Caribou News in Brief: Summer 1996

A ONE-TWO FUNDING PUNCH
But Manitoba, Saskatchewan and NWT quickly reaffirm support after BQCMB loses feds’ funding

The federal government is pulling out of the intergovernmental Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board by degrees.

As of March 31, 1997, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development will no longer be a partner in the intergovernmental management agreementor contributing its annual one-fifth share of the funding.

Exactly one year later, Environment Canada will back out too, and the BQCMB will be running on a whittled-down budget that’s 60 per cent of what it is now. However, the governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories have all reconfirmed they’re solidly behind the BQCMB. Board secretary-treasurer Gunther Abrahamson feels the organization will still be able to operate on a smaller budget.

Countdown to Nunavut

“For the current year we’ve full funding,” says Abrahamson. “But governments don’t like us to carry money forward from one year to the next, which essentially means we’re expected to spend money they give us this year. So there shouldn’t be any change in the current year.”

At least two new board projects will still go ahead: a revised map of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herd range, and an eight-page newsletter designed to fill in the communications gap now that Caribou News has run out of funding.

Other plans, like a 16-month caribou calendar featuring artwork from local children, will have to be decided upon at the BQCMB’s next meeting in Lutselk’e. Other weighty matters await board members as well.

“Between now and 1999, I think the Territories and the board would be wise to arrive at an understanding with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB),” suggests Abrahamson, “with a view to the Nunavut government signing on . . . as a full party to the agreement.”

Abrahamson, who will be recommending that strategy to the BQCMB when it meets in June, envisions a relationship where the board advises both the GNWT Department of Renewable Resources minister, and the NWMB. The Nunavut board can rest assured knowing recommendations come from a seasoned group that has competence in matters relating to caribou in the Keewatin. The BQCMB’s previous recommendations have generally been accepted by governments throughout its history.

What’s more, the Keewatin Wildlife Federation, a federation of hunters and trappers associations in the Keewatin, is already represented by two members on the BQCMB.

In April 1995, shortly after Indian Affairs first hinted it might be withdrawing its financial support and that wildlife boards created by land claim settlements might have to step in, NWMB chairman Ben Kovic told the BQCMB that his board did not have surplus funds in its budget to make up for the $27,000 then given yearly by the two federal government departments in the BQCMB (“Feds may, or may not, pull funding from BQCMB,” Caribou News, October 1995).

But Kovic is still anxious to be involved in the future of Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou. At the end of April, he told Caribou News that “I believe we still need to work together as a team for the benefit of these two herds, not to the benefit of the (federal) government so that they can save money for others.

“These two groups of caribou are very, very important, not just for the users,” stressed Kovic, but for commercial endeavors as well. The NWMB is one of the new boards emerging in the northern landscape “that has the major role (in) how these two groups should be managed,” he added, citing quota changes for commercial sale of caribou as an example.

Environment Canada’s about-face

Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin said in a Jan. 24, 1996 letter to BQCMB chairman Jerome Denechezhe that his department is ending its funding “as part of DIAND’s overall effort to contribute to the federal government’s debt reduction program.

“My officials are in the process of preparing a discussion paper that will assist you” in finding alternative sources of support, Irwin wrote. As of the end of May, no discussion paper had been received by the Board.

Meanwhile, Environment Canada’s Gerald McKeating, the regional director for the prairie and northern region, said in an April 10, 1996 letter to BQCMB secretary-treasurer Gunther Abrahamson that his department “will no longer be able to contribute to the funding of the Beverly-Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board beyond March 31, 1998.”

The department is phasing out its staff of caribou biologists.

Environment Canada’s retreat is an about-face from the loyal words inscribed in a November 1995 letter from former minister Sheila Copps. “I am pleased to confirm that the agreed funding level of $13,500 will be met. Environment Canada is fully committed to the ongoing work of your board.”

Others inside and outside federal ranks have pointed out the BQCMB’s stellar performance too.

A report published December 1995 by the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development said “the Beverly-Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board was often referred to by witnesses as a co-management model to emulate.”

“Although diverse in membership, the Beverly-Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board works effectively as a team with common objectives. Native people and government representatives alike are full partners in managing the caribou, and the federal government is an essential component of that partnership.”

The tribute ends with a recommendation to the House of Commons that “all senior levels of government actively support and promote transboundary co-management arrangements.”

Meanwhile, Manitoba premier Gary Filmon honored the BQCMB this past February with a certificate of recognition for its “valuable contribution towards sustainable development” during an awards ceremony hosted by the Manitoba Round Table on the Environment and Economy.

Provinces, NWT united

In the face of what could have been the deathknell for the BQCMB, the provincial governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and NWT were quick to reconfirm their financial backing. First Nations leaders voiced their support too.

The withdrawal of federal funding “concerns me as the Board has earned a solid reputation for effective management in a jurisdictionally complex environment,” wrote Phil Fontaine, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, in a March 29 letter to Manitoba Natural Resources Minister Albert Driedger.

Driedger pledged Manitoba’s continued support in an April 9 letter to the BQCMB. “Even without Canada’s presence, I believe the Board membership fully represents the people of the caribou range and governments charged with the management of the herds.”

Lorne Scott, Saskatchewan’s Minister of Environment and Resource Management, wrote March 21 that “our department is also under tight budget guidelines, but I remain optimistic that we will be able to maintain funding at the current annual level of $13,500.”

For Allan Adam, seventh vice-chief for the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, co-management of resources is simply “a better way to do things in the future.”

NWMB’s Kovic, a former BQCMB member himself, says he has always respected “how the people that were appointed to this board had put so much of their time and effort to make this board function and at the same time, trying to make everybody happy outside this board.”

Senator Willie Adams, in an April 23 letter to NWT Renewable Resources Minister Stephen Kakfwi, urged that the BQCMB be preserved. “Each government brings to the Board well-rounded ideas for administering such a large and diverse land.”

Kakfwi assured his support in a May 6 letter. “It is important that the Board continues to provide a co-ordinating role as we head toward division of the Territories and the establishment of a new government in Nunavut.”

New political reality

In a sense, the federal government’s funding cuts will force the BQCMB to confront a new political reality in Canada’s changing north.

“I think it will allow the board to focus more on establishing a proper network with other boards, such as the Nunavut board,” says Abrahamson. “It’s just that it’s sort of fallen between the cracks. (We’ve) been too busy with other priorities.”

“Between now and ’99, it’s going to be important to this board to nail down respective responsibilities,” he underlines. “Not just with Nunavut but, in the context of the federal government’s policy for self-government, with other First Nations.”

CHAIRMAN HURT IN HOTEL FIRE

BQCMB chairman Jerome Denechezhe suffered second and third degree burns to 60 per cent of his body March 30 when his room at the Meridien Hotel in Thompson caught fire.

Denechezhe was initially rushed to Thompson General Hospital, then medevaced to the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre where he remained until discharged in mid-May. Denechezhe, his wife Sophie and their five children were staying in Winnipeg until Jerome is well enough to return to his hometown of Lac Brochet.

A news release issued April 22 by the Northlands Dene Education Authority said that to help ease the financial burden on the family, an account has been set up at the Northern store in Lac Brochet to accept donations. Financial gifts can also be made via transfer from any Northern/Northwest Company outlet. The account number is 3970011683, under the name of the Denechezhe Family.

Contributions can also be sent to Louise Denechezhe, Northlands First Nation, Lac Brochet MB R0B 2E0 (tel: 204-337-2001) or to Jonas Denechezhe, Northlands Dene Education Authority, Lac Brochet MB R0B 2E0 (tel: 204-337-2270). Cards and best wishes can be sent to the above addresses too.

Denechezhe underwent skin graft surgery on April 22, said his wife. Two days later, he was able to speak after having lost his voice for three weeks.

“Early this morning I went there and he spoke out loud,” said Sophie. “When I came home and told my kids, my kids were really happy.”

Thompson deputy fire chief Ole Lamerz said the fire appeared to start by the room’s desk, near or in the garbage can. When firefighters arrived after receiving an 8:42 a.m. call from the hotel, they found the room so thick with smoke that visibility was impossible. Denechezhe was found in a corner of the room with a curtain on top of him. Despite the great amount of smoke, the fire itself was not large, and was extinguished using a pillow and water pump extinguisher. Cause of the fire is believed to have been smoking material that was not fully extinguished.

Denechezhe was a founding member of the BQCMB and its chairman since 1993. While he is recuperating, Northlands First Nation chief and council have recommended Adam Nalge step in as an alternate member to represent Lac Brochet at the board table.

BARREN-GROUND BRIEFS

Marksmen bang on

Since last fall, riflemen and women have taken aim at target shoots throughout the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq range. The BQCMB has been fuelling the enthusiasm with prize money of $200 for each community and life-size caribou target posters.

In a chilly Dec. 30 showdown in Rankin Inlet, David Ittinuar clinched the top spot, with Paul Pissuk and Joseph Inukshuk in second and third. Because these last two shooters tied for second, a shoot-off on Dec. 31 decided their ranking.

An earlier Oct. 1 shootout in Baker Lake that was also assembled by the Keewatin Wildlife Officer’s Association drew 11 participants. James Himga took top spot, and David Toolooktook came in second, followed by Noel Kinglik.

Uranium City timed its target shoot to coincide with its winter carnival March 30. The event, which was organized by Dean Classen, saw Dixie Knox and Shannon Simpson walk away with top honors.

The board also sponsored a target shoot in Lutselk’e but is still awaiting official results.

Reports still due

Final reports aren’t out yet from the $400,000 Man and the Biosphere study comparing caribou management systems of the Western Arctic Herd in Alaska and the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou in Canada. Led by a University of Alaska research team, the results of their survey of Alaskan and Canadian hunters and wildlife managers were published in the October 1995 issue of Caribou News. However, project director Jack Kruse says a draft report looking at management histories still needs to be finetuned. He added the MAB team will compile its results for Alaska and hope to find funding to do the same for Canada.

Hunters blamed

In April, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario in tandem with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Canada, the Canadian Nature Federation and others powered a province-wide marketing campaign throughout the LCBO’s 594 stores to help save endangered animals, including the Peary caribou. The sale of calendars, t-shirts and posters helped, in part, to raise $120,000 for the cause. But the calendar, along with press releases sent to the media and postcards distributed free in stores, said the drastic population decline was due to “malnutrition, human presence and harassment, and hunting.” The information is attributed to the WWF.

Not true, says Canadian Wildlife Service biologist Frank Miller, an authority on the Peary caribou (which do not include the Banks Island animals, a mixed gene pool). The only cause for the population spiral from 25,000 in 1961 to roughly 4,000 now is “severe snow and ice” conditions. What’s more, Miller says the WWF asked him in January to verify a press release they had drafted on the Peary caribou. Miller specifically told them to remove “hunting” as a cause for the population decline.

Management plan

The BQCMB’s second management plan, spurred by the renewal of the intergovernmental management agreement in 1992, was expected to be printed and distributed in June. The plan sums up the board’s mandate, goals and principles, stressing some of the special challenges it hopes to meet between now and the year 2002, when the current agreement runs out.

Coral Harbour harvest

Despite some weather-related delays, the sequel to last year’s commercial harvest of the heavily populated Southampton herd wrapped up at the end of April. Altogether, 1,965 animals were harvested and given Agriculture Canada’s stamp of approval, and 28 jobs created, including six for hunters who worked at a camp 40 miles outside Coral Harbour in an abattoir, a portable slaughterhouse.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Caribou booklet “best yet” of its kind

I am writing to congratulate the BQCMB on its most excellent publication in comic format introducing the concepts of traditional and scientific management of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds.

With 25 years of experience in communicating with northern communities on caribou issues, I know a good product when I see it and this is certainly the best yet for this purpose.

I trust that you are taking every step to make sure that this receives the widest distribution possible in the communities and especially the schools where it should be a mandatory part of the curriculum.

I will be demonstrating this comic at our upcoming PCMB (meeting) with a view to making a similar production to complement our schools program and teacher’s manual (also patterned after an earlier BQCMB project).

Again, congratulations on a fine piece of work. I am sure it will gain great acclaim both in the north and the south.

Doug Urquhart
Porcupine Caribou Management Board
Whitehorse, Yukon

Contest brings out language skills

The (Caribou Schools Competition) has provided an excellent outlet for the language activities that this S. S. unit spawned. I’m retiring this year-so hopefully someone else will submit from this area in the years to come. (Hopefully your Caribou News will continue beyond ’96!)

Grace Whelly
J.B. Tyrrell Elementary School
Fort Smith, NT

Politician pursues feds on country food issue

I read the article “Caribou meat safe to eat, says GNWT” (Caribou News, Oct. 1995) with great interest. It was published not long after the release of the report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, It’s About Our Health! Towards Pollution Protection. The report included a full chapter on the Arctic, extracts from which were cited in the article.

The official government response to the Standing Committee’s report has since been released. It addresses only those parts of the report which related directly to the Committee’s terms of reference (which was a review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act). As a result, it does not deal with the Committee’s assertions about the contaminated country food in the North.

I intend to table a question in the House of Commons requesting clarification of the Government’s position on the recommendations contained in the chapter on the Arctic.

Peter Adams, M.P.
Peterborough, ON

NUNAVUT STARTS HARVEST COUNT IN INUIT COMMUNITIES

The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB) $6-million harvest study was to start fieldwork in May by questioning hunters in Chesterfield Inlet, Pelly Bay and Arctic Bay about their current harvest levels. By July, harvest data for all significant species of wildlife within Nunavut will be collected on a monthly basis, says harvest study co-ordinator Carol Churchward.

With every major wildlife species under scrutiny, including caribou, whales, walrus, char and muskox, hunters can expect questions like: what did you kill? Where did you get it? How many did you kill? What was the sex?

The mammoth study will uncover current harvest figures to help the NWMB set levels of total allowable harvest. Staff of the NWMB and Nunavut’s three regional wildlife organizations are working together to collect information, and will query hunting families throughout the next five years in order to gauge long-term basic needs of Nunavut’s land claim beneficiaries. These needs will be top priority, and must be met before any other use of wildlife will be considered. Any surplus may then be given to non-native residents, or could be used for non-resident sports hunting.

While the figures for caribou will not include those harvested for commercial reasons, NWMB wildlife manager Daniel Pike said counts taken for other species, such as fish, would include commercial harvests.

Churchward, who spoke to BQCMB members at their meeting in Thompson last fall, emphasized that most of the study’s $6 million goes toward salaries. Funding was barely adequate to survey Inuit communities within Nunavut, let alone settlements beyond the new territory’s borders.

The Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou, however, wander in and out of Nunavut. They are a shared resource, and the rights of other native people such as the Dene of the Northwest Territories, northern Saskatchewan and northern Manitoba who have traditionally hunted in Nunavut, are spelled out in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. The Agreement says their basic needs will be protected, but to do this, it is important to know how many caribou each family uses.

In a letter mailed to chiefs, mayors and individuals last December, BQCMB chairman Jerome Denechezhe urged Beverly and Qamanirjuaq range communities outside Nunavut to join in a harvest study, in order to substantiate their fair share of the total allowable caribou harvest NBWMB determines.

“It might be possible to do the harvest study in your community under the auspices of the Caribou Management Board,” Denechezhe’s letter continued.

A response came from the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations vice chief Allan Adam, reporting on a Wollaston meeting in January of the Athabascan sector of the Prince Albert Grand Council. Adam said FSIN applauds the idea of a five-year harvest strategy, since big game subsistence may vary from year to year. But in an interview with Caribou News, Adam explained that precisely because the migratory animals are unpredictable and their numbers can change annually, elders at the Wollaston meeting said it’s not possible to identify a surplus of caribou. And in Adam’s written reply, he adds the Denesuline “motioned at this gathering that they do not condone the exploitation of regulated sport hunting of caribou in Saskatchewan.”

His letter went on to say that subsistence harvesting of caribou by Dene First Nations of Saskatchewan is defined in the provisions “guaranteed in the signing of the Treaties.”

“The guarantee is the ability to carry on their application: hunting, fishing, gathering,” Adam told Caribou News. It’s also the ability to put in their own rules and regulations.

“I guess there’s a fear that the (NWMB) harvest study could determine quotas at certain times of year,” such as the fall when hunters cross into the Northwest Territories to harvest caribou.

“We are afraid that too many rules and regulations could be developed,” said Adam, and that other spinoffs — using animals for profit, for example — could occur.

The Nunavut harvest study fieldwork will create a small flurry of jobs. NWMB’s Churchward says community hunting and trapping organizations will be hiring field workers for mid-June.

EFFECTS OF SATELLITE COLLARS “MINIMAL,” SAY BIOLOGISTS

But some Dene communities still feel collaring caribou is wrong

(Caribou News, June 1996)

They weigh in at about 1.3 kilograms, and have settled in recent years into a sleek teardrop-shape for a more comfortable, natural fit. Satellite collars, after being used for close to a decade to track caribou in Canada, have won over ardent fans among biologists and many hunters. The satellite signals that feed into computers lead hunters directly to their source of food. Biologists, meanwhile, are able to monitor migration patterns, and better pinpoint calving grounds and the caribou for field surveys.

But not all traditional users are so enthusiastic. The collars are distrusted by some Dene, particularly by elders who feel it is wrong and unnatural to attach an object to an animal. They also fear the collars — or the process of putting the collars on — will hurt the caribou.

SUPPORT DIVIDED

Since five Qamanirjuaq cows were collared in a GNWT pilot project three years ago, local support has been voiced by the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, the Keewatin Wildlife Federation, and the Kivalliq Inuit Association, where the land use department finds satellite collar tracking keeps them up to date on where the caribou are migrating.

Even most Dene hunters from Tadoule Lake in northern Manitoba, who follow the collared caribou’s journeys via maps sent to Manitoba Natural Resources, endorse the collaring, BQCMB member Albert Thorassie of Tadoule Lake told the board last fall.

But elders in the Athabascan communities of northern Saskatchewan aren’t convinced collaring is right. “The elders, they respect the animals,” said board member Jimmy Laban of Black Lake in a September 1994 Caribou News article. “They really don’t want to have anything done to the herd.”

The elders stand firm on that point even today. However, Pierre Robillard, an alternate member and Black Lake councillor who knows from experience it costs $3,000 to charter an aircraft just to find caribou, told the BQCMB at its February meeting in Whale Cove that he would support a collaring program if it could be constantly reviewed.

HOW COLLARS WORK

Satellite collars are made of machine belting. Collars that are adjusted for the best fit — neither too tight or too loose — can comfortably handle the body fat and the winter coat.

In the Northwest Territories, a helicopter and net-gun are used to capture caribou. In other places like northwestern Alaska, where the native population frowns on net-gunning, “we try not to use helicopters,” explains Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Jim Dau. Instead, they capture caribou as they cross the Kobuk River. (This also means there is no easy way to recapture the collared animals.)

In both cases, drugs are not used. The collar sends a signal to satellites in the sky that orbit the earth via the North and South poles. The satellites belong to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As the world revolves beneath them, the satellites can scan — and tune into — every point on its surface.

Then the satellite signals are monitored in France by a data location system called Argos. The information goes to a processing centre that in turn sends data over phone lines to a computer.

PHYSICAL EFFECTS

What does a satellite collar do to the animal that wears it?

“The winter fur gets broken under the collar, down to a very densely packed stubble,” says GNWT biologist Anne Gunn of the Department of Renewable Resources. As a rule, Gunn says the skin isn’t broken by the collar, and she recalls just one instance when some skin was exposed from the hair. A small skin sample viewed under a microscope (this animal had been killed for the purposes of a study) showed that “the skin was slightly thickened,” says Gunn, as it would be under a person’s wedding band.

By contrast, Baffin regional biologist Michael Ferguson has found in extreme cases small patches of bare skin directly under the collar, “especially at the bottom of the throat where there’s most rubbing and also at the top of the neck.” That’s because most of the collar’s weight is at the top and it bears down on the animal, while body movement causes the collar to rub at the base of the throat.

James Schaefer of the wildlife division of Newfoundland’s Department of Natural Resources, who has observed collared George River herd caribou since 1991, concludes “the effect (of collars on caribou), if any, is probably minimal.” His counterpart, biologist Serge Couturier of Quebec’s ministère de l’environnement et de la faune, concurs. “We never observe any major injury (or) minor skin injury to the animal by these collars.”

APPEARANCES SEEM NORMAL

When middle-aged cows were collared in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut, “we found that they had calves as expected,” says Gunn, in the same proportion as the general population. The cows’ relationship with their calves seemed normal too. “The calf suckled and played and generally behaved as a calf should.” Mature cows are picked because they’ve already raised a few calves and have proven survival skills. Bulls and young animals are not used because of their changing neck size (bulls’ necks get bigger during rutting season).

Trial and error has taught wildlife managers what best suits the caribou. Ferguson remembers in 1987, during the first year of a collaring project looking at movement and population definitions of caribou on southern Baffin Island, that the caribou were loosely collared. It proved to be the wrong choice, because “the collar was riding all the way up the neck” when the animal ran, and bruising would result.

The following year collars were more tightly cinched, still in a circular pattern. Then in 1989 came a breakthrough when, responding to hunters’ concerns, Ferguson and his team, along with hunters and trappers of Baffin Island, measured the caribou’s necks and developed a custom-made teardrop-shaped collar — closer to the real shape of the caribou’s neck.

Ferguson says the effects of satellite collars on caribou depends “on how well the collar is attached by the collaring crew,” and on the fact that “some animals rub their collars a lot. Others don’t.”

STILL PART OF THE GANG?

“In terms of the other caribou accepting cows with collars,” says Gunn, “it’s a little hard to judge obviously,” since wildlife managers see the collared animals infrequently. “But each spring we went and looked at them on the calving ground and there they were with all the others.”

Ferguson is in cautious agreement, but “even though statistically things may appear to be absolutely normal, there’s no way you can really tell.” That’s because unless an animal is rounded up for a collaring project, caribou aren’t normally captured and handled twice. So the two groups can’t be compared because they haven’t been observed in the same way.

On the other hand, Gunn underlines that collaring leaves its mark in another way on caribou.

“I agree totally with the elders that collaring changes the animal . . . because the animal learns from the experience. I mean, caribou are not stupid,” she says. “They learn, and they’ll learn from experience, like being net-gunned. So in that way they’re changed because they’ve learned something.”

When asked if the collaring experience makes the caribou more cautious, Gunn replies, “I think when they hear a helicopter, yes. But it is possible to recapture them from the helicopter . . . just more difficult.”

CREE WARY TOO

With the one-million strong George River and adjacent Leaf River herds, satellite and conventional radio collars work together like a tag team to give wildlife managers vital information used to follow herd migration, determine survival rates, even plan commercial harvests. Satellite collaring has become invaluable to the George River caribou, the largest migratory land herd, and is “now part of the basis of the management,” believes Couturier. With a herd range straddling 725,000 square kilometres and a single animal covering 9,000 kilometres in a year, any means of more quickly tracking the caribou is a step toward greater efficiency.

When the satellite collaring project was introduced in 1991, “we receive also some concern by the Cree mainly,” says Couturier, but never from the Inuit.

Both the Cree in the James Bay area and the Naskapi of northern Quebec reported seeing animals whose collars were too tightly attached, “but it was mainly because during the wintertime with the fur, the collar seems to disappear a bit because the fur’s so long and so thick that this gives an appearance of too-tight collars,” explains Couturier. “But it’s not the case.”

Since then, the Hunting, Fishing and Trapping Co-ordinating Committee (the George River co-management body that groups Cree, Naskipi, Inuit, and federal and Quebec government representatives) has heard a complaint by an individual hunter, but has not received “a formal Cree position about that,” says Couturier. “And they seem to agree to let the program go on.”

COLLARS PROVE TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE RIGHT

To the biologists that use them, satellite collars have become an essential caribou management tool — one that’s revealed much more of the caribou world.

“Satellite telemetry is a wonderful tool because all these assumptions about where caribou really go and what caribou really do woke up this biologist,” confesses Ferguson.

“I listen to hunters more,” he adds, because the information gleaned from satellite collaring proves traditional knowledge is correct, and sometimes provides information even hunters weren’t aware of. “Satellite telemetry has not contradicted anything that any of the hunters ever told me. And it’s actually proven beyond a shadow of a doubt some of the stuff about massive abandonment of winter range (near Cape Dorset) that was predicted by the elders in 1985.”

Says Gunn, “We respect caribou, and we’re working for their well-being. We go to a lot of trouble to make sure we don’t harm them.”

“And the satellite collars have given us information we would have got no other way.”

PART TWO: MINING ON THE CARIBOU RANGES
What, exactly, does mining do to caribou and their habitat?

On the outskirts of Uranium City sit two ghosts from another era in mining.

The Gunnar and Lorado uranium mine sites were abandoned about 30 years ago. Neither were every fully cleaned up, or “decommissioned,” as they say in environmental circles. The Lorado property, about seven kilometres outside Uranium City, still has the tailings that were around in the 1960s. Roughly 25 kilometres from town, the Gunnar site paints an eerie vignette, looking for all the world as if its owners fled in the middle of the night. Mine, mill and tailings are still there– collecting dust and contributing pollutants.

Both Gunnar and Lorado made it on to a hit list of contaminated sites compiled by Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management in March 1994. The audit was nicknamed “The Dirty Dozen” because it pinned down 12 examples of toxic abandonned properties that pose an immediate hazard to the public or environment.

Gunnar and Lorado weren’t on the critical list, but they did earn moderate concern as “sites requiring future action.” Pollution was found to be low level, contained in a stable situation, and the sites were earmarked to be cleaned up as the property is developed in the future. (See sidebar below, “No Immediate Hazards”.)

In the meantime, what about the caribou and the people who inhabit Canada’s North? Thirty years is a long time, and environmental standards have improved tremendously since the heyday of Gunnar and Lorado. With the current boom in mining, aboriginal communities want to make sure not only that they get their fair share of economic benefits — they want harmful effects on the environment kept to a minimum.

They want to banish the ghosts of irresponsible mining.

Mining activity shoots up
Mining exploration in Canada has shifted into overdrive lately, with diamond, gold and base metal deposits being unearthed across the Arctic (see “Mining on the Caribou Ranges,” Caribou News, October 1995). First out of the gate was a proposed diamond mine for Lac de Gras, which intercepts the spring and fall migration route of the Bathurst caribou. The area is also their summer range. The joint federal-provincial panel that judged the environmental impact statement of Australian mining giant BHP Inc., and heard public feedback for 18 days in January and February, is expected to release its decision at the end of June.

In the Keewatin, Comaplex Minerals Corp. announced in mid-March that it has 400,000 ounces of gold in supply at one section of the Meliadine East Property, 24 kilometres north of Rankin Inlet. That’s an 86 per cent increase in the amount of gold initially believed to be on that site.

In northern Saskatchewan, an open-pit mine and mill is set to go ahead just south of Uranium City — even though Gunnar and Lorado haven’t been properly cleaned up yet.

Trucks, noise culprits too
The effects of mining on the habitat of caribou will vary with the different kinds of mines, but one thing all mines have in common is the buzz of activity that brings new roads, increased truck traffic, more noise and greater human presence. It also makes access to caribou, and therefore the hunting of caribou, easier.

The Department of Renewable Resources, in its submission to the BHP Diamond Mine environmental assessment panel, said that with 100 to 157 trucks expected to be travelling along the Echo Bay winter road by the time the diamond mine is into its 10th year (it’s a 25-year project), the probability of caribou deaths and injury will increase. That’s because caribou tend to try to outrun what they see as a threat (like a truck), and will remain on the road’s hard-packed surface or will cut in front of the truck. That, coupled with frequent poor visibility from blowing snow and darkness, puts caribou at risk.

Another dilemma will come during summer and fall when caribou are trying to escape pesky insects. They’ll naturally head to bare surfaces, especially elevated ones, and this will include roads and the mine’s airstrip. Hungry caribou will also be lured to roadsides because dust that accompanies motor traffic will have sped up the spring melt and vegetation growth.

Some caribou will also be exposed to the maximum 1,300 aircraft per year and assorted helicopters hovering above.

And the Bathurst caribou won’t have just the Lac de Gras mine to contend with. They’re already exposed to the Lupin and Colomac mines, mineral exploration and other human activities. It’s the big picture — the cumulative effects of all developments on the range — that has to be considered for the herd’s welfare.

Uranium’s effects unknown
Meanwhile, the long-term effects of uranium mining are anyone’s guess.

Saskatchewan biologist Tim Trottier, a BQCMB member, says the current thinking now is based on “dispersion modelling,” the theory that harmful effects from uranium mining don’t distribute themselves very far from the mine. In order to be affected, caribou would have to travel fairly close to the mine to eat contaminated lichen.

A report on radionuclide levels found in caribou in northern Saskatchewan was to be published this spring. In February 1995, 18 caribou were sampled in Black Lake, Wollaston and Stony Rapids, the collective efforts of Saskatchewan’s Northern Mines Monitoring Secretariat, Saskatchewan Health and Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management (SERM).

SERM’s Tom Gates indicated “one of the surprising things from the study is . . . the amount of cessium that’s still there in the North from Chernobyl and other activities.”

The baseline data on radionuclide levels in caribou — an unknown until now in Saskatchewan — was to be used in federal/provincial panel hearings on uranium developments that have been ongoing for the Midwest, Cigar Lake and McArthur River mine projects.

While development activity triggered the recent scrutiny of radionuclide levels in Beverly caribou, “it’s interesting that nobody’s sampled the caribou around Uranium City,” points out Trottier. The caribou have been in the Uranium City area at least twice in the 1990s, he says.

Yet because there is no active mine site, there’s been no monitoring.

Gaining control
The Canadian mining industry has begun a public relations and political campaign to keep mining in Canada, attempting to persuade government to simplify regulations, broaden access to land for exploration and limit areas set aside for ecological reasons.

It won’t be a cakewalk for the mining companies.

The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is amending its Northern Mineral Policy, and Natural Resources Canada hopes the federal cabinet will approve a major mineral policy process it’s penned.

The West Kitikmeot/Slave Study will document and promote aboriginal peoples’ traditional knowledge of environments. The NWT Department of Renewable Resources, too, has urged the Lac de Gras mine owners to develop monitoring and mitigation programs that are “firmly built on science and traditional knowledge.”

Nunavut’s land claims settlement, through its Inuit Impact and Benefits Agreement clause, gives Inuit legal leverage when it comes to bargaining for benefits and environmental stipulations from mining companies.

Finally, CARC launched a Northern Minerals Programme last year, staging talks with aboriginal communities across the North from September to November. In order to build sustainable communities that capitalize on the mining surge, CARC realizes concerns about the harmful impact of mining on land, wildlife, water and the beliefs and values of aboriginal people, have to be addressed first.

Mining will inevitably reshape the North. But not, it seems, without the consent of the native people and other northerners who plan to keep their homeland a healthy one.

SIDEBAR: “No Immediate Hazards”
Officials with the province of Saskatchewan and the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) met May 15 on the future of the abandonned Gunnar and Lorado sites. They decided the sites posed “no immediate hazard,” and that the AECB would do a title search this summer to see if previous owners still exist. The lands now belong to Saskatchewan.

A recent change in federal regulation says that abandonned uranium sites like Gunnar and Lorado have to be licensed with the AECB — meaning they come under the control of the AECB, and the owner has to follow the AECB’s rules on how to run the operation, decommission it, etc. Since the owner is now the Saskatchewan government, this is a “highly charged, legal issue,” says AECB’s Bernie Zgola. “Why would Saskatchewan want to apply to the AECB for licensing?”

The two groups will meet again in the fall. But as Zgola says, “Everybody is busy with other issues, particularly the new mines that are underway.” Abandonned uranium sites, it seems, don’t propel action the way new moneymaking mines do.

REVIEW OF BLACK LAKE ROAD IN JULY

A federal/provincial environmental impact assessment statement for the long-awaited road proposed for Points North to Black Lake should be in the public’s hands by July.

Once received by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, all groups interested-including the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board-will have 30 days to review the statement and give their feedback, says Terry Kudel of the Saskatchewan Department of Highways and Transportation. He added the ensuing review period in August could be extended if needed.

The Department of Highways and Transportation is one-half of the team backing the environmental impact assessment. The other half is the Canadian Coast Guard, and both departments have been consulting with the Prince Albert Grand Council since work began on the assessment late last year. The statement is being prepared by Sentar Consultants of Saskatoon.

The environmental impact assessment will be pulling for one of two routes the seasonal road could take-either the northern path slightly south and west of the Fond du Lac River, or the more expensive but potentially less damaging alternative about 30 km further south and west. The construction funds committed aren’t pinned to a specific route, but an official with Saskatchewan’s Department of Highways and Transportation, Ron Eaket, acknowledged last fall that there is a limit on funding (“Black Lake road — which path to follow?,” Caribou News, October 1995).

This March, consultants working on the environmental impact assessment travelled to communities in northern Saskatchewan and northern Alberta to get public input. A local area advisory committee consisting of August Mercredi of Fond du Lac, Victor Echodh of Black Lake, Victor Robillard of Stony Rapids, Ed Benoanie of Wollaston Lake and James Augier of Uranium City have furnished additional information from a local and regional perspective so that consultants gain a better understanding of community concerns.

The Department of Highway’s Kudel says the Saskatchewan government has also been discussing road maintenance with the Prince Albert Grand Council. Since the final route hasn’t been clinched, Kudel confirmed discussions have been general in nature.

As well, Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management has been sketching out a memo of understanding with the Grand Council and the three band councils of Black Lake, Fond du Lac and Wollaston Lake that looks ahead to resource planning and some kind of management structure. But at this point, everything rests on the outcome of July’s environmental impact assessment.

NEW CARIBOU MANAGEMENT GROUPS TAKE ROOT

Maybe it’s because spring is in the air.

Whatever the reason, a number of northern co-management boards are sprouting up and they’re hoping to bloom in the same manner as the BQCMB.

“You guys are the experts,” John Trent of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game told Caribou News in March. Biologists there are investigating how to set up a co-management board for the Western Arctic Herd, Alaska’s largest caribou herd with a population of 450,000. Up to 50 communities depend on the herd, and subsistence hunters and Alaskan native leaders are keen on the idea of co-management. For others though, like urban recreational groups that feel they’re losing a grip on power, “co-management is a scary term,” explains Trent.

After a harvest symposium was staged near Anchorage last spring, “we talked about the difficulties of accurately assessing harvest and the different cultural perspectives that people have.”

“Co-management, thanks to you Canadians, was a topic that was discussed a great deal at that meeting,” said Trent. The Western Arctic Herd seems to be at a population peak, and likely to start sliding down. “And if it declines rapidly, there could be a great deal of hardship in the communities that count on this herd.”

Other pressures are making co-management look more and more attractive. The proposed Lac de Gras diamond mine and other deposits on the Bathurst caribou range-home to 352,000 caribou- have spurred herd range communities into action. Lutselke’s Florence Catholique said officials with the territorial Department of Renewable Resources were contacting interested parties, and a kickoff meeting is targeted for the end of June in Yellowknife.

Back on the Bluenose range-running from Inuvik to Coppermine and south to Fort Norman — 14 native communities last year outlined trends that will put demands on the caribou, from sports hunting, outfitting and other commercial use to mineral exploration. That brought about the birth of an eight-member management committee consisting of representatives from the Inuvialuit, Gwich’in, Sahtu and Nunavut land claims organizations, plus NWT Department of Renewable Resources biologists.

The committee is eager to learn from old hands. Former BQCMB member Gerry Leprieur, now the Department of Renewable Resources regional superintendent for the Sahtu area, asked if the Bluenose caribou management committee could sit in on a future BQCMB meeting to witness the “workings of a good board” first-hand. The committee has been invited to the BQCMB’s Lutselk’e meeting.

FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE

It was thought to be a first in Canada — a conference on northern co-management and environmental assessment, organized by aboriginal people for an aboriginal audience. Spokesman Bruce Hanbidge of the Inuvialuit Joint Secretariat, a division of the Inuvialuit Game Council, estimated that up to half the people at the Nov. 20 to 24 Inuvik event were native. And the BQCMB was there in the person of Lawrence Catholique, who did a presentation on the board and the kinds of issues user and government members explore at BQCMB meetings.

“I told them I’d been on the board for four years and was learning a lot,” says Catholique, who set up posters and the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq range map. He also played the recently released video The Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board: A Model for Co-Management.

“It was nice to hear,” said one listener of Catholique’s speech. Gary Kofinas of the University of British Columbia remarked Catholique “had done a good job in terms of specific points.”

The native perspective shaped the conference and the topics it delved into. One was on traditional knowledge and western scientific knowledge, joining them to study “the herd or the migration route and so on, right down to the caribou lichen and the habitat area,” says Catholique. “So they’re trying to recognize traditional knowledge and use that also.”

Meanwhile, the NWT Treaty 8 Tribal Council and Dene National Environment Department kept the momentum going with the Denendeh Environment Gathering in Yellowknife in early March. Given the upward swing of mining, oil and gas exploration in the area, organizers felt it necessary to convene, and see how traditional knowledge and western science could together solve problems.

MANAGING MANITOBA’S PARKS

A draft system plan that would decide how Manitoba’s parks are to be managed was to be in the hands of the public by mid-May, says the manager of planning for Manitoba Natural Resources’ parks and natural areas branch.

Ted Laird says once people have had a chance to comment on the draft plan, it will go to the Manitoba legislative assembly for the provincial government’s thoughts on it.

Last fall, the parks and natural areas division of Manitoba Natural Resources invited comments on the designation of land within Manitoba’s provincial parks, in order to develop a system plan for parks. Manitoba’s new Provincial Parks Act (July 1993) says parks are to be divvied up into parcels of land — called either “wilderness,” “backcountry,” “resource management,” “recreation,” “heritage” or “access” — that can be managed differently.

Unfortunately, poor communication last year led to tensions between the Sayisi Dene First Nation of Tadoule Lake and Manitoba’s provincial government. Tadoule Lake chief Ernie Bussidor says he only found out about the creation of the new Caribou River and Sand Lakes provincial parks after reading news reports about a signing ceremony for the parks. His community wanted to be involved in a management plan for the parks in order to derive economic benefits, such as the creation of river guide positions. Last summer, Bussidor told Caribou News that the people of Tadoule Lake were prepared to “get militant” if that’s what it took to make Manitoba’s government listen up.

The BQCMB wrote to Manitoba Minister of Natural Resources Albert Driedger last October to “express our concern that, given our mandate to advise you on the conservation of caribou habitat, we were not consulted on the establishment of four new protected areas as provincial parks. Three of these parks are important winter habitat for caribou.”

In a Dec. 6 letter, Driedger agreed “consultation with the Caribou Management Board on the establishment of the new northern parks did not take place. However, the two communities on the caribou range were advised in advance of our initiative, and no concerns were identified over the protection of these lands from mining, logging or hydroelectric activity.”

The communities were advised by a letter inviting them to participate in consultations. But Bussidor argued that in the chaos of three communities being evacuated due to fire in the summer of 1994, the letter was not received (see “Sayisi Dene angry after new parks bypass them,” Caribou News, October 1995).

Progress has been made since then.

BQCMB members Jerome Denechezhe and Cam Elliott outlined the board’s position to Manitoba Natural Resources during a submission made Dec. 11.

Because the Caribou River Provincial Park is on the caribou’s late summer and fall range, and the Sand Lakes and Amisk provincial parks straddle winter range, the BQCMB recommends the three parks be termed “wilderness” parks. That means no logging, mining, or development of oil, petroleum, natural gas or hydro electric power.

However, there are already other kinds of development inside park boundaries: a winter road, trappers’ cabins, tourist outcamps, and hunting camps for traditional users. The BQCMB says these places should be called “access” areas. And because there are sites of historical and cultural significance within the parks-such as old trading posts or native spiritual grounds-these lands should be classified “heritage” spots.

But carving the park up into these categories doesn’t wrap up all of the BQCMB’s concerns. “Certain activities may be acceptable at low levels or at particular times of the year, but unacceptable otherwise,” stresses the BQCMB’s written report.

Take, for example, a water crossing used by caribou. If tourists set up a campsite during the months when caribou migrate, that could “cause harrassment of the caribou at the water crossing.”

TO SHOOT, OR NOT TO SHOOT?
The hunting profession gets a code of ethics

Some of the answers uncovered by the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) survey on hunting practices (see Caribou News, October 1995) has got the BQCMB thinking.

Certain hunting practices that seemed acceptable to people interviewed during the MAB survey are, in fact, illegal in parts of Canada. Shooting from a stopped vehicle, such as a skidoo, is against the law in Manitoba. Rather than recommend changes to legislation that was designed to help a broad-ranging population (and in Manitoba, most residents aren’t hunters), the BQCMB decided at its Feburary meeting to draft a hunting code of ethics.

The board’s Cam Elliott, Manitoba Natural Resources’ regional wildlife manager, has been hammering out with area hunters guidelines that deal with safety and other issues. The BQCMB would then ask enforcement agencies to consider these situations when working on policy or regulation changes. The code of ethics would be akin to a moral manual for the hunting profession that crosses provincial and territorial borders.

“It’s bringing together the traditional hunting knowledge and hunting ethics and the rules and regulations of the caribou hunting community,” Elliott points out, “and (trying) to put that into the context of modern times and government regulations.” In essence, a marriage of two schools of thought.

Take the practice of caching caribou. Viewed through the lens of the law, it’s a hazy area. “No person who kills or injures a bird, small game of big game animal . . . shall abandon, waste or spoil” any part of the animal, reads Manitoba’s legislation.

“The guy caching that meat — is he abandoning it, allowing it to be wasted or spoiled?” Elliott muses. “Properly cached meat won’t spoil.”

But “inexperienced officers going up who have never seen a meat cache before . . . they come upon a lake and there’s a bunch of caribou left and nobody around. Well, what’s he going to think?” On the other hand, he adds, “you get young hunters going up and they haven’t learned how to make a meat cache properly. So they try to cache it but don’t do it right.”

The caching debate is one of the tough questions the code of ethics’ authors will have to wrestle with. But knowing from the MAB survey how closely hunters and wildlife managers agree on many hunting practices, means the time to come to grips with their gut instincts is timely.

Hunting is “not a Stone Age activity anymore,” continues Elliott. “We still use the terms subsistence hunting but I think we have to look at caribou hunting as an occupation for people in some parts of the remote North, (and) as a 20th and 21st century job skill.”

WHAT ANTLERS CAN TELL US

by Don Thomas

Nobody can swear they can figure out the sex and age of a caribou by sizing up its antlers from a distance. But antlers, as we see below, can give hunters some good clues.

What are they?
Antlers are bony structures that caribou grow each year.

When do they fall off?
Antlers fall off old bulls in November and December after the breeding period in October. Bulls up to three years of age keep their antlers until March or April. Cows keep theirs until after they have calved in early June. Cows that are not pregnant drop their antlers in April and May.

What is their purpose?
Their main purpose is to allow individuals to recognize each other and know who they can beat in a fight and who to avoid. Fights are avoided unless two caribou are evenly matched. Fighting requires a lot of energy and someone could get hurt or killed.

Why do caribou cows have antlers and females of other members off the deer family do not?
A guess is that cows with large antlers can defend winter feeding places from most of those with smaller antlers. Caribou must dig for lichens through the snow. Once they have spent energy digging for food, they want to defend that spot.

Do all caribou have antlers?
No. Some cows have no antlers and many have just one antler.

Do you know if it is a cow or a bull by the appearance of the antlers?
Yes and no. Caribou with big antlers are bulls. The antlers of males one and a half to two years old are similar in size and weight to those of cows.

Can you tell the age of a caribou by its antlers?
It certainly helps. Those with the largest antlers in the fall are bulls older than five years. A bull with large antlers in January-March is likely to be two and a half to three years old. Cows with large antlers are likely to be older than five years. The average weight of two antlers in females increases with age as shown below.

Don Thomas is a Canadian Wildlife Service caribou biologist and a member of the BQCMB.

SPORTS HUNT GETS OFF TO ROCKY START

Manitoba’s first non-resident caribou sports hunt last fall was almost its last, when disputes between one of the lodges staging the hunting trips and the Sayisi Dene First Nation Band of Tadoule Lake threatened to kill the endeavor.

Sayisi Dene chief Ernie Bussidor, in a letter written last October to the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board, asked that the hunt be cancelled until problems were ironed out with the Nejanilini Lake Lodge, a private outfitter that worked with the Sayisi Dene First Nation Band to market both its eight allotted licenses and the Band’s 34 licences.

(Dymond Lake Lodge of Commonwealth Lake was the only other outfitter to snap up its share of eight licenses. Treeline Lodge of Nueltin Lake chose not to run caribou hunts, while North Seal River Lodge of Egenolf and Maria Lakes couldn’t get licenses because it failed to meet certain criteria. Meanwhile, Lac Brochet passed on its 34 licenses last year because it didn’t have enough lead time to do the usual winter marketing at sports shows. It is ready, though, for the 1996 season.)

Last year’s hunt ran from Aug. 28 to Oct. 15, and a total of 29 licenses were sold, an “impressive” record for the first year of a new hunt, says the Department of Natural Resources’ Cam Elliott. Nejanilini and Dymond Lake lodges indicated there was a strong demand from potential customers for the non-resident hunt.

Fortunately, a meeting between the disgruntled parties in early December ended in a show of goodwill. Bussidor, Sayisi Dene First Nation councillor and BQCMB member Albert Thorassie and Nejanilini Lake Lodge owners Al and Phil Reid agreed that, among other things:

Nejanilini will make sure benefits from the sale of Tadoule Lake’s 34 licenses-namely meat, employment, and financial considerations-go back to the community
if it applies for an outfitting license from the Department of Natural Resources-and it has since done so-Tadoule Lake will also get to market licenses alone. At least eight licences are guaranteed for the community. (Nejanilini would have to sell all 42 hunts before Natural Resources dips into its reserve of 50 licenses.)
Thorassie will draw up a list of suitable Tadoule Lake residents that Nejanilini could hire
guides must complete training in addition to the generic guide training course in order to meet the lodge’s minimum standards
Nejanilini will deliver the bulk of caribou meat from sports kills to Tadoule Lake. Lodge advertising will talk about the place of the caribou herd in the culture and economy of the Dene of northern Manitoba.

CARIBOU NEWS: THE FINAL ISSUE

After 15 years in the publishing business, Caribou News has been put to bed for the last time.

The newsletter that was born of the need for different and sometimes angry groups across the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herd ranges to communicate with each other, has seen its government funding run out. Starting in November, a much smaller version called Caribou News in Brief will begin publishing. At eight pages printed on 8 by 11 1/2″ paper, the smaller newsletter will carry about a quarter of the editorial content that Caribou News does now.

Originally, Caribou News was to be produced for just two years, improving communication throughout the caribou range and explaining the BQCMB’s purpose. But popular demand soon changed that.

The 16-page publication initially came out six times a year and often included games or quizzes to entertain younger readers. In 1986, government cutbacks forced it to start downsizing and a formal evaluation was called for the newspaper. At a board meeting, Peter Alareak of Eskimo Point said he wanted it on the record that Caribou News is “keeping the Board alive in peoples’ minds.” By July 1987, Caribou News was trimmed back to 12 pages. In 1991, it cut back its frequency to three times a year, and in 1992, to two times.

Since its inception, Caribou News has been written and published by Nortext Multimedia Inc. of Ottawa. The BQCMB allowed Caribou News to run as an independent publication as opposed to a marketing tool that promotes one “corporate” viewpoint. That’s because the voices around the board table have, and continue to be, diverse-representing Inuit, Dene, Métis and Cree cultures as well as provincial, territorial and federal government policies that sometimes shift when governments change.

In 1984, Caribou News won an award for excellence in the National Technical Publications and Graphic Arts Competition sponsored by the Eastern Ontario chapter of the Society for Technical Communications.

Caribou News began in 1981 as part of a community relations program about the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou. In 1980, caribou biologists were warning that the Qamanirjuaq herd was endangered with a population of just 36,000. It was hoped that through communication and debate, Caribou News would facilitate understanding and help the newly formed Beverly and Kamaniruak Caribou Management Board reach solutions on the co-management of caribou. (In 1992, the spelling of Kamanuriak changed to Qamanirjuaq at the request of Inuit.)

The Qamanirjuaq caribou, as it turned out, were not endangered. Preliminary results of a 1982 calving ground survey showed a dramatic increase in the population of the two herds, casting doubt on previous survey results.

The Inuit of Keewatin always maintained that the caribou were not declining.

In 1983, a motion passed by the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly in February reprimanded the wildlife biologists who carried out caribou surveys in the Keewatin in the 1970s, stating that their inaccuracy led to malignment of the users of the Kaminuriak Herd.

What they said
Caribou News sometimes earned the anger of readers over the years, but more often earned their praise.

An editorial published in 1985 was blasted by the Fort Smith Conservation Association, which said “the tactic you chose to divert attention from the Baker Lake hunters’ shameful waste of caribou meat was to accuse “sport” hunters and “conservationists” of being equally affected by overzealousness, ignorance and intolerance. You have given absolutely no evidence to substantiate these claims.”

Kinder words came from people like former NWT premier Nellie Cournoyea who, as Renewable Resources minister in 1985, commented that Caribou News “is a very good magazine. It is easy to read and it deals with practical issues, and I hope it stays like that. It has its audience and does not have to worry about sensationalizing things. I feel comfortable with it.”

Said Rankin Inlet’s Peter Ernerk in 1983: “I think Caribou News is a very good communication tool because a lot of people read that particular paper in the communities where I come from. One of the reasons why people read that paper is because it sometimes contains statements from people in the local communities, Rankin Inlet, Eskimo Point or that readers can relate to.” The former MLA was minister of, among other portfolios, NWT Economic Development and Tourism.

Added John Killulark of Baker Lake that same year: “I am grateful that Caribou News is published and distributed.”

“It’s sure nice to see some people we know in your paper, and also the good news coverage,” wrote Elsie Ladouceur of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta in 1985. “Thanks.”

Last month, the BQCMB’s co-chairman from June 1982 to February 1983, Rich Goulden, recalled that “Caribou News, interestingly because of the quality of the product in terms of the composition — the way it hit you — and the quality of writing . . . got read in ministers’ offices. Places where important decisions were made.” Goulden was once an assistant deputy minister in what is now Manitoba Natural Resources.

“It always looked to me like it was put together by people who cared,” Goulden reflected, “and that’s the difference.”

FOND MEMORIES . . .
Readers reflect on Caribou News

“It was really helpful to the communities. Like, if there be some caribous in endangered species, we would have found out from the news. It would have been really nice if the news were to be continued. If they could find some more funding, then the news could stay.”

– Harold Etegoyuk, secretary/manager
Baker Lake Hunters and Trappers Organization

“We are sorry to hear that Caribou News will be no more. “We” at Arviat have been reading Caribou News whenever we get the News. Most hunter read the News, cause they gave us major stories that the hunter would like to know. We are really sorry that the News have to stop. Hope it will be replaced later in the year.”

– Joshua Curley, vice-president,
Arviat Hunters and Trappers Organization

“Caribou News is a popular and effective publication that will be missed throughout the caribou range.”

– Kevin Lloyd, assistant deputy minister, resource development
GNWT Department of Renewable Resources

“At its inception, Caribou News was the best quality communications news sheet in the field of natural resources community development in Canada. Without Caribou News conveying timely information to all parties who were stakeholders in the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds, I doubt that its management could have succeeded as it has.”

– Rich Goulden, first co-chairman,
Beverly and Kamaniruak Caribou Management Board

WHO WILL INVESTIGATE THE ISSUES THAT CONCERN HUNTERS?

by Marion Soublière

After doing Caribou News for the past three years, I’ve discovered one problem always remains after wrapping up each issue.

There are never enough pages.

There is never enough space, because there’s always an overflow of newsworthy stories floating around the caribou ranges. Covering news about caribou means more than just focusing on the animal. It means looking at the special understanding aboriginal people have of caribou, in step with the strides scientific knowledge is making. It means looking at global pollution and what it does to the land and water on the herd ranges. It means considering recent political changes in the North and figuring out where caribou — who could care less about politics and provincial or territorial boundaries — fit in.

Most importantly, it means looking at the relationship of all the different people in northern Manitoba, northern Saskatchewan and the NWT who are united by the overriding fact that they all care about the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou.

As Caribou News comes to a close, I feel a twinge of sadness for the feature stories that space often didn’t permit: more profiles of communities and individual hunters that would have acquainted readers with life in other parts of the caribou range. More photo essays and maps. Submissions or opinion pieces from residents that would give a day/month/year-in-the-life viewpoint of the 1990s reality of existing in a subsistence economy in Canada.

There aren’t a lot of newspapers or radio and television stations serving the North to begin with. And almost none, perhaps with the exception of CBC, cross boundaries and cover stories in neighboring provinces or territories.

There will be a lot of other stories over the next few years that will grab headlines before caribou do. The division of the Northwest Territories into Nunavut and the Western Arctic. The trial run of self-government in Manitoba. The mining boom that may well transform economies in northern Saskatchewan and the Keewatin area.

The new Caribou News In Brief newsletter will summarize topics the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board are dealing with, but the truth is-at a fraction of the size of the current Caribou News — space won’t permit much more.

So who will investigate in detail the issues that concern hunters?

I’ll keep my fingers crossed that other media will wake up to the fact that caribou are a big part of people’s lives here in the North. And that makes it something worth writing about.

Marion Soublière is the current editor of Caribou News.

WHEN PEOPLE OF GOOD FAITH COMMUNICATE, GOOD THINGS CAN HAPPEN

by Michael Roberts

As the first editor of Caribou News, I believe the publication has served the great caribou herds well. That is what it was designed to do. After 15 years of publication, this is its last issue.

Before Caribou News, hunters and managers were at loggerheads, each group believing they had the right to manage the herds, and with little or no respect for the other’s methods. Caribou News has always taken the view that both hunters and biologists are usually right, and both are sometimes wrong.

Each of us has added a little of themselves to caribou management over the years. My own contribution came partly from my childhood experiences in Salluit and Kuujuaq. There I learned that not everything they tell you in school is true and that great wisdom can be found elsewhere in your community. I learned to respect the Inuit culture, and especially the Inuit love of the land and its animals.

But that respect doesn’t mean that every hunter is always right, especially these days when the old culture has changed. There is sometimes overhunting and wastage. In the same way, my respect for western science doesn’t mean that scientists are always correct. Sometimes caribou surveys are wrong.

But when people of good faith can openly communicate, around a table or through a publication like Caribou News, good things can happen. Wisdom can be found in using several different sources of knowledge. Solutions to difficult problems can be found more easily when people share knowledge and co-operate.

Today, the great caribou herds appear to have a long and healthy future before them. The BQCMB has become a model across North America and beyond for an innovative and effective approach to co-management, a new word that had to be invented to describe what the board does. And Caribou News played its part well. It has ceased to exist because it did its job so well it is no longer needed.

Michael Roberts was the first editor of Caribou News. He is president of Nortext, a marketing and publishing firm with offices in Ottawa and Iqaluit.

MESSAGE HITS HOME IN COLORFUL CONSERVATION BOOKLET

Vibrant and realistic-looking, the BQCMB’s new caribou conservation booklet has struck a chord with teachers and young elementary school children on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herd ranges.

And the former secretary-treasurer of the neighboring Porcupine Caribou Management Board has given it the highest praise possible, calling it a “most excellent publication in comic format introducing the concepts of traditional and scientific management of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds.

“With 25 years of experience in communicating with northern communities on caribou issues, I know a good product when I see it,” writes Doug Urquhart, “and this is certainly the best yet for this purpose.”

“It was simple enough for the kids at my level,” comments Grades 3/4 teacher Grace Whelly of J. B. Tyrell Elementary School in Fort Smith. Each year just before Christmas, Whelly teaches her class about Canada’s aboriginal peoples, and how they lived a long time ago.

“This moves right into a study on caribou,” and when the BQCMB’s booklet was released late last year, “it just dovetailed in nicely.”

The government of Yukon’s education department, meanwhile, obtained copies to accompany a caribou unit that it’s currently producing for use in Yukon’s 29 schools, says First Nations education consultant Sharon Jacobs.

Federal Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin wrote that “I found the booklets that the Board has produced for the schools to be informative, yet easily digestible. They should assist in keeping students interested in the caribou and traditional activities.”

GNWT’s former Renewable Resources Minister, Silas Arngna’naaq, penned this: “It is a well designed publication and the text accurately reflects current knowledge as well as the feelings aboriginal people have for this critical resource.”

The 20-page four-color booklet replaced and updated a 1960s-circa Canadian Wildlife Service comic book (see “People and Caribou” below) that touched on the same topic. With a print run of 13,000, copies of the English-language version have been distributed in NWT, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Two thousand Inuktitut copies went to NWT, and most of the 1,000 Dene books were channeled into northern Saskatchewan, with a small number going to Lutselk’e, Tadoule Lake and Lac Brochet.

The careful consideration that went into the booklet — a team effort among board members for the past two years — has paid off. “Allow me to congratulate you,” writes Manitoba Minister of Natural Resources Albert Driedger. “Conservation education for young people stays with them a lifetime. Your work with young people, the future stewards of these great caribou herds, cannot be overstated.”

VIDEO AVAILABLE IN DENE

The recently released video The Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board: A Model for Co-Management is now available in Dene.

The 22-minute video, sponsored by the BQCMB and produced by Ottawa filmmaker George Mully, can also be purchased in Inuktitut or English. The BQCMB commissioned the video in 1994 to capture on tape the board’s ground-breaking history as a pioneer in co-management. The video’s title comes from a report authored by the parliamentary Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. The committee called the BQCMB “a co-management model to emulate” after hearing repeated praise in testimonies from individuals in Canadian wildlife management.

To order a copy, send your request and $15 to the BQCMB, secretary-treasurer, 3565 Revelstoke Dr., Ottawa ON K1V 7B9.

In other film news, the 33 videotapes of the 1981 Kaminuriak Herd Film project (initiated by the BQCMB) were donated last year to the national Museum of Civilization in Hull, for research and public use.

Engineered by filmmaker Don Snowden, the extensive project was conducted in the wake of fears during the early 1980s that the Qamanirjuaq caribou population was plummeting. The videos were used to improve communication throughout the caribou range, and to help change attitudes.

ARTISTS AROUND THE RANGE

In poetry, pictures, flash cards and sometimes fiesty campside banter, the imaginative Grades 3 and 4 students of J.B. Tyrrell Elementary School in Fort Smith proved themselves worthy winners in their division for the 1996 Caribou Schools Competition.

Four group efforts were submitted by teacher Grace Whelly’s pupils. One, a series of short stories revolving around the trials and tribulations of two hunters out on the land, packed in classic elements of good story structure: conflict, confrontation and occasional soul-searching.

” ‘We shot it? Lets go and get it?’ ” yells Freddy, one of the hunters in Sylvia Charlo’s tale.

” ‘OK but be careful,’ ” answers his companion Louie.

” ‘Oh give me a break. I know what I’m doing,'” is Freddy’s retort.

In Amanda Bohnen’s piece, the two hunters appear in need of a career switch. “I hate to kill caribou even though it tastes better and cheaper than the store meat,” laments one hunter. “I don’t really want to shoot a caribou right now,” agonizes the second hunter. (Fortunately, the story has a happy ending because other hunters come along to finish the job, and then share the meat with everybody else.)

Entries from Manitoba students will be judged later in the year. In Saskatchewan, meanwhile, at Father Gamache Memorial School in Fond du Lac, class projects combining posters and prose took the sweepstakes.

In the kindergarten to Grade 5 division, teacher Sue Speller’s Grade 2 children ruled. There were no second place winners. The Grade 6 to 10 division placed Shelley Johnston’s Grade 6 pupils at the top, followed by Marcia Phillips’ Grade 9 students.

At Ben McIntyre School in Uranium City, Grade 5 writer Nikki Paulo cornered first place with his prose.

MYSTERY OF CALVING GROUNDS LURES SCHOLARSHIP WINNER

Why do caribou return to the same calving grounds, year after year after year?

University of British Columbia zoology student Fritz Mueller wonders if it has something to do with a three-way relationship between plants, soil and the animals themselves. Armed in part with a $1,500 Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Scholarship Fund award, Mueller will get a chance to find out as he searches for clues at the Bathurst herd’s calving grounds over the next three years.

Mueller’s research comes at a time when mining developments in the north are rapidly heating up (see “Mining on the Caribou Ranges” above).

Understanding the allure of calving grounds is “something very few people have actually looked at,” says Mueller. And yet “there are real management concerns.”

In the past, people have wagered that caribou returned to special calving grounds to avoid predators, or get away from mosquitoes. Mueller will investigate whether there is something special about the habitat that draws caribou to their calving grounds in the first place. A GNWT satellite collaring project that’s being done on the Bathurst caribou at the same time may yield more insight. But there are other questions.

Is it possible that, because the caribou are there, they change the way plants grow? With thousands of caribou huddled in the same spot, do they cause the snow to melt more quickly, and plants to grow faster, more abundantly? And does that mean with all the animals come all their droppings, which fertilize the soil, boost nitrogen levels and improve plant growth?

Research gets underway this fall with visits to communities, including Lutselk’e. Mueller will explain what he plans to do (he’ll be working with the Department of Renewable Resources’ Anne Gunn and other biologists). He’ll see if people have concerns about the nature of his work, and will ask residents for their thoughts on why calving grounds are so important. Mueller admits he knows little about traditional knowledge.

More may emerge on that point, though, as the newly formed West Kitikmeot/Slave Study Society gets underway. This Yellowknife-based body, formed last December for a period of five years, brings together Inuit, Dene and Métis, government, industry (largely the mining industry) and environmental groups. Annual funding of up to $2.25 million is provided largely by the governments of Canada and the Northwest Territories. Its goal is sustainable development in the West Kitikmeot/Slave Study area that respects aboriginal values. Traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge will both get star billing, and the Society will try to link research between these two systems.

BQCMB MANAGEMENT SCHOLARSHIP FUND

The BQCMB’s Management Scholarship Fund will accept applications from students proposing research on barren-ground caribou in Canada until Jan. 31, 1997. Applicants from one of the Beverly/Qamanirjuaq communities get first dibs. For more details, contact: Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies (ACUNS), Suite 405, 17 York St., Ottawa ON K1N 9J6. Tel: 613-562-0515; fax: 613-562-0533.

PEOPLE AND CARIBOU

Gold rush or diamond fever — the symptoms of mining mania sweeping the North are undeniable.

Aboriginal communities are bracing themselves for the development squeeze, wrestling with the good and the bad that mining traditionally brings. In order to start solving some of the problems that aboriginal communities find result from the Canadian structure of mineral exploration and development, the Ottawa-based Canadian Arctic Resources Committee staged a workshop on “Aboriginal Communities and Mining in Northern Canada” in mid-April. Among the participants were three Lutselk’e residents: Florence Catholique, Co-Op president, chief Felix Lockhart and the BQCMB’s Lawrence Catholique. “One of the biggest problems in Canada is the lack of understanding between ordinary Canadians and aboriginal people,” Florence was reported to have told the workshop. “But we all have the same interest — none of us wants to damage the water or air.”

Meanwhile, the Athabasca Dene sector of the Prince Albert Grand Council will examine mining, wildlife issues and other community concerns during a sweeping three-day meeting June 25 to 27 at Father Porte Memorial School in Black Lake. Organizers are hoping as many as 40 guest speakers turn out.

BQCMB member Don Thomas is being nominated for the prestigious Northern Science Award, presented annually to an individual who has made distinguished contributions to Northern Canada through their scientific work. Thomas’s fellow board members were to finalize the nomination papers at June’s meeting in Lutselk’e. A caribou biologist for almost 40 years, Thomas has chalked up a long list of research achievements, including recent fire management reports that feature hunters’ priorities, make recommendations to fire-fighting agencies and assign priorities in order to safeguard the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq ranges.

But scientific papers don’t tell the whole tale, says the nomination letter. What distinguishes Thomas is his “long-standing commitment to working with aboriginal people, and involving them in his research.” Since becoming a BQCMB member in 1989, Thomas has “demonstrated a respect for aboriginal values and points of view; and an understanding that Dene and Inuit prefer to make decisions by consensus and prolonged discussion that includes elders in each community.”

The winner of the Northern Science Award, sponsored by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, will be announced around April 1997.

After 10 years with the Porcupine Caribou Management Board (PCMB), secretary-treasurer Doug Urquhart has written his last board minutes. There was no reason for the timing other than “I had to pick a date, or it seemed like I’d never do it,” jokes Urquhart. His successor is former Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation officer Linda Hoffman, who not only is married to the director of fish and wildlife management of the Yukon Department of Renewable Resources (Mark Hoffman), but has-according to Urquhart — “probably done more hunting than anyone on the board.” These days, Urquhart works with First Nations by facilitating workshops on wildlife management, timely given the settlement of the Council of Yukon Indians’ land claim last year. As for his beloved PAWS cartoon strip — immortalized in three books and in the pages of Caribou News throughout our 15-year history — Urquhart’s refreshing and funny characters will live on. Not only on paper, either. A few weeks ago, while doing a workshop in Teslin, YK, a new mom and dad introduced themselves to Urquhart, and then introduced Urquhart to their newborn son Marten — named after the bush-lovin’, trappin’-happy protagonist of PAWS.

Joe Handley has moved from his position as deputy minister with Renewable Resources to become president of the NWT Housing Corporation. Handley saw some stiff challenges in his four years with Renewable Resources — a threatened European fur boycott and several terrible forest fire seasons — but also saw progress in environmental protection and the revision of the Wildlife Act.

A labor of love sometimes calls for a global effort. In Conservation Biology in Theory and Practice, the new book written by GWNT biologist Anne Gunn and the late Graeme Caughley of Australia’s CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology, information and help came from Kenya, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The book, available in Canada from Oxford University Press, looks at the causes of extinction and what can be done to preserve wildlife.

The authors examined 17 endangered species, from the Puerto Rican parrot to the African elephant, and visited several on their own home turf, including the Hawaiian goose.

The book was started after Caughley was diagnosed with cancer. He died in February 1994. “He had that gift,” writes friend Ian Parker in a tribute near the book’s beginning, “which comes with a first class mind, of making the seemingly complex simple.”

Former assistant superintendent Tim Devine of Arviat has stepped in as Renewable Resources’ regional superintendent for the Keewatin area. Devine fills a vacancy left by Gerry LePrieur, who became regional superintendent for the Sahtu area more than a year ago.

Nuhoniyeh: Our Story, a documentary about the displaced Sayisi Dene who were moved involuntarily from Duck Lake to a destitute lifestyle in Fort Churchill almost 30 years ago, edged out 22 other films to win the prestigious 1996 Canada Award. In March, Tadoule Lake filmmakers Allan and Mary Code were presented the award during the live telecast of the 10th Annual Gemini Awards, sponsored by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.

The Codes’ film travels back to 1957-58, when the Department of Indian Affairs relocated the Sayisi Dene following the closure of the Duck Lake Hudson Bay Company trading post, their source of supplies. But the poorly prepared move pulled the Sayisi Dene away from the Qamanirjuaq caribou that fed their families, and instead plunged them into a world where they were forced to scavenge dump sites for scraps.

The jury that selected Nuhoniyeh deemed it a moving tribute and testament to the Sayisi Dene, praising it for strong storytelling and production skills despite few resources. Allan Code created the video portion of the BQCMB’s Caribou Schools Program kit in the 1980s.

Baffin regional biologist Michael Ferguson says it took him more than 10 years to figure out how to understand the traditional knowledge he gleaned from interviews with 43 elders and hunters from the southern Baffin — even though he’d known from the beginning the information would improve the future management of caribou populations. With what he learned, Ferguson was able to map out caribou distributions from 1910 to 1990, and used the traditional knowledge to design modern studies of caribou, the results of which will be made public later this year. Ferguson, who says his decade-long study taught him Inuit knowledge covers larger areas and longer time periods than scientific studies have, is a former Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Scholarship Fund award winner.

A fellow award winner, McGill University graduate Anne Kendrick, has found employment in the field she loves: wildlife. Kendrick is working for the Canadian Nature Federation in Ottawa these days.

Another Canadian veteran in the field of caribou biology died March 12. Frank Banfield, 78 years old at the time of his death, was predeceased last year by colleague John Kelsall, author of The Migratory Barren-Ground Caribou of Canada. Banfield led an industrious life, joining what later became the Canadian Wildlife Service in 1946, and quickly moving ahead as chief mammologist. He also worked as chief zoologist for the National Museum of Canada. Banfield did studies on caribou but was best known for his scientific papers on mammals and his book The Mammals of Canada. Banfield was also responsible for the original caribou conservation comic book that the BQCMB recreated with a modern flourish last year.

Caribou News in Brief: Summer 1996

A ONE-TWO FUNDING PUNCH
But Manitoba, Saskatchewan and NWT quickly reaffirm support after BQCMB loses feds’ funding

Countdown to Nunavut

Environment Canada’s about-face

Provinces, NWT united

New political reality

CHAIRMAN HURT IN HOTEL FIRE

BARREN-GROUND BRIEFS

Marksmen bang on

Reports still due

Hunters blamed

Management plan

Coral Harbour harvest

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Caribou booklet “best yet” of its kind

Contest brings out language skills

Politician pursues feds on country food issue

NUNAVUT STARTS HARVEST COUNT IN INUIT COMMUNITIES

EFFECTS OF SATELLITE COLLARS “MINIMAL,” SAY BIOLOGISTS

But some Dene communities still feel collaring caribou is wrong

SUPPORT DIVIDED

HOW COLLARS WORK

PHYSICAL EFFECTS

APPEARANCES SEEM NORMAL

STILL PART OF THE GANG?

CREE WARY TOO

COLLARS PROVE TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE RIGHT

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Caribou is Life: New 10-Year Management Plan Promotes Shared Responsibility

Caribou News in Brief – April, 2024

BQCMB 2022-23 Annual Report

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Caribou News in Brief: Summer 1996

A ONE-TWO FUNDING PUNCH But Manitoba, Saskatchewan and NWT quickly reaffirm support after BQCMB loses feds’ funding

Countdown to Nunavut

Environment Canada’s about-face

Provinces, NWT united

New political reality

CHAIRMAN HURT IN HOTEL FIRE

BARREN-GROUND BRIEFS

Marksmen bang on

Reports still due

Hunters blamed

Management plan

Coral Harbour harvest

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Caribou booklet “best yet” of its kind

Contest brings out language skills

Politician pursues feds on country food issue

NUNAVUT STARTS HARVEST COUNT IN INUIT COMMUNITIES

EFFECTS OF SATELLITE COLLARS “MINIMAL,” SAY BIOLOGISTS

But some Dene communities still feel collaring caribou is wrong

SUPPORT DIVIDED

HOW COLLARS WORK

PHYSICAL EFFECTS

APPEARANCES SEEM NORMAL

STILL PART OF THE GANG?

CREE WARY TOO

COLLARS PROVE TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE RIGHT

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