In the last few years there have been an increasing number of major development projects which have raised issues of native rights. The list includes the Bennett Dam, the Bighorn Dam, the James Bay project, the flooding of Southern Indian Lake, exploration and resource development in the Arctic and the Mackenzie valley pipeline. All these projects involve isolated areas with predominently native populations. All involve projects designed to deliver energy resources to urban and industrial areas of North America. The purpose of this paper is to attempt a general analysis within which these geographically separated events can be understood. Focus is on the legal issues raised by the presence of native people in the areas where the projects are being undertaken. The paper deals with three propositions: (1) In North America the non-native community is in a period of internal national expansion into native areas; (2) It is characteristic of secondary periods of expansion in the United States and Canada that earlier patterns of native policy will have been incompletely realized in the areas affected by the expansion; and (3) As regards native people, the contemporary non-native expansion has clear parallels with the earlier periods of non-native expansion. (Author/NQ)