What is NOGAP?
(in detail)
The Northern Oil and
Gas Action Plan (NOGAP)
The Northern Oil and Gas Action Plan
(NOGAP) was initiated in the aftermath of the first flurry of impact
assessment activities that marked the Mackenzie Corridor of the early
1970s (see, for example, Pimlott et al.: 1973), and in the wake of the
conclusions of the Berger Inquiry (Berger 1977). As perceived by these
and other reviewers, a major difficulty with the proper assessment of
the potential impacts of proposed oil and gas developments in the
Mackenzie Valley, Beaufort Sea and Northwest Passage areas lay in
either the dearth or the unevenness of knowledge pertaining to various
facets of the natural, cultural and social environments that would
almost certainly be affected.
In anticipation of oil and gas
exploration and exploitation developments, the primary study area was
defined as the Mackenzie Delta-Beaufort Sea region without, however,
initially excluding other pertinent regions from consideration. In
brief, the programme was put together, in a coordinated fashion, as a
means to acceleration scientific data gathering and to increase the
capabilities and levels of expertise on the part of those government
agencies which, through mandates of various kinds, were already involved
in carrying out long-term resource management and advisory or regulatory
roles in the areas under consideration. The overall orientation and
definition of the programme profited greatly from the proceedings and
subsequent recommendations of the Beaufort Sea Environmental Assessment
Panel (BSEAP 1984).
The NOGAP Archaeology Project
NOGAP Research Sub-Areas:
1-Yukon Coastal Plain and Herschel Island
2-Mackenzie Delta
3-Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula
and Eskimo Lakes
4-Horton River/Cape Bathurst Peninsula
5-Southwest Anderson Plain
6-Lancaster Sound/South Devon Island
The NOGAP Archaeology Project was developed in a
coordinated fashion with the participation of all concerned and
pertinent federal and territorial government agencies. This brought
together representatives of the Yukon Heritage Branch, the Prince of
Wales Northern Heritage Centre (Yellowknife, N.W.T.), and the
Archaeological Survey of Canada (Canadian Museum of Civilization) in
order to ensure both short and long-term protection, preservation and
interpretation of a vast and intricate array of non-renewable and very
fragile archaeological resources. Such remains are deemed essential to
our understanding of the prehistory and early history of a large portion
of Canada. The ASC-CMC contribution to this approach emphasized
archaeological data gathering and interpretation through field
inventories, impact assessment surveys, test-excavations, laboratory
processing, curatorial treatment, conservation (when required), and
analyses.
A hallmark of our strategy was to deal with generic,
i.e. regional, archaeological problems rather than addressing issues
related to site-specific project proposals such as found, for example,
in actual pipeline or highway construction. In this manner, the results
are broadly applicable and provide a crucible into which
development-specific data can be integrated. In addition, this component
allowed for the provision of information to both the scientific
community and the general public. The intrinsic value of archaeological
resources can only become a useable reality through interpretation,
integration into a larger body of historical knowledge, and
dissemination to both specialized and broader audiences.
The extent of the
activities of the territorial agencies, were defined on the basis of
internal (governmental) resource allocations and priorities. Thus, the
Yukon Heritage Branch conducted a detailed inventory and study of the
heritage resources on Herschel Island and, in collaboration with the
ASC-CMC, an overall survey of the historical heritage resources of the
Yukon Coastal Plain. The Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre
focussed its attention on an accelerated study of Mackenzie Inuit
prehistory as found along the eastern edge of the Mackenzie Delta. It
also undertook, in the context of a series of field-school programmes,
the training of northerners in the techniques of archaeological surveys
and excavations.
