June 23, 2006

My Friends, Allies and Supporters,

I am writing you to ask for support on a very important issue that will
affect us all. As you may or may not know, I am the co-founder and current
director of the Arctic Indigenous Alliance. For the past few years a group
of us have been trying to organize and gather voices for opposition to the
proposed Mackenzie Gas Pipeline in the Canadian Western Arctic.

To give some brief history on the issue, this proposed development will
spread across 2200 miles of pristine arctic land untouched yet in North
America, to deliver 37 trillion cubic feet within 2 natural gas pipelines
to fuel the Athabasca Tar Sands Oil Development in Northern Alberta. For
most people, there is no knowledge out there that the tar sands
development is and will be the dirtiest and most destructive oil
development known and it will contribute devastatingly to more global
climate change and impact the face of the Arctic. Also the reason for all
this is that Canada needs to maintain its duties under the North American
Free Trade Agreement for being the #1 importer of Oil and Gas to the
US, and not everyone knows that it's not the Middle East that supplies
the USA but Canada.

In the next few weeks there will be a sponsored event at the Smithsonian
Folk Life Festival will be held on the Mall in Washington, DC. One of the
main exhibits will highlight the "productiveness" of the oil and gas
industry in Alberta. They will be showcasing how the Tar Sands will be a
good thing for the economy, for the international relation between the
United States and Canada, and of course to benefit more to the oil
corporations. This exhibit will be a sponsored event by governments and
big oil groups, and will take place between the dates of June 30th to July
11th, 2006. You can be assured they will NOT mention the Environmental
impact and human impact this will entail to the arctic and importantly, to
the world. At the same time, leadership bodies within the Canadian
governments and pro-developers will be lobbying congress for support and
will be conducting sponsored events at the Canadian Embassy. We are in a
position where we can make a strong stand and raise the issue of climate
change to the next level. By looking at dates and availabilities of some
key action members, the dates that we are looking at for demonstrations
will be July 5-7th.

Now, there has been a call out by several organizations willing to
counteract this by going to DC to protest and build a stronger message
about this devastating action. Our organization has recently been given
support by Oil Change International, Rainforest Action Network, and The
Ruckus Society to send in an action team to work in DC and I am definitely
going to represent our organization and prepare for our actions. There
will be others from Alberta and the Arctic that will be going down to
participate at a later date.

I am asking you to please, please support us by either participating with
us or sending this message out to folks who can join us. I realize that
this is very last minute but we are in need of strong allies willing to
join us in our stand. We are working in collaboration with the Natural
Resources Defense Council to organize things on the ground and many, many
groups are coming out to support. Please get in touch with me if you are
interested in helping in any way that is possible. If you are in the bay
area, there will be some folks volunteering to make banners within the
next
few days to send out to DC for us. Let me know if you are interested.

Mussi Cho/Haih K'eh- Thank You

Elaine Alexie
Founder and Director
Arctic Indigenous Alliance
510.495.7064