The Alaska Highway Gas Pipeline easement: A Kluane First Nation case study

The Alaska Highway Gas Pipeline (AHGP) is a major industrial development project proposed within the Yukon since 1977, which remains unconstructed. The AHGP Easement represents the most significant aspect of the AHGP in the Yukon and remains a long-standing land tenure right impeding southern Yukon First Nations. This applied research project partnered with Kluane First Nation (KFN) to identify and address potential consequences associated with the AHGP Easement that are currently relevant to KFN as a self-governing Yukon First Nation. Community-based, decolonizing qualitative research methodologies were employed to gather understandings of the AHGP Easement from key KFN citizens, as well as Yukon and federal government officials and industry representatives. Findings emerging from the research highlight issues of jurisdictional complexity among Indigenous peoples and the Crown, the need to consider contextual change, and problems with the existing regulatory, assessment and consultation framework for the AHGP.