity with Aboriginal communities, rural Albertans, and regional organizations in order to amplify their stories across Canada, lobby the political and corporate decision makers who are perpetuating an unjust and unsustainable venture, and brainstorm with communities the pursuit of more ecologically and socially sustainable modes of economic development.
Special Feature
Each cyclist in the team will fill a bottle with polluted water from the Athabasca River and will hand deliver it to an oil executive of their choice when they reach Calgary.
Our Message
The Sierra Youth Coalition hopes to work side by side with Albertan communities and regional organization in the spirit of anti-oppression. As outsiders coming into a region, we recognize that we are joining an existing and powerful movement. As such, our stance echoes what is already being demanded in the region including:
- That we legislate that no new approvals be given to tar sands development until regional plans are democratically created by the communities involved in order for them to have a say in the nature of their economic growth and how the ecological and socio-economic impacts will be dealt with.
- That Aboriginal communities be respected and their treaty rights be honoured and upheld.
- That Canada reassess its national energy policy, calling into questions its energy-exporting obligations under the North-American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
- That environmental justice, the right to a healthy and productive environment, be enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
[...] environmental conservationists.  Last month, a group of Canadian Sierra Club members bicycled to the tar sands (approximately 1,000 km) to gather water from the oil sands to bring to oil executives in Calgary. [...]