that they can communicate with their members to get back here. Tell them to let you know where their people are so that they can be picked up if they’re off-route. And of course have someone get in touch with our own people.”
As Mike Cranston headed for the door, the Prime Minister flicked the intercom switch for his secretary.
“Joan, would you please call and speak to the presidents of the National Press Gallery, the CBC, CTV, and Global Television. Ask them if they or their senior representatives can be at this office within an hour. Tell them I have an emergency on my hands that I must speak to them about and get their advice. Say they may have to wait, and I hope they won’t mind. And find out exactly who will be coming.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Prime Minister turned back to Scott. “Tom, you’d better get on to the premiers now. I want them all here as quickly as possible. I guess the premiers from Ontario and Quebec won’t need any help from us, but those from the West and the Maritimes may have to be given a hand getting here. That includes the Commissioners from the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, of course. I’d like you to make every effort to get them here by six tonight, because I want them involved in this decision.”
Scott interjected, “What about the Cabinet, sir?”
“You’re quite right, I’ve got to get the whole Cabinet together as soon as possible after I’ve met with the key ministers. I should be clear of the press by 12:15, so I’ll call a Cabinet meeting for that time. Look after it, please.
“Now, one final thing. You’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do. We’re going to have to schedule everything down to the minute. As we work toward the briefing at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, I don’t want anyone to be talking to the press without my direct authority, and I want you to stay within shouting distance. Get in more staff if you need it.”
Scott was already on his way to the door. He paused long enough to say, “I’ll be here, sir. By the way, the press will be after you for a statement. What shall I tell them?”
“I don’t see a press conference as being possible. Really, there isn’t time. Anyway, I want to discuss that whole question with the news people when they’re here.”
When Scott and his assistants had left, Porter picked up the telephone and dialled a familiar number. In a moment he was through to John Thomas, a close and trusted friend whom he had appointed to the Senate.
“John, I’ve got real trouble. I’ve just had a call from the President of the United States. They’re forecasting an even worse energy shortage this winter than our experts had predicted. On top of that he’s really worried about the bombings along the Mackenzie pipeline. He’s dropped a real crusher on us. By six o’clock tomorrow night we have to agree to settle with the native people and get the bombings stopped. We must also give him free access to the natural gas in the Arctic Islands and the right to set up a transportation system to get it out.
“You said once that if ever I needed your personal counsel I was to let you know. Well, I need it now. I’d like you to drop everything and give me a hand until this whole thing is over with.
“I want you to sit in on all the meetings, listen and take notes. If something crosses your mind, scribble a message and pass it to me. I’m just going into the Cabinet Room now to meet my key ministers. If you could join me there as soon as possible I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes, Bob.”
Near Aklavik / 7:25 a.m., MDT
Sam Allen’s eyes opened slowly as he wakened. Their dark brown pupils moved slightly from side to side as he focused on the white material of the tent just a few inches from his face. Then he remembered where he was.
His eyes closed again. They never opened very wide, for Sam Allen, like his Eskimo forefathers, had been raised on the land and the ice and the snow. The slitted eyes were those of the hunter who lived off the harvest of the sea and the animals which moved across the barren tundra.
But for young Sam, lying half asleep in his small white tent, pitched on the snow under a stand of jackpine next to the swath the gas pipeliners had made as they passed on their construction journey to the south two years before, life was not that of a hunter. In 1962 Sam’s father, old Joe Allen, had moved, along with twelve other Eskimo trappers, from Tuktoyaktuk northeast across the ice to Sach’s Harbour on Banks Island. There, it was said, white fox existed in abundance.
It was a good move. The white fox did indeed abound on Banks Island, and the white man paid good prices for the magnificent furs. The families at Sach’s Harbour flourished and were prosperous. Sam’s father had built a primitive but comfortable house for his wife and nine children. Sam, the oldest, went for his schooling to Inuvik with hundreds of other Eskimo and Indian children from the Mackenzie Delta region, brought there each fall to be educated according to the white man’s plan. There they lived for nine months of the year, from the time each was the age of six until they finished high school, or decided, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, to drop out and stay with their families in the settlements or maybe get a job at Inuvik or with the pipeliners — or maybe not work at all.
Sam Allen had lived through that cruel process of education which the white man had decided was best for the Indian and Eskimo. He had survived the wrench of being taken from his family at such a young age to live under the benign regimentation of the Anglican priests who ran the hostel to which he was assigned. As Sam grew older, his education increased far beyond that of his father, Joe Allen, and it became much more difficult for Sam and his classmates to return home at the close of the school year to their families living in tents or shacks in the settlements all along the Arctic coast.
Sam Allen had indeed survived the educational system. He was a determined, headstrong, intelligent, inventive young man. Unusually proficient in mathematics, he had been encouraged to go south to the University of Alberta at Edmonton to take a degree in civil engineering. His tuition and expenses were paid for by the government of the Northwest Territories. Sam worked hard, and graduated near the top of his class. Long before he finished at the university, he had been approached by several of the major oil companies who all wanted the first Eskimo ever to graduate as an engineer. He would be very valuable to the company which got him as a symbol that they were co-operating with the Eskimo people. Sam listened carefully to each of the proposals, thanked each of the company representatives, and said he would be in touch before the end of his final year. Then he kept on with his studies.
It had been 1970 when Sam, still a teenager, had become deeply involved in the work of COPE, the Committee for Original People’s Entitlement. The government, without any consultation with the Eskimo trappers who occupied Banks Island, had granted rights to a French company to drill exploration wells and do seismic tests. When the oil exploration people arrived with their first equipment, all hell broke loose. COPE became immediately involved in an attempt to protect the Sach’s Harbour Eskimos. They retained a Yellowknife lawyer and eventually, after the threat of an injunction, an agreement was worked out between the government and the local people. Even then it was apparent to Sam that the main intention of the government departments was not to protect the native people but to push for exploration and development. This meant that the native people had to organize to protect themselves. So Sam had become involved in the work of COPE while he was still at school in Inuvik, and was soon recognized as a born leader. At Inuvik, too, he had met the new lawyer who had come to practise there, Robert Porter. Porter had taken an interest in Sam, and it was he who had encouraged him to go on to university.
Now Robert Porter was Prime Minister, and Sam Allen a graduate civil engineer working with Imperial Oil in the Mackenzie Delta, leader of
