BC

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

U.S. activist and 1997 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams holds a news conference in Guatemala City, Jan. 30, 2012. Williams is leading a delegation of women on a trip from the oilsands in northern Alberta to the coast of BC to get a female perspective on energy and pipeline development. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Moises Castillo

A woman who won a Nobel Peace Prize for her work to ban landmines is leading a delegation of women on a trip from the oilsands in northern Alberta to the coast of BC to get a female perspective on energy and pipeline development.

Jody Williams, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, will begin a week-long series of meetings along the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline route on Tuesday in Fort McMurray.

The trip is being organized by the group, Nobel Women's Initiative, an Ottawa-based organization of women who have won the Nobel Peace Prize and advocate women's rights.

Williams could be stepping into a metaphorical minefield on her first day. Tuesday's itinerary includes a tour of Suncor's oilsands operations near Fort McMurray, and one of the group's early meetings is with Melissa Blake, who's the mayor of the Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which encompasses the booming oilsands city.

Liz Bernstein, the executive director of Nobel Women's Initiative, says the group fully expects to hear views in support of development, as well as those that oppose it.

"It's an important source of livelihood for a lot of people here. And I'm sure we'll hear all kinds of perspectives. And so we'll be listening to all of them before forming any of our recommendation at the end of our visit," said Bernstein, who arrived in Fort McMurray on Sunday.

Enbridge Inc.'s proposed pipeline would ship bitumen from Alberta's oilsands across B.C. to tankers heading to Asian markets.

Williams, who was scheduled to arrive in Fort McMurray late Monday and was unavailable to comment, said in a video on the Nobel Women's Initiative website that she hoped that the construction of the pipeline isn't a certainty.

"Unfortunately, like in too many situations of crisis around the world, the women and their children are the ones who suffer the most when their environment is destroyed. So our delegation is going to go and look at what is happening in the possible expansion of the tarsands to their communities and the women's perspective on why they don't want to see that happen," Williams says in the video.

"That's our contribution that's a little bit different than from other people who are working together to stop the tarsands and to stop the destruction of our planet."

The Nobel Women's Initiative says it will present recommendations from its trip at a news conference in Vancouver on Oct. 16.