It began in 2010, starting just north of the city of Fort McMurray, Alberta at a location known as the Syncrude Loop, and traveling through the heart of the tar sands extraction zone.

The walk was led by local Indigenous Elders, who prayed for the healing of the land and to bring attention to the destructive impacts of the tar sands.

The following years, Keepers of the Athabasca, a collective of First Nations, Metis, Inuit, environmental groups and watershed citizens, became a core supporter.

[6] "Protests, rallies, marches are all good and necessary, but we felt like people needed something more spiritual, something to strengthen a connection to the land", said organizer Jesse Cardinal.

The walk took place on the territories of the Cree, Dene and Métis peoples of northern Alberta, where the impacts of tar sands extraction on the land and its inhabitants were significant.

Many people gathered and camped at the Indian Beach Campsite in Anzac, just outside Fort McMurray near the Athabasca Oil Sands, to participate in the walk.

Native elders from all over North America led people past lakes of tailings, wastewater, and infrastructure of the tar sands industry along the Athabasca River, covering a walking route ranging from 14 to 16 kilometers.

The walk brought awareness to Canadian human rights violations and the devastating impacts of the Athabasca Oil Sands on First Nations people.

Under the local Treaty agreements, Indigenous peoples are guaranteed the right to hunt, trap and fish on their traditional lands in perpetuity.

The oil sands developments threaten local Indigenous peoples' traditional way of life by destroying the very habitat upon which the animals and fish depend.

Since 2007 higher than normal incidences of rare and deadly cancers and brain tumours have been documented by the Alberta Health Department in First Nations communities that live downstream of the oil sands.

Toxins are inescapable and cancer rates are skyrocketing, especially among women and children, due to the industrial chemical exposure in the water and the air.

[14] The tar sands boom is an attack on First Nations rights, by displacing indigenous populations and dismantling crucial environmental protections.

Climate activist Bill McKibben notes that if development in Canada's oil sands continue, it will cause irreversible damage to the planet.

[15] The exploitation of the oil sands is the primary reason Canada will fail to meet its own greenhouse gas reduction targets.

The Canadian government has mounted an intensive lobbying campaign to weaken clean fuel standards that the European Commission has proposed to achieve its climate change targets.

Chief Allan Adams of the Athabasca area is consulting with Schindler to provide evidence of water pollution linked to the seepage from the tailings ponds.

Eighty per cent of the traditional territory of the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations has been rendered inaccessible for most of the year by tar sands development, which is a violation of treaty rights.

The pollutants from the production of the oil sands iskilling animals and fish that First Nations communities relied on at one time for food.