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Ian Willms

Dez, 7, plays in his bed in Fort McKay. Dez was born with an underdeveloped heart and has received multiple open-heart surgeries. His family and healthcare professionals believe his condition was caused by industrial pollution from nearby oil sands developments.

The oil industry uses cut lines in the forest like this one to search for underground resources and build infrastructure for future development.

Joey Fraser hunts for ducks at the Métis territory of Big Point, near Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. Such traditional food sources are becoming more scarce and more polluted as time goes on, and locals blame the impacts of oil sands developments. Studies have shown that moose meat in the area has been found to contain hundreds of times the acceptable limits of arsenic.

Kanahus Manuel brings her niece Wasayka, 2, to the banks of the South Thompson River in Shuswap, British Columbia. For years, many Secwepemc First Nations people have been rallying to protect their water and prevent a new oil sands pipeline from being built through their territory. In 2016, the pipeline was formally approved by the Canadian government and construction began in 2017.

The Syncrude oil sands plant is seen north of Fort McMurray, Alberta. The province is home to the third largest oil deposits in the world, but it's particularly destructive to extract.

A robotic bird of prey sits on a floating platform equipped with a strobe light, loudspeaker, and a propane canon, at a Syncrude oil sands site. Such contraptions are aimed at deterring migratory birds from landing in tailings ponds, where they are poisoned in large numbers.

A water intake pipeline runs from the Athabasca River near Fort McKay, Alberta. The oil sands industry consumes three barrels of fresh water for every one barrel of oil produced.

Wade and Chelsea (at center) say goodbye to their infant daughter during her burial in Fort McKay on November 11th, 2012. Chelsea suffered a miscarriage five months into her pregnancy. Cancer, stillbirths, miscarriages and other serious health problems are prevalent in Fort McKay and Fort Chipewyan. Healthcare professionals have been sounding alarms over pollution levels from surrounding oil sands mines and calling for an in-depth health study for many years.

A swath of Boreal forest is stripped away to reveal the bitumen-laced ground at the Fort Hills Suncor Oil Sands site, near Fort McKay, Alberta, September 17th, 2014. The area will soon become a gaping strip mine as the bitumen, a mixture of sand and tar, is trucked away for processing into petroleum products.