FEDS MAY, OR MAY NOT, PULL FUNDING FROM BQCMB
Native wildlife boards might be asked to replace federal government and pick up tab

It may not be “case closed” yet with the federal government’s plan to pull its funding from the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board by March 1997.

Hiram Beaubier, director general of natural resources and environment with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), says “whether it remains definite or not (that federal funding be withdrawn) is something we would want to explore. We want to fully understand what the implications of no funding would be.”

Beaubier, interviewed in late July, added that his department completed an analysis of the different options this summer. At presstime, that analysis was a possible item for the board’s September meeting.

That’s welcome news, for several reasons. Beaubier’s March 9 letter to the board, suggesting that the interests of the BQCMB could be promoted by various wildlife boards established under claims settlements, didn’t go over well with Dene members of the board. The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB) is the only wildlife board created under a land claim settlement operating in the caribou herd ranges now.

As it speaks largely for the Inuit of Nunavut, Dene members feared their own concerns wouldn’t be represented by the NWMB.

Meanwhile, NWMB chairman Ben Kovic says his board doesn’t have the dollars to fund the BQCMB. Right now, the two federal departments supporting the BQCMB — INAC and the Department of Environment — pitch in a total of $27,000 annually.

“NWMB cannot subsidize those departments,” Kovic told BQCMB members at their April meeting in Black Lake. “We don’t have the money.” The NWMB’s program budgets were set when the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement was finalized in 1993. What’s more, Kovic says his board has already received calls for help from a deteriorating beluga whale co-management board in the Eastern Arctic “and they (the NWMB) hardly have the money for it.”

The federal government, saddled with tremendous debt, is looking for ways to cut expenditures. In fact, in publications distributed by the federal government this summer as a kickoff to negotiations on aboriginal self-government, there are pointed hints that natural resources management would be transferred to native groups. Likewise, financing is a shared responsibility with “aboriginal governments and institutions,” says INAC.

Still, the two federal departments involved with the BQCMB were among the governments that renewed the intergovernmental Beverly-Qamanirjuaq Barren Ground Caribou Management Agreement in 1992 for another decade — until the year 2002. The governments of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories also fund the BQCMB. According to the Agreement, each body must contribute the same amount of funding.

Faced with the possibility of the federal government backing out, board members would have to choose one of four options, BQCMB secretary-treasurer Gunther Abrahamson explained at the Black Lake meeting:

  • appeal to the federal government to stay
  • continue the board with the governments of the provinces and territory only
  • invite the NWMB to sign on as a partner
  • kill the Board.

This last option found no fans among board members.

“I’m pretty sure that they (caribou users) want the board to continue,” said Lawrence Catholique, a user member from Lutsel K’e. “To know what’s happening with caribou. That’s their main diet, caribou meat.”

The prospect of splitting into ever-smaller circles did not appeal either to Raymond Beaver of Fort Smith.

“From the native perspective, we look at things from the whole,” he told board members. “We share the resources with everybody else. The way it seems to be, if they’re (Caribou Management Agreement partners) separated, each government wants to do certain things.

“It is only doing what is politically right for that government at that time.”

BLACK LAKE ROAD — WHICH PATH TO FOLLOW?

The Saskatchewan government says funding isn’t specifically for the north route. Trouble is, there’s no extra money for the more expensive southern route

The $8 million that’s been pledged to build a seasonal road between Points North and Black Lake “is not tied specifically to the approval of the north route,” says an official with Saskatchewan’s Department of Highways and Transportation.

On the other hand, “there’s sort of a cap” on funding for this project, points out Ron Eaket, manager of the department’s northern transportation and provincial airports division. “The use of another route is dependent upon being able to raise those surplus funds.”

The Saskatchewan government and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada have each promised $1.5 million while the Canadian Coast Guard, which is axing its dredging and navigational services on the Athabasca River after the 1996 season, will plunk down $5 million.

The long-awaited link to northern Athabascan communities would push down freight costs and the high cost of living. Yet the question of which path the road should take still sparks debate — even though the matter has been pushed out of the limelight.

The project’s funding bodies are heeding the advice of a 1981 independent evaluation by recommending the road follow a northern route (slightly south and west of the Fond du Lac river). A press release issued by Highways and Transportation in May makes no mention of alternative routes, while project-specific guidelines sent out in August, in preparation for a federal/provincial environmental impact assessment, include one chapter on the subject. The guidelines say the BQCMB “should be consulted on potential impacts . . . and possible mitigative measures.”

A seasonal road for either the north route or the alternative south corridor — about 30 km further south and west — would be open at least six months a year. Eaket guessed that constructing a seasonal road for the south route would cost roughly $9 million, about $1 million more than the north route.

There is no deadline for converting a seasonal road to an all-weather road. “That will just depend on what kind of funding is available in the future,” Eaket said. Cost estimates for the all-weather roads, he added, have been pegged at approximately $30 million for the north route, and $36 million for the south route, which is more expensive because of soil conditions.

A third route along a Saskatchewan hydro transmission line corridor might draw some fans since the path is already established. But the hilly swath would not make for an easily built road, Eaket warned.

More than a decade ago, consulting firm MacLaren Plansearch compared environmental and socio-economic factors weighing in for the north and south routes.

Its report said the north route “would give native trappers and hunters access to the more productive wildlife areas near the Fond du Lac River,” and “would have greater benefits to mining companies than the south route because the north route is closer to the most promising mineral resources areas.”

Any access into previously remote areas would create the potential for over harvesting caribou, fish and wildlife resources, the report cautioned, but the south route posed less of a threat.

“Overall, we recommend that the road be constructed in the north corridor,” concluded MacLaren Plansearch. “Our preference for this corridor, however, is slight. It would be strengthened if programs could be developed and implemented to ensure that caribou herds, and other fish and wildlife populations, are not diminished by over-harvesting.”

At least one BQCMB member has voiced concerns before that the northern route would attract hundreds of southern hunters. “There will be increased poaching and pressure to open the season to all Saskatchewan residents, increased trafficking, and increased hunting under treaty right,” Tim Trottier said in a June 1993 Caribou News article.

Public meetings on the road will be staged in Fond du Lac, Wollaston Lake, Black Lake, Stony Rapids, Camsell Portage and Uranium City, but they aren’t likely to get underway until mid-1996. Doug Mazur, director of the sustainable land management branch of Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management, said it’s hard to say when construction would finally start. That depends on when the environmental impact assessment wraps ups, and on the time of year.

BARREN-GROUND BRIEFS

Guarding the Bluenose

Meetings in the Inuvialuit, Gwich’in, Sahtu and Kitikmeot regions are unearthing critical issues — and how to treat them — for a caribou management plan and agreement to safeguard the 120,000-strong Bluenose herd. The Department of Renewable Resources has been getting feedback from 14 communities on trends in place that will put demands on the herd: commercial use, outfitting, sports hunting, and mineral exploration. The next step is to see if an eight-member management committee (comprised of representatives from the four land claim organizations within the Bluenose district, plus Renewable Resources biologists) gets up and running this fall. Alasdair Veitch, the Sahtu region’s wildlife biologist, says unlike the 15-year-old BQCMB, this management committee may not continue once a management agreement is in place.

Smokin’!

This year’s caribou target shootout at Lutsel K’e was, as always, a heated contest. When the smoking guns had cleared at the May 26 event, the winners were clearly Bob Gollan in first place and Mod Casaway just behind in the adults category. The youth division found Kevin Fatte with the deadliest aim, and Akaitcho Lockhart pulling in at second. Purses worth $200 courtesy of the BQCMB were shared among the winners.

In living color

School children living on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herd ranges will be cracking open more than the regular lineup of textbooks this fall. The BQCMB’s colorful caribou information booklet, with full page illustrations, has been completed and is making its way into the school system now. The 20-page booklet underlines the importance of conservation.

Co-management Checklist

As someone who’s been around the co-management block before, Steven Kearney knows what he’s talking about when he tells co-management enthusists to make a checklist of things to do — and do them. The current head of Manitoba Natural Resources’ habitat and land management section was with the BQCMB in its infancy. And when speaking to a conference called Understanding Harvest Assessment in Fairbanks, Alaska this spring, he told the audience not to expect a caribou board to happen overnight.

“Make sure all the parties (involved) understand” the terms of reference, he later told Caribou News. “If it takes three years, so be it.” Also on the ‘To Do’ list: make sure each party sees a benefit from a goal, and make sure each party understands it must give something up in a co-management marriage. Sharing is essential. Once a management problem is identified, all parties need support from within their own community/organization — both above and below the ranks of the co-management board member. Finally, board members must work within their particular level i.e. not on a level with chiefs or ministers.

A hot topic

The Inuvialuit Game Council, an aboriginal organization established under Inuvialuit’s land claim, plays host to a conference on northern co-management and environmental assessment this fall. Plumbing all aspects of co-management, the conference runs from Nov. 20 to 24 in Inuvik.

Co-management is a hot topic these days — one that occasionally brings on heated debate.

In a letter to the editor published in the May 9 issue of La Ronge Northerner, Prince Albert lawyer Ron Cherkewich (who has written and spoken on co-management) slammed the brand of co-management that Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management minister Berny Wiens was introducing to the province, calling it “a mere consultative process.”

Meanwhile, 7th vice-chief Allen Adam has told the BQCMB that the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations is interested in developing an overall co-management plan for wildlife in Saskatchewan.

Fall Meeting

Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board members will converge on Thompson, Manitoba next month for a Sept. 26 to 28 board meeting. The following meeting spot will seem a little cooler. That’s Whale Cove, Feb. 16 to 18, 1996. Then the board links up in Lutsel K’e for an Aug. 16 to 18 reunion. That pre-empts the board’s usual September meeting.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Caribou info in demand

“I have recently arrived here from New Zealand to take up a six-month Commonwealth Fellowship to study traditional ecological knowledge. Professor Milton Freeman gave me some copies of your newsletter. I would like to ask you if I could obtain a copy of your video as outlined on p. 9 of Caribou News (March 1995). I would also be interested in receiving copies of your newsletter — would that be possible, in Auckland, New Zealand?”

With kind regards
Mae Roberts
Edmonton, Alberta

“Many useful articles”

I was organizing my copies of the Caribou News the other day when I noticed that the last copy I received was September, 1994. I hope you will put my name back on the mailing list as I found many useful articles while conducting research on uranium mining in northern Saskatchewan for my Master’s degree. I would like to continue receiving the publication as it will allow me to keep up to date on events in the region.

Sincerely
Lesley McBain
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

CARIBOU MEAT SAFE TO EAT, SAYS GNWT

Contaminant levels in barren-ground caribou found in the Northwest Territories “are very low and caribou meat is safe to eat in unlimited quantities,” says a Department of Renewable Resources study. It adds that people should keep eating caribou because it’s an important source of nutrients such as protein and iron.

A human health risk assessment was done by Health Canada for the recently completed study, started in 1991-92. Field studies of 10 different herds stretched across NWT, checking for organochlorines (man-made chemicals like PCBs), heavy metals (such as cadmium and mercury), and radionuclides (natural and man-made radioactive substances).

“It’s generally a good news story,” admits Brett Elkin of Renewable Resources, who says his department was surprised and pleased by the outcome.

The public, however, could be forgiven for feeling confused about getting mixed messages. The upbeat outlook of the Renewable Resources study contrasts sharply with more ominous reports on environmental contamination released by other organizations recently.

Meanwhile, the 1988 Manitoba consumption advisory that warns people not to eat the kidneys of caribou and other wild animals is still in effect, says Jim Drew of the province’s Department of Health. The Qamanirjuaq range spans Manitoba and NWT.

“The contamination of traditional country foods is a widespread problem throughout the Arctic,” relates the June 1995 report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. “Indeed, the concentration of contaminants in northern wildlife has led public health authorities to warn on several occasions against eating the organs of caribou and seals.

“For southern Canadians who are protected by a food inspection system, the situation facing many aboriginal northerners is almost unimaginable.”

In fact, in late 1993, after getting the results of a health risk assessment done on Qamanirjuaq, Southampton Island and South Baffin caribou samples, the government of the Northwest Territories’ Department of Health issued its own warning that people eat no more than one caribou kidney or 420 grams of caribou liver each week.

The latest study from Renewable Resources says that although caribou kidneys and livers contain “moderate levels of cadmium,” they can still be safely eaten. “People can eat up to 50 kidneys each year throughout their lifetime without any health risk.” The report does not limit the amount of liver that can be eaten.

Jody Walker, with the environmental contaminants division of NWT Department of Health and Social Services, says the study found beteen 21 and 51 caribou livers (depending on the herd) could be safely eaten each year. That’s far more liver than most people normally eat anyway, she points out.

“Our challenge as public health workers is to help balance benefits and potential risks,” says Walker. “Caribou is such an important mainstay in so many people’s diet that to erode confidence unduly is a travesty.” Consider, she adds, that if your consumption of cadmium exceeded World Health Organization maximum levels every week until you were 50, you would stand a 10 per cent greater chance than other people of developing kidney problems.

“You also stand a chance of being hit by lightning.”

She also took issue with some of the statements made in the June rerport from the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

“To talk about land animals and marine mammals in the same breath is quite misleading,” says Walker. Caribou eat lichen; marine mammals eat other marine mammals. And chemicals like PCBs bioaccumulate considerably more in marine animals than in land animals.

In Communicating About Contaminants in Country Food: The Experience in Aboriginal Communities, a report released by Inuit Tapirisat of Canada in May this year, a section on cadmium mentions the fact that cadmium levels are higher in older animals.

The Renewable Resources study doesn’t refer to this. But Elkin says that’s because the assessment was done on a “worst-case scenario.”

The assessment “was based on the oldest animals of the herd of the highest (cadmium) levels,” he explained. Most animals harvested are under five years of age.

The Renewable Resources study emphasized several times that smoking cigarettes is a major source of cadmium. Cadmium also comes from natural mineral deposits, mining and smelting, and the burning of garbage.

DARKNESS NOT A FIRE HAZARD — INEXPERIENCE IS, SAY HUNTERS

Frustrated hunters opposed to the current practice of normally not fighting forest fires at night reject the argument that darkness poses danger.

Instead, the main culprit is the lack of hands-on firefighting experience by office-based supervisors with the authority to make decisions, says longtime Fort Smith firefighter Raymond Beaver. Since the mid-1970s, education has been emphasized over experience. That, coupled with a blind faith in modern equipment and materials, is putting firefighters at risk.

In September 1994, BQCMB member Jimmy Laban, speaking on behalf of user members, urged that firefighting policies be changed to permit fighting forest fires after dark.

“A lot of First Nations people, they don’t like the idea of just letting fires go,” says Laban. Fire destroys not only the caribou’s habitat, but that of other wildlife, he underlines. It also destroys trappers’ equipment.

A few years ago, the BQCMB consulted communities on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herd ranges to find out which areas people considered the highest priority for fire protection. Reports containing the resulting map, and a slew of other fire management recommendations, were submitted to the governments of NWT, Manitoba and Saskatchewan earlier this year.

John Cook of Saskatchewan’s Forest Fire Management Branch told Caribou News earlier this year that the province doesn’t allow its firefighters to battle flames at night unless there is a threat to human life or property (“Feeling the heatfrom the ’94 fire season, Caribou News , March 1995). Bill Maudsley of the Territorial Fire Centre said the Northwest Territories doesn’t normally fight fires at night “for logistical reasons.” In Manitoba, fires aren’t suppresed — day or night — on the caribou range due in part to pinched financial resources, and to the belief held by forest fire managers that fires often play a beneficial role. They also hold the view that the caribou range is a natural ecosystem that should not be interfered with.

In the Northwest Territories, the government has a new fire compensation program for trappers and harvesters who get “most of their income from that occupation,” says Renewable Resources assistant deputy minister Bob McLeod. It will pay up to $7,000 to replace a cabin destroyed by fire, $15,000 for relocation of a trap line and/or 75 to 100 per cent of the cost of replacing equipment. The government has not yet determined a cap on the compensation package.

No program for losses due to wildlife exists in Saskatchewan. Gus MacAuley, director of Saskatchewan’s Forest Fire Management Branch, told BQCMB members that the province doesn’t consider itself “responsible for something that happens naturally.”

Beaver and Laban both say it’s easier to fight fires at night than during the day.

“At night you can see the flames very clearly,” says Laban. “(The fire is) not as big as at daytime.”

“In the daytime, the fire’s really going” because wind conditions whip it up, says Beaver. “And it’s warmer, so the fire is liable to take off really fast during the day. At night it’s down, so there’s really no reason to hurry. You just go about your business.”

In his years fighting fires since 1961, Beaver says he doesn’t recall any nighttime accidents where he worked.

“That’s partly because we also camped right by the fire,” he says. Firefighters judged for themselves whether they should squelch the whole fire, put out just a section of it, or wait till the next day to resume action.

Firefighting techniques are becoming needlessly complicated, he asserts. Using foam, instead of teaching nozzlemen how to use water as effectively as possible, illustrates the point.

“It’s like you going camping and then saying, OK, well now I’ve got to put my fire out so I guess I’ll make a couple of pots of coffee to put it out.” What’s more, foam isn’t a blanket cure. “There’s different kinds of mosses, stuff like that. So it takes more than just foam alone to put it out. You need to still know how to make sure the fire’s out. So you’ve still got to have that experience.”

Beaver, a senior supervisor hired by the Smith Native Development Corporation to oversee Fort Smith’s two firefighting contract crews, suggests that with the abundance of veteran native firefighters in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and the Territories, First Nations associations should shortlist their best firefighters, who would recommend improvements to firefighting policies to governments.

Issue won’t die away

The issue of whether or not to fight fires at night won’t quietly die away. Laban says a September meeting of the Athabasca sector of the Athabasca Wildlife Association will put a motion on the floor to have the existing policy changed. The Association brings together people from Fond du Lac, Wollaston and Black Lake. Guests are also invited from Manitoba and NWT.

Beaver says he and other concerned residents met with the deputy minister of Renewable Resources last spring to see if an organized coalition, including the local Métis association, and representatives from Lutsel K’e and Fort Resolution, could make firefighting recommendations to government. They didn’t achieve their goal. However, Eddy Powder of Fort Smith, also a BQCMB member, was named special advisor to Don Morin, the minister responsible for Fire Management, with a mandate to visit NWT communities for feedback on firefighting policies. After travelling to more than 20 communities this summer, Powder was to have submitted his findings to the minister by September.

Beaver also faults inaction among the native community.

“Same with native people. A lot of them say, ‘Oh, it’s not my area’. I think that’s not the way anybody should think,” he pointed out. “Here we are — people are concerned about the starving people in Ethiopia and everywhere else. And yet, we just about have the same situation here when there’s a big fire and it affects 10 or 15 trappers.

“Sure, it might only affect 10 or 15 trappers but they have families. Plus, there might be 50 or 60 hunters plus their families.”

FIRE SPARES CARIBOU RANGES THIS YEAR

After a blistering fire season last year that saw almost 250 fires destroy parts of the Beverly and Qamaniurjuaq caribou winter ranges, 1995 brought cooling relief. As of the beginning of August, firefighting managers for the Northwest Territories, Manitoba and Saskatchewan all reported that only a handful of fires caused minimal damage on caribou turf this year.

In the Northwest Territories, Bruno Croft of the Department of Renewable Resources’ forest fire management division said just three fires scorched about 200 hectares in the caribou range. In Saskatchewan, 48 fires north of the 57th Parallel burned 72,870 hectares of land. That was still relatively small compared to the 923,000 hectares the province had lost to date through 616 fires.

“I don’t know that there’s been any fires of any consequence” in northern Manitoba’s caribou range, said forest fire management supervisor Bill Medd. (Manitoba doesn’t fight fires on the caribou range.)

“From the caribou point of view,” remarked Medd, “it’s actually been a good year.”

That’s in stark contrast to most of western and northern Canada, where thousands of residents, like those in Fort Norman, Norman Wells and Leaf Rapids, were evacuated as flames crept closer to their homes. The devastating fire season began early this year, in May. According to an Aug. 3 Globe and Mail article, fires across Canada burned an area equal to the size of Nova Scotia. The province of Saskatchewan alone spent $77 million fighting fires.

Both Medd and Gus MacAuley, director of Saskatchewan’s forest fire management branch, point to the last 15 years as particularly dry ones. Global warming could be the culprit.

“We can’t say that there are more fires because there are more people because the proportions are the same — 50 per cent lightning, 50 per cent man-caused fires,” MacAuley told BQCMB members in Black Lake in April.

“There is a natural phenomenon happening. We have to think of global warming.”

Medd says where before a bad fire season used to arrive once every 30 years, he’s noticed since 1980 it’s every couple of years or less. In fact, “if we don’t get a good snowfall next spring,” Medd predicts 1996 will be a repeat of this year’s fire madness.

“I think the area (that global warming is) liable to affect the most is the North,” he contemplates. “It doesn’t take a helluva lot of change to affect things there. It’s a fragile environment.”

GNWT STRIVES FOR COMMUNITY CONSULTATION ON FIREFIGHTING

While hunters feel stymied by government fire management policies that discourage battling wildfires at night, the director of the Northwest Territories’ forest fire management division says his department has “attempted to put more emphasis on community consultation” this year to learn about their priorities for firefighting.

“(We’ve been) getting comments and recommendations from communities on which fires to fight, in some cases,” says Bob Bailey. The contentious issue of battling forest fires at night did arise in community visits to places like Fort Resolution, Lutsel K’e and Fort Smith.

“Sort of like a general comment that we should be fighting fires at night,” Bailey recalled. “I think what the communities are talking about is we should do more of (it).”

Bailey says that forest fires are sometimes fought at night, in either an initial attack situation (where work is carried out by the first group of people/equipment to arrive on the scene), or in a project fire, “if it’s decided that’s what needs to be done for that particular fire.” (A project fire is one that can’t be controlled by the initial attack crew).

However, another GNWT firefighting official, Bill Maudsley, told Caribou News in March that “we don’t normally do it (fight forest fires at night) for logistical reasons.” He added that in the case of flames encroaching on communities, firefighters would weigh the threat and may consider alternatives, such as evacuating residents.

After racking up a $27-million tab in 1994 to combat a particularly bad fire season, fire fighting officials with the Northwest Territories visited communities earlier this year to get feedback on ways of improving firefighting.

The meetings did reap some concrete results, such as:

  • a list of individuals “that have become our points of contact for fire management in those communities”
  • a set budget the department has been working towards (as of August, NWT’s firefighting expenses for 1995 were $10 million)
  • the new Fire Compensation program (for more details, see the article “Darkness not a fire hazard — inexperience is, say hunters” above)
  • more community contract crews, including one in Lutsel K’e
  • a fire ecology study in Lutsel K’e with elders, summer students and department technical staff.

This last project included identifying vegetation recovery, examining water quality, putting in sample plots. “It’s the first time we’ve done something quite like that,” says Bailey. “The elders talked (to the students) about their relationships with fire on the landscape. (It was) a learning experience for the department and a learning experience for the community.” A similar study is planned for Fort Smith.

In Saskatchewan, fire protection patrols will be increased based on lightning data, forest fire management branch director Gus MacAuley told BQCMB members at their board meeting in Black Lake. Saskatchewan has a series of lightning direction finders positioned throughout northern Saskatchewan that report on lightning strikes to a position analyzer in Prince Albert (see “Communities cite fire management worries”, Caribou News, September 1994).

MacAuley told the BQCMB that fire crews attack all fires they are alerted to, including those in the secondary protection zone. But he stressed that “we don’t have the capability to stop every fire that burns.

We do what we can to fight the fires we think we can put out. When nature takes over and it’s too big for us, we have to fall back to the communities and protect them.”

GOOD CARIBOU MANAGEMENT NEEDS MORE THAN JUST USER/MANAGER BOARD

Two countries, two different ways of managing caribou herds, one bottom line — a user/manager board can’t do the job of management all alone.

It needs a companion strategy to fill in the communication gap that still stops traditional users from understanding government viewpoints, discovered the three-year-old U.S. Man and the Biosphere (MAB) project. Led by a University of Alaska research team, the $400,000 study compared the management system of Canada’s Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds with the parallel structure overseeing the United States’ Western Arctic herd.

At the same time, it gleaned the viewpoints of traditional users and wildlife managers on caribou harvesting practices. One other component of the MAB project is almost finished. It is a study comparing management history between Alaska and Canada, and differences in traditional user beliefs about caribou.

“This BQCMB tries very hard to involve Natives, but I think we can involve them more. They need to be involved over long periods of time to do projects largely by themselves. We need Natives to get into more a decision-making role and less of an adversarial role. Governments are reluctant to give away decision-making status.”

– Survey participant

In Alaska, users advise a state Board of Game through local and regional councils, and through contacts with local government biologists.

In Canada, the advisory Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board brings together eight traditional users from three provinces/territories, and five government representatives from four different governments.

But MAB researchers found that the recipe for co-management success needs another ingredient — one that would put native communities in the driver’s seat.

In Canada, it happened between 1975 and 1979 when the province of Manitoba staged 71 meetings in three caribou user communities. “This level of village involvement appears to be without precedent in either management system and . . . may be a critical component of an effective management system,” says the MAB report.

At that time, the Qamanirjuaq range in Manitoba wasn’t being utilized as much by the caribou, and it was feared the herd was shrinking. The crunch of meetings was needed “for developing trust and learning time,” recalls Steve Kearney, who worked on the project and now heads habitat and land management at Manitoba Natural Resources. “I learned a lot from the people.”

The key element needed now, Kruse says, is support for caribou biologists to spend the time in communities necessary to build trust and to exchange information.

Boards still fill vital needs

The MAB research team surveyed 220 traditional users in Alaska where the Western Arctic caribou roam , and 174 traditional users living within the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq domain — Baker Lake, Rankin Inlet, Lac Brochet, Brochet, Uranium City/Camsell Portage and Black Lake. Plans to survey people in Lutsel K’e were cancelled after a community-wide meeting unearthed fears that a survey would bring about harvest restrictions. The team also interviewed 17 Alaskan and 31 Canadian government managers.

What researchers learned about user/manager boards is that they are invaluable for several reasons, one being “for getting user concerns to government,” pointed out project director Jack Kruse.

“You look at the track record of the Board, and compare it to what’s happened in Alaska. You see that the government (in Canada) has been more responsive,” says Kruse. “And the irony is, the users don’t realize that.”

“We compound the problem by not establishing a relationship with people. It takes a long time. You have to drink lots of coffee to establish a relationship.”

– Survey participant

Surprisingly, users and wildlife managers in Canada were widely divided in how they viewed the BQCMB and its effectiveness. Wildlife managers were almost always optimistic, usually more so than their counterparts in Alaska. Canadian natives were much more cynical about the power of the Board and their role on it, usually more than native respondents in Alaska.

“I think that the Canadian concern with treaty hunting rights . . . means that Canadian natives, both Inuit and non-Inuit, are less likely to accommodate outside government management actions with respect to hunting,” Kruse suggests. “In the United States, the right to hunt among natives is not as well-defined.”

Under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, there is a priority for rural harvests, but court rulings have clouded its meaning.

Kruse points out the user/manager boards have other helpful spinoffs. Simply bringing different native groups together at board meetings helps bridge understanding. So does seeing the larger picture.

“You may understand that the caribou aren’t coming to your area,” illustrates Kruse, “but it’s important to understand that they’re not coming to someone else’s as well.”

Through the board, users have come to know government administrators in addition to field biologists. And the means are there for them to come to grips with an emergency, if one arose among the caribou. In that scenario, the disillusionment about user/manager boards voiced now by First Nations could “change quickly in a crisis,” says Kruse.

Information from the MAB studies and surveys is important because the glimpse into management history shows “why people have perceptions that they do,” says Kruse. The data has already been presented at conferences in Finland, Alaska and Greenland. And later this fall, the research team hopes to work with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board to see if these results could help in the design of wildlife management in Nunavut.

This special report on the results of the Man and the Bisophere survey was made possible through funding from the University of Alaska.

WHAT YOU THINK OF HARVEST PRACTICES

The MAB survey had another motive — to find out what traditional caribou users and wildlife managers thought of certain harvest practices.

It’s a way to pinpoint where the two groups stand. If they feel strongly about a particular hunting practice, BQCMB members see it as a chance to educate schoolchildren and others. If their united viewpoint happens to oppose current government regulations, it’s an opportunity to lobby for change.

But if traditional users and wildlife managers don’t see eye-to-eye on certain hunting practices, the survey results signal sensitive areas where talks should begin between these two groups to see if they can find a middle ground where both agree. Or at least help understand why one group feels so strongly about an issue. For example, traditional users took a strong stand against shooting a caribou as a herd is approaching a river crossing, while almost three-quarters of wildlife managers didn’t see this as a problem. (Interestingly, this subject also saw the biggest split among users above and below the treeline. More than a third of Inuit surveyed said this practice was acceptable, but only 6.2% of Dene and Métis voted the same way.)

On the whole, Canadian and Alaskan users and wildlife managers agreed on most issues. Here are the results, along with a breakdown showing how users on the tundra spoke out compared with users below the treeline.

Is it OK to:

Yes, It’s Acceptable

Shoot a caribou from a stopped snow machine?

Managers 94%

All Users 79% (On tundra [OT]: 85.3% | Below treeline [BT]: 72.4%)

Feed spoiled caribou meat to working and recreational team dogs in town

Managers 77%

All Users 78% (OT: 85.5% | BT: 70.3%)

Leave an animal for later retrieval out on the tundra when snow or ice will cover it quickly

Managers 52%

All Users 55% (OT: 56.1% | BT: 53.2%)

Pursue a wounded caribou on a snow machine

Managers 97%

All Users 61% (OT: 63.1% | BT: 58.5%)

Follow caribou on a snow machine to get to a good place to shoot

Managers 94%

All Users 57% (OT: 49.7% | BT: 63.9%)

No, It’s Not Acceptable

Leave a bull heavily in rut when it was killed inadvertently

Managers 71%

All Users 77% (OT: 93.3% | BT: 83.8%)

Leave an animal that has been cached and later disturbed by ravens

Managers 74%

All Users 75% (OT: 89.5% | BT: 75.2%)

Leave an animal that has been wounded by someone else as long as it is killed

Managers 81%

All Users 77% (OT: 79.5% |BT: 84.7%)

In times when there are many caribou, leave an animal shot inadvertently that turns out to be skinny

Managers 93%

All Users 70% (OT: 79.7% | BT: 79.3%)

Not go after a wounded caribou when it goes where it is difficult to get to, like into willow thickets or in a rocky area where it is hard to travel by snow machine

Managers 93%

All Users 65% (OT: 68.5% | BT: 78.6%)

In times when there are many caribou, take only the best parts of the animal

Managers 97%

All Users 85% (OT: 96.3% | BT: 85.1%)

Shoot into the herd, when a herd is bunched up and it is difficult to get a clear shot

Managers 97%

All Users 60% (OT: 78.9% | BT: 61.5%)

Acceptable to Managers, But Not To Users

Leave an animal that was shot but which had abscesses

Managers 58%

Users 34% (OT: 34.5% | BT: 32.8%)

Herd caribou with a snow machine towards another caribou hunter

Managers 55%

All Users 21% (OT: 14.7% | BT: 26.7%)

When freezers are full, store caribou meat on the roof

Managers 55%

All Users 31% (OT: 38.5% | BT: 24.4%)

Shoot a caribou as a herd is approaching a river crossing

Managers 71%

All Users 22% (OT: 37.6% | BT: 6.2%)

Another practice — that of hunting caribou to feed working and recreational team dogs in town — drew mixed responses. Only 7% of managers endorsed it, while 47% of users supported it. However, on the tundra, a majority of 51.8% agreed to the practice while just 42.8% of users living below the treeline backed it.

PART ONE: MINING ON THE CARIBOU RANGES
The debate is still economic benefits vs. environmental safety

Month by month, and year by year, the mining industry is gathering momentum on the ranges of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou herds in northern Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories. Australian BHP Diamonds Inc. and Dia Met Minerals’ much-heralded Lac de Gras diamond strike in the Western Arctic has diamonds dancing in the eyes of other prospectors. Recently, diamond samples were found in the Rankin Inlet/Baker Lake area.

Meanwhile, the province of Saskatchewan is welcoming its first uranium mine to be built in 13 years. French-controlled Cogema Resources Inc. expects its uranium open-pit mine and processing plant at McClean Lake to be in full swing by mid-1997, offering more than 200 permanent positions. It already employs 250 people in preparation for the mining operation. Uranium crosses the border north into NWT. And in both regions, there’s also gold to be found and ferreted out.

The dilemma for residents in caribou-using communities is the age-old one — balancing the economic benefits that mines bring to job-starved communities, with the safety of the environment and caribou habitat. Memories of the 1989 Rabbit Lake radioactive spill are still vivid, and defunct mines like the Gunner operation in Uranium City haven’t yet been cleaned up. The long-term impact of uranium mining is largely unknown. On the other hand, gold mining, sometimes accompanied by a cyanide leaching process, has known its share of toxic spills, as a recent major spill in Guyana can confirm.

Scaling the mining issue is, as always, a slippery slope.

Uranium activity heats up

Uranium, gold and diamond exploration is brewing steadily on the caribou ranges (see sidebar below).

At McClean Lake, about 350 kilometres north of Lac La Ronge, construction of a temporary camp for Cogema’s new uranium mine was finished this summer, said corporate affairs manager Tim Gitzel in late August. Building of a water treatment plant as well as the office and mill dry and permanent camp was well underway, as was earthworks and pipeline construction.

The uranium deposit is estimated to contain 50 million pounds of uranium ore, while a nearby ore body is estimated to hold another 35 million pounds of high-grade ore.

Environmental hearings extracted tough standards for the disposal of the ore waste and mine tailings. Gitzel said the McClean Lake project will be the first to have approved reclamation and decommissioning (clean-up) plans in place before the project goes into production. Cogema Resources is required to have money in place to ensure this happens.

Gitzel also added that “as with our Cluff Lake operation, which has consistently maintained over 50 per cent northern employment, the goal at McClean is to hire as many northerners as possible.” Cogema has opened an office in La Ronge to assist with hiring, and is calling on Northern Employment Services to help hire a general contractor.

But at the BQCMB’s meeting in Black Lake in April, resident Modeste Bigeye charged that the owners of the Rabbit Lake mine had broken commitments made to Black Lake Band to hire 70 per cent of its labor force locally.

When asked how native people can be assured that job hiring quotas will be enforced at McClean Lake, Gitzel responded, “we report our hiring efforts directly to the native people involved both through government organized committees and through the Athabasca Working Group — an industry/community organization.”

Black Lake councillor Pierre Robillard, a BQCMB member, is mining liaison for northern Saskatchewan. As part of his duties, he sometimes takes chiefs to see mines, and makes suggestions to mines about training.

The NPD government of Saskatchewan is still wrestling with the whole notion of uranium mining — of creating a product that can fuel nuclear weapons. Some NDPers have called for a moratorium on uranium development. France, the home country of Cogema, has come under fire for nuclear testing in the South Pacific this summer.

Given that Saskatchewan accounts for 25 per cent of the world’s uranium supply, it’s sobering to learn that the province is just now developing baseline data on radionuclide levels in caribou. A sampling of 18 Beverly caribou back in February was part of a larger study of environmental conditions in northern Saskatchewan urged by the Joint Federal-Provincial Uranium Panel.

“The main idea behind this, of course, is to . . . before all of these mines get up and running, is to have some baseline data right in Saskatchewan,” says Tom Gates of Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management. “We didn’t have it before. We had it for the NWT population. It’s actually the same population but for animals that were resident in the Northwest Territories at the time.”

A draft report from the scientific steering committee involved with the caribou sampling will go to the BQCMB at its September meeting in Thompson. Comments from board members may eventually be incorporated into the report.

Gold, diamonds on the horizon

An environmental impact statement for an open-pit gold mine and mill just south of Uranium City, on the shores of Lake Athabasca, will soon be filed by mine owner Greater Lenora Resources Corporation of Kirkland Lake, Ontario. In order to get to the gold, Greater Lenora proposes moving 20 million tonnes of material. In the process of separating the host material from the gold, cyanide would be used. The waste rock, and cyanide that clings to it, will be deposited in a few lakes that flow into Lake Athabasca.

“It’s not usually the case that you take a lake and fill it up with rock,” says David Powell, a project officer with the environmental assessment branch of Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management (SERM). “But it’s not unheard of either.”

Once the environmental impact statement is filed, it will be reviewed by a SERM technical review panel. There will be a public review period of 30 days, and there may or may not be public meetings. It’s up to the government of Saskatchewan to approve — or axe — the proposal.

North of Rankin Inlet, there’s excitement about an unusal diamond discovery. Previously, diamonds in the Northwest Territories were found only in kimberlite. A joint venture by Comaplex Minerals Corp. and Cumberland Resources Ltd. has uncovered diamonds found in rock known as lamprophyre.

All the diamonds are very, very small, stresses Comaplex vice-president of public affairs Murray Pyke, and their interest is primarily in surrounding base metals such as zinc, copper, nickel and cobalt. But the diamonds are still awe-inspiring.

“These are the oldest rock diamonds (that) have been found,” says Pyke. “It’s a completely undescribed signature.”

SIDEBAR: Exploration at a Glance

Mining exploration throughout northern Saskatchewan and the Keewatin district of NWT is bubbling away. (There is very limited prospecting in northern Manitoba). Here, at a glance, are just some projects that are being explored, assessed, or in action.

Keewatin

Thelon Formation, north of Aberdeen Lake: Cameco Corp. started a two-month uranium exploration program in July. Included outcrop and boulder lithogeochemical sampling, ground geophysical surveys, 1,500-2,000 metres of drilling.

Sissons Lake-Schultz Lake: Cogema Resources Inc. explored for uranium, starting in July, by drilling and performing ground geophyscial surveys on a block of leases, claims and permits. Drilling totalled 6,600 metres. No work was performed on the Kiggavik lease area.

Rankin Inlet area: Comaplex Minerals Corp., who are equal partners in a joint venture with Cumberland Resources Ltd., began a two-week ground magnetometer survey in May, and started a 5,000-metre drilling program in July using two rigs on the Discovery Grid and nearby grids of the Meliadine gold-bearing Branded Iron Formation, 20 kilometres north of Rankin.

Wes Meg area: in July, WMC International Inc., in joint venture with Complex and Cumberland, started 6,000 metres of drilling, using two rigs, on several grids of the Meliadine gold-bearing Branded Iron Formation.

Baker Lake area: Cumberland and Complex started a 2,000-metre drill program in May on the Meadowbank gold-bearing Branded Iron Formation north of Baker Lake. Short prospecting program started in July, plus demobilization of an old camp near Meadowbank.

North Qamanirjuaq Lake area: Comaplex, Cumberland and Manson Creek Resources Ltd. prospected there with a two-person crew, and at Banks Lake, MacQuoid Lake area, and Savard Lake, starting in late May.

Quartzite Lake: Cyprus Canada Inc. in joint venture with Noble Peak Resources Ltd. prospected the gold-bearing Cache zone in July, and further east at Last Lake.

Angikuni Lake: WMC in joint venture with Leeward Capital Corp. started exploration in July for base metals east of the lake. Surface magnetic and gravity surveys were completed. Mapping continues. Till samples were taken for diamond indicator mineral analysis.

Heninga Lake and Griffin Lake: INCO prospected for base metals. Drilling at Heninga was planned for May and August.

Northern Saskatchewan

Lac La Ronge area: gold mine is in operation at Contact Lake in Lac La Ronge Provincial Park.

Uranium City area: Greater Lenora Resources Corporation has proposed an open pit gold mine and mill, just south of Uranium City on shores of Lake Athabaska. Environmental impact statement still to be filed by company.

Cluff Lake: Cogema’s uranium operation is underway.

Rabbit Lake: owners Cameco and Uranerz began full production of underground uranium mining of the Eagle Point orebody after getting the go-ahead from Atomic Energy Control Board last year. BQCMB had asked that developments be deferred during public hearings held in the summer of 1993.

Key Lake: Cameco’s uranium operation is underway.

McClean Lake: Cogema has finished building a temporary camp for the first uranium mine to set up in Saskatchewan in 13 years. Production is scheduled to begin in mid-1997.

MidWest: environmental impact statement was released Aug. 31 for a 60-day public review. Statement filed by owners Minatco Ltd. (subsidiary of Cogema), Uranerz Exploration and Mining Ltd., Tenwest Uranium Ltd. and OURD (Canada) Co. Ltd.

Cigar Lake and McArthur River: at presstime, environmental impact statement still to be filed. Cogema owns large interests in these projects.

SAYISI DENE ANGRY AFTER NEW PARKS BYPASS THEM

In a tense impasse, the chief of Tadoule Lake says his community is prepared to “get militant” if that’s what it takes to make Manitoba’s provincial government change course on two newly created parks that cross the Qamanirjuaq herd range.

Ernie Bussidor, chief of the Sayisi Dene First Nation, says his council was never consulted on the designation, or any plans for, conservation and management of caribou or other wildlife in the parks. Neither were Sayisi Dene First Nation area residents, or representatives working on treaty land entitlement. Nor its representative to the BQCMB — in this case, Albert Thorassie.

Bussidor says his community simply wants to be involved in a co-management plan for Caribou River and Sand Lakes provincial parks in order to derive economic benefits, such as the creation of some river guide positions to cater to tourist traffic. He emphasized Tadoule Lake embraces the same conservation goals as the provincial parks.

But correspondence this summer with Natural Resources Minister Albert Driedger has not led to any change, and the December 1994 order-in-council that created the parks has not been rescinded. In July, Bussidor wrote the minister, warning that “I will not guarantee the safe passage of anyone passing through our territory.”

“All we want is to be involved,” Bussidor told Caribou News. “Not token Indians” that tourists take photos of.

“We are a passive people,” he said, but from watching the news, it appears “the only thing that seems to work . . . I hate to say, is militancy, or force.”

The two parks have had a troubled birth. Bussidor says he learned of their existence by reading news reports about a signing ceremony for the parks.

According to Ted Laird, manager of planning for Manitoba Parks’ parks/natural areas branch, “there was some consultation that occurred prior to the designation of these parks.” Letters were sent to 61 First Nations and seven aboriginal groups in May and June, 1994, inviting them to participate in consultations. Laird says he has received one reply since then.

Bussidor says that in the turmoil last summer of three communities being evacuated due to fire, the letter was not received. Moreover, “that cannot be construed to be meaningful consultation,” stressed Bussidor.

The government has also been chided by the World Wildlife Federation (WWF). In a report card grading Manitoba on its efforts to preserve endangered spaces, WWF Manitoba co-ordinator Gaile Whelan Enns announced in an April 19 press release that “we are disappointed now to learn that First Nations have concerns about a designation process which they feel did not involve adequate consultation and may have abrogated existing agreements. ”

The Sayisi Dene First Nation had threatened in May to pull its representative out of the BQCMB, if the order-in-council was not rescinded or altered. But elders later urged that Tadoule Lake still be representated at the board table because “even if you pull out,” it won’t change the situation, Bussidor was told. The only way to lobby for change would be to work within a system.

As of August, Laird reported that Manitoba Parks is “trying to get into more meaningful dialogue with First Nations.”

Heritage river status axed
Meanwhile, a communication breakdown in Saskatchewan has put Churchill River’s bid for heritage status on ice for the time being.

The subject will be looked at again this fall when First Nations enter discussions on self-government and other issues, says Lawrence Baschak of the policy and public consultation branch of Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management.

But the nomination process ground to a halt earlier this year because of opposition from the Prince Albert Grand Council as well as Lac La Ronge, Peter Ballantyne, and English River First Nations.

“There was a consultation process that was occurring,” says Baskchak, “but chiefs of the Prince Albert Grand Council, Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and (other) First Nations wanted talks at the political level as well as the community level.”

While heritage status would give the Churchill River more environmental protection, First Nations fear it may also undermine rights to the land, and treaty rights to hunt, fish and trap along the river.

Baschak says it takes about three years from the time a site is nominated for heritage status, until it’s actually designated. In between, a management plan is drawn up.

The problem in the past, says Baschak, is that people think with a nomination, “it’s a done deal.”

LIFE ACCORDING TO LOU, LOU — AND OTHER WINNING SAGAS

The years may come and go, but a child’s vivid imagination is a constant.

And participants in the BQCMB’s 1995 Caribou Schools Competition stretched their imaginations to touch on the whimsical and the earnest aspects of caribou.

From the Northwest Territories division, high-voltage colored booklets courtesy of grade 4 students at J.B. Tyrrell Elementary School in Fort Smith looked at life through the caribou’s eyes. Funny thing is, they sound pretty much like humans.

Lou, Lou The Caribou

By Corie Flett (who shared first place with Christina MacDonald), is a hard-luck story about a fat and lonely cow who ends up in trouble.

Lou, Lou became pregnant
From the pale mighty male!
Lou, Lou cried
And he denied!

Lou, Lou’s calf was born without a horn
Where she had once been born!
Lou, Lou’s calf grew up and went
Back to the Tundra without a cent!

MacDonald authored The Caribou Rap, a straightforward account of the caribou’s migration route and how caribou were used by the Chipewyan. Caribou — Is That All?, by Heather Crawford, earned second place for her story about a little Inuk boy who gets lost on the barren lands. Fortunately, he remembers his father’s words to “depend on the caribou.”

Honorable mentions should go to Linden Timoney and Kali MacLachlan’s Caribou Flash, a newspaper written by and for caribou! The lead story is headlined “Get Rid of the Hunters and Keep Us Caribou Alive.” The paper’s got everything, including classifieds (“FOR SALE: Antler warmers, 4.00 caribou dollars) and a weather forecast for local critters.

In Saskatchewan, Fond du Lac’s Father Gamache Memorial School reaped a healthy proportion of entries. In the class projects category, Sister Patricia Cavanagh’s Grade 4 class earned top honors with their illustrated book, Curious Clayton Caribou. Rose Paquette’s Grade 3 students looked at daily chores in Fond du Lac’s Drymeat Camp, and took second place. An honourable mention went to Fred Zinck’s combined Grade 4-6 class project, The Caribou Move South.

In the poster/prose category, Cory Adam stepped into first among Grades 3-5 pupils, followed by Walda Laurent. In the Grades 6-9 division, three Grade 7 students swept top honors: Miranda MacDonald and Joanna Mercredi in first, and Samantha Fern in second.

Artists turned out in full force for the poster category. In the Grades 3 to 5 division, Wanda Jane Laurent headed the field, followed by Victor MacDonald. Teacher Marie Maw’s C-2/3 Special Needs Class found winners in Gloria MacDonald, at first, and Kelly Pische in second.

Grade 8 students Jennifer Isadore and Jodie Pische finished first and second respectively in the Grades 6-9 category.

Meanwhile, Grade 6 students wrote their way into the record book. Greg Mercredi nabbed first and Jennifer Beavereye came second in the prose category.

At Father Porte Memorial Dene School in Black Lake, Grade 4 pupils Mavis Broussie and Tina Alphonse rose to first and second place with their combined picture/prose compilations. In the prose category alone, Grade 7 students Racheal Toutsaint and Shawna Sayazie held the same rankings.

Entries from this year’s competition may gain wider fame in the form of a calendar. The BQCMB is exploring the cost of producing calendars that feature the artwork of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herd range children.

1996 CARIBOU SCHOOLS COMPETITION

With school freshly started, now’s the time to plan your creative attack on next year’s Caribou Schools Competition.

Enter your poster, story, poem and other assorted works of art in the 1996 contest to win prizes of up to $80 or second-place winnings of $40. The deadline is Jan. 31, 1996 and the contest is open to all schools on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou ranges in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northwest Territories.

Submissions should go to the appropriate regional contacts:

Northwest Territories: Secretary-treasurer, Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board, 16 Concourse Gate, Suite 200, Nepean, Ontario K2E 7S8, or call (613) 727-5466.

Manitoba: Cam Elliott, Department of Natural Resources, Box 2859, Elizabeth Drive, Thompson, Manitoba R8N 1X4, or call (204) 677-6644.

Saskatchewan: Tim Trottier, Department of Environment and Resource Management, Box 5000, La Ronge, Saskatchewan S0J 1L0, or call (306) 425-4237.

CARIBOU SCHOOLS MATERIAL TO GO NATIONAL

A modified version of the Caribou Schools Program kit will eventually reach Canadian classrooms coast to coast.

A committee struck by the Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF) will sit down this fall to see how a more generic version of the BQCMB’s Caribou Schools Program could be fashioned, for use with the Project WILD conservation program, an educational initiative of provincial wildlife departments. It’s not known yet when the material will be published. This would all be subject to the approval of the BQCMB.

“There is a lot of interest with the Project WILD family,” says the Canadian Wildlife Federation’s Luba Mycio-Mommers. “We also want to make sure native people are involved” in the process. Native representatives will be invited to sit on the committee.

The current barren-ground Caribou Schools Program, created by the BQCMB almost 10 years ago, will be revised under the CWF project so that it speaks about more than one species of caribou.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, CARIBOU NEWS!

Break out the bannock and raise a glass, because next year, Caribou News celebrates 15 years of publishing! We plan to make our next issue a special commemorative edition. That’s not only because 15 years is a landmark in this industry, but because funding for Caribou News is not assured beyond 1996. It could be our last issue. So help us to showcase your memories and opinions. Please send any photos, letters or other contributions for our commemorative issue to:

Caribou News
Suite 200
16 Concourse Gate
Nepean ON K2E 7S8
Tel: (613) 727-5466
Fax: (613) 727-6910

All material will be returned on request.

The Editor

“A FINE AND VERY READABLE PUBLICATION”

It’s two thumbs up so far in early reviews of the BQCMB’s recently published Fire Management Technical Report No. 1 and the shorter, accompanying Management Report No. 1.

One Renewable Resources biologist, in fact, calls the Technical Report “a fine and very readable publication.” Alasdair Veitch of the Sahtu region of the Northwest Territories says “as a biologist in an area where both fire and barren-ground caribou are ‘hot’ issues right now, I would like to commend . . . the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Board.”

“(Former BQCMB member) Gerry LePrieur is the new superintendent of our department here in the Sahtu and he told me how much work went into this document . . . it seems to me like well-spent effort.”

Scientist David Klein of the Alaska Co-operative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit of the University of Alaska calls the Technical Report “excellent.”

“The concept of management of fire in the northern boreal forest for the benefit of wildlife and the users of wildlife has, in the latter half of this century, replaced the earlier held view that all fires are destructive and should be suppressed,” he writes.

“The Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board (prepared a) comprehensive review of fire history and management as it relates to the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds. This excellent Technical Report, and the accompanying Management Report, will be of immeasurable value to the Caribou Management Board and the governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and NWT in their management of the lands that are critical winter habitat for the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds. But putting fire management into practice is easier said than done.

“The Technical Report describes in detail the ecological role of fire in the boreal forest and its relationship to caribou, emphasizing both the positive and negative aspects of fire in the boreal forest and its relationship to caribou, emphasizing both the positive and negative aspects of fire on both a short-term and long-term basis. The practical difficulties in accomplishing optimal management of fire, that are brought about by logistic difficulties and the high cost of fire suppression, the vagaries of weather, and the need to protect communities and private property are emphasized. The Management Report incorporates this information in a series of recommendations that deal with the benefits from fire management, tempered by the reality that idealized fire management is beyond the present capability of managers of northern lands. ”

In the Sahtu region, the Department of Renewable Resources is drafting a caribou management plan and agreement with the 14 communities that harvest the local Bluenose herd.

“One issue that has come up in the Sahtu is that of fire management,” says Veitch.

“A document such as (the) Beverly-Qamanirjuaq Board has produced would give some accessible information to non-biologists so that appropriate decisions can be made.”

The reports’ usefulness, adds Klein, is far-reaching.

“These reports will be of value to land managers throughout Canada and in other countries of the circumpolar North.”

MANITOBA ZOOLOGY STUDENT WINS AWARD

A University of Manitoba student intrigued by the “poorly understood” Cape Churchill caribou has nabbed a $1,000 award under the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Scholarship Fund.

Ryan Brook has asked that payment be deferred until next year, when he’ll finish his four-year zoology program. The project Brook had proposed using his award money for had to be put on hold this year. That was to try to understand how the tidal flats of the Hudson Bay shoreline may offer caribou some relief over the summer months from pesky biting flies. There is a theory that there are fewer insects on the tidal flats than on the tundra, eskers and lowlands.

The Cape Churchill caribou are a mix of barren-ground and woodland animals, with crossover from other herds like the Qamanirjuaq.

Students interested in applying for a 1996 Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Scholarship Fund can contact the Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies (ACUNS), Suite 405, 17 York St., Ottawa ON K1N 9J6. Tel: (613) 562-0515, or fax (613) 562-0533. Preference will be given to students who normally live in one of the caribou-using communities on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herd ranges.

PEOPLE AND CARIBOU

Caribou are prone to travelling hundreds of miles when summer breezes beckon — and so are people.

BQCMB members Tim Trottier of La Ronge and Don Thomas of Edmonton hit the highways this August in search of the 2nd International Arctic Ungulate Conference in Fairbanks, Alaska. More than 200 people were expected to converge on the American town to debate a slew of issues related to hoofed mammals of the north.

Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB) chairman Ben Kovic, who attended the BQCMB’s board meeting in Black Lake this April, set his sights even further abroad the following month. Kovic flew to Bodo, Norway in May to attend the 5th Annual Common Property Conference. One project being showcased at the conference was a joint Canadian-Russian effort that twins the Arctic Institute with the Kola Sami of Murmansk to set up a co-management structure in that district of Russia.

NWMB has hired a wildlife director to develop and maintain a comprehensive outline of fisheries and wildlife management and research tasks for Nunavut. Daniel Pike comes from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Iqaluit. Meanwhile, NWMB’s harvest study co-ordinator, Carol Churchward, plans to attend the BQCMB meeting in Thompson in September to update members on the harvest study’s progress.

His appetite for work shows no sign of dimming. BQCMB member David Kritterdlik — already president of the Keewatin Wildlife Federation and the Whale Cove director for the Kivalliq (Keewatin) Inuit Association (KIA) — was sworn in as a board member of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated in June, at a meeting in the remote Nunavut community of Sanikiluaq. As a Keewatin regional representative, he replaces departing KIA vice-president Kono Tattuinee.

Ottawa filmmaker George Mully has completed the Inuktitut and English versions of a 20-minute BQCMB documentary detailing the board’s roots and the years spent chipping away the historic tensions between native people and government employees in favor of co-ooperative efforts to manage the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds. Students living on herd range communities should keep their eyes peeled for familiar-looking artwork. Video footage includes entries from this year’s Caribou Schools Competition. The Dene version of this video is in progress, and may be completed by year’s end.

The long list of signatures in syllabics, in lockstep with Dene names of French origin, says it all. Twenty-seven people from Lutsel K’e and Baker Lake, mostly elders, met in the Thelon Game Sanctuary Aug. 8 to 11 to find the common ground that would help them plan a management plan for the 67-year-old wildlife sanctuary, in conjunction with the Department of Renewable Resources. Two planning committees, one for Inuit and one for Dene, have been devised since the Thelon Game Sanctuary straddles Nunavut and NWT.

The pictuesque mission, held in a tent camp built on a sandbank downstream of Warden’s Grove in the sanctuary, was successful. It produced a statement of intent and a special signing ceremony. BQCMB member Lawrence Catholique of Lutsel K’e, a member of the Dene planning committee, was among those who put pen to paper. The document was signed only by Dene and Inuit. Chris Shanks of Renewable Resources says committee members will get down ot the nitty-gritty of reviewing management goals the end of October.

Joanne Barwise, an environmental education writer from Sherwood Park, Alberta, stumbled upon an old Caribou News article called “Two Ways of Knowing” (by Roy Vontobel) while working in Instructional Resources in Saskatchewan. She found the essay on traditional knowledge versus scientific knowledge thought-provoking because it touched the bias of her “own upbringing and educational training.” Taking things one step further, she gained permission to include “Two Ways of Knowing” in a school program called Weather Watchers, for Grades 4 to 6 students in Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Weather Watchers is being developed in partnership with Environment Canada and Alberta Environmental Protection. “I will use the article whenever I can, wherever it is appropriate and even pass it on to colleagues,” says Barwise. “There is a balance we all need to strive for.”

Father Porte Memorial Dene School in Black Lake continues to do its part to foster a better understanding of the traditional knowledge of caribou, as well as understanding of aboriginal history and culture, through its CRISP program. Standing for Culturally Relevant Integrated Studies Program, the series began in the mid-1980s. Some of the curriculum borrows from Unit One of the BQCMB’s Barren Ground Caribou Schools Kit. But much of the material is the result of the efforts of teachers and elders in the Black Lake area. A revised 1994 series includes translated interviews from 19 elders and Father Jean Porte, the school’s namesake.

Sadly, a longtime ambassador of the Canadian Wildlife Service died July 24 after a venerable career that pioneered in the study of barren-ground caribou. Dr. John Kelsall of Delta, British Columbia wrote The Migratory Barren-Ground Caribou of Canada in 1968, the definitive publication on barren-ground caribou for that era. Kelsall was also involved in setting up The School of Renewable Resource Technology in Fort Smith. “He was a true conservationist,” genuinely concerned about the environment and animals, recalled co-worker Don Thomas, a BQCMB member. Though multiple sclerosis kept him confined to a wheelchair the last 20 years of his life, he was by nature cheerful, outgoing and optimistic. His curious, energetic mind found him hot on the trail of a variety of studies, including wallabies (while pursuing a PhD in Australia), and the chemistry of birds’ feathers.