At the heart of Canada's rush towards liquified natural gas, Kitimat, B.C., is poised to boom

It's been more than a decade since the global oil and gas industry began its plan to send millions of tonnes of natural gas across the Rocky Mountains to British Columbia's western coast and on to Asia.

Now, despite fierce opposition from some environmental experts and First Nations people along its 670-kilometre route, the controversial Coastal GasLink pipeline is almost complete.

But the project's economic and environmental impacts are already beginning to materialize in Kitimat, the port community on B.C.'s North Coast that will soon host the LNG Canada plant, which will utilize gas from the new pipeline. 

A few kilometres to the south lies Kitamaat Village, home of the Haisla First Nation. Hereditary Chief Sammy Robinson's garage door is open, looking onto the Douglas Channel, as he sits inside carving the trunk of a cedar tree into a totem pole.

The elder, who will soon celebrate his 89th birthday, was a teen when it all began.

The Haisla have lived in Kitamaat Village for thousands of years, stewarding the land.

"I didn't see a white man until I was 15 years old. I didn't see a plane until I was 15 years old," said Robinson.

But that changed in the early 1950s, as company men from aluminum manufacturer Alcan began to arrive in the region, scoping it out to build a factory and then a port that could bring their products from the end of the fjord to the world.

The factory, and the jobs that building and running it required, established the District of Kitimat as a commercial hub. Soon, more companies came.

Signs of renewed prosperity

In the decades since Alcan arrived, Kitimat's population has fluctuated with the booms and busts of the natural resources industry. In 2010, the community was devastated when the closure of West Fraser Timber's Eurocan pulp and paper mill caused 500 jobs to disappear.

Now in his 30s, Kitimat-born Brandon Highton remembers those grim years.

However, a promised gust of prosperity from the LNG Canada project is now blowing into town, one that gave Highton and business partner Nick Markowsky confidence to start a new venture.

"Growing up, we saw a lot of the industries leave town and shut their doors, which definitely had an impact on the community that was thriving and made it a bit stale for a while," said Highton from the taproom of Two Peaks Brewing, which he and Markowsky opened in the centre of town two months ago.

Recent projects have changed that, he said.

"I would have never thought that we would be back here."

The pair's ultramodern microbrewery is one of many businesses already riding a wave of liquified natural gas, Highton says. 

Since 2012, the conglomerate TC Energy has been building the Coastal GasLink pipeline from Dawson Creek, B.C., to LNG Canada's mammoth terminal now under construction in Kitimat.

The controversial project, supported by the elected governments of all the First Nations along its route — but opposed by some hereditary chiefs, environmental groups and many community members — is scheduled to be completed later this year.

The LNG Canada plant, which opened its doors to media for the first time to Radio-Canada, spans more than four square kilometres. Corporations including Shell, Petronas, Petrochina and Mitsubishi, as well as the Korea Gas Corp., have invested more than $17 billion into the project.

The project will liquify natural gas at nearly –162 C before sending it to Asia aboard cargo ships that will soon swarm the Kitimat port. If all goes to plan, 14 million tonnes of gas will be transported in the first year of operation, and 28 million the next, so long as the proposed second phase of construction is approved by investors.

Close to 300 jobs will be created to run the factory when it becomes operational in 2025, including positions for Ron Murdoch and his daughters, Hayley and Hannah.

Born in Kitimat, Murdoch returned after an engineering career abroad. His daughters are now following in his footsteps as recently graduated power engineers. 

After witnessing shuttered stores and empty ski hills after factories closed in his younger years, Murdoch never expected to return.

But seeing the investment and "all these these stores coming back and huge opportunities… it's unique," said Murdoch, noting he loves seeing his daughters have the chance to build a similar career.

"We all love Kitimat. They know what it has to offer. This is their home."

A giant of the local economy

A new fire station, health clinic and youth centre in Kitamaat Village are evidence that LNG is already transforming the region. 

As for the district itself, no less than 70 per cent of Kitimat's municipal revenues come from industry, largely from the Rio Tinto plant, along with a notable contribution from LNG Canada.

The plant's construction has employed more than 7,000 people since work began, housing them in work camps in and around Kitimat. Cedar Valley Lodge, which includes restaurants, fitness centres and even a rock climbing wall, can hold as many as 4,500 employees.

Despite building the largest private infrastructure project in Canada's history, LNG Canada has largely mitigated the negative impacts on the municipality, according to Kitimat Mayor Phil Germuth.

"They've been an amazing company to work with, I must say. You also look at what they've done for the economy, of course, for the jobs," said Germuth.

"If something starts to go wrong, we know we can pick up the phone and together we'll figure it out."

Partnership at the centre

Among the most important changes in Kitimat is the collaboration with the Haisla First Nation, upon whose traditional, ancestral and unceded lands the factory and camps have been built. The nation has been part of the project since the start.

Former Chief Ellis Ross, who now represents the region in the B.C. Legislature, says he opposed the project at first.

But with a nation still living the economic, social and cultural devastation of colonization, Ross saw an opportunity for the project to change things if the community got on board.

"I started to understand that it was actually a solution to most of the problems we were facing, meaning poverty, unemployment, suicide and imprisonment," said Ross.

LNG Canada had proposed a participation agreement with the Haisla, sharing profits from the project and guaranteeing well paying jobs for community members. And it succeeded in convincing the First Nation that its project was less environmentally damaging than other proposals.

"The tipping point in regards to the support for LNG was the fact that … if anything were to ever happen, LNG would evaporate into the air," said Haisla councillor Crystal Smith.

Since her election, the young Haisla leader has participated in all discussions concerning liquified natural gas in the region, working with her counterpart at LNG Canada, Hope Regimbald.

"Before we ever even started to build this incredible project, we talked to the community first and then we built those voices into the direction," said Regimbald, head of Indigenous relations for LNG Canada and a member of the Woodland Cree First Nation in Alberta.

"Where the impact is greatest, the potential for benefits and lifting and enabling Indigenous people, is where I always want to go."

The company also says it will work toward making the plant carbon-neutral, as the provincial government has encouraged.

However, that has not quelled concerns from environmentalists about the project's impact on carbon emissions, which contribute to climate change, nor about what they say are threats to waterways and riverbeds along its route.

Too soon to tell full impact

But while many people have more money in their pockets, Sammy Robinson stressed the full impacts, both environmental and economic, remain to be seen.

Already, he sees "hundreds" of other boats in the water when he goes out fishing, whereas there were usually just one or two others during his decades running a fishing charter company.

He wonders what will happen when the cargo ships begin to swarm the port to get their fill of LNG.

"Come back in about five years," he said, "and I'll tell you what the impacts are."