Fourteen wheels, ambitious goals Young environmental activists back to pushing

Over 11 sweltering August days, Marya Folinsbee and six other environmental activists will challenge the biggest energy names in Alberta—think Syncrude, Suncor and Stelmach—with nothing more than their bicycles.Folinsbee is the trip coordinator for “Return to the Tar Sands,” a Sierra Youth Coalition (SYC) project now in its second year that might be described as halfway between a Tour de l’Alberta and a regular, boring old protest rally. This year, the group chose to start their ride in Fort Chipewyan, which is the northernmost Albertan settlement on that pillar of bitumen extraction, the Athabasca watershed.