Summary

• The first round of investments from a $375-million fund for Indigenous-led conservation in the territory is being distributed to 21 Indigenous partner governments.
• The funds will support activities on three Tłı̨chǫ protected areas, which cover roughly half of Tłı̨chǫ territory and represent a region three times larger than Banff National Park.
• Funds will also support new and existing Guardians programs, which will generate steady jobs and preserve cultural knowledge that would otherwise be lost.

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A landmark initiative in the Northwest Territories is disbursing $21.6 million to Indigenous governments to support protected areas and Guardian programs.

The funds represent the first round of investments from the Our Land for the Future Trust. The trust came out of an agreement signed in 2024 by the federal government, territorial government, 21 Indigenous governments and private donors that invested $375 million into Indigenous-led conservation in the territory.

The investments were announced Feb. 26 at a meeting in Yellowknife, where the agreement’s partners gathered to review progress.

“It’s an exciting announcement,” Dahti Tsetso, the trust’s chief executive officer, told The Narwhal. With the agreement finalized and funds transferred to the trust’s account, money is now flowing to Indigenous governments to support conservation work at the community level: protecting diverse ecosystems, culturally and spiritually important areas and wildlife habitats.

That, she says, “was always the vision.”

In this first round of funding, Tsetso says each of the 21 Indigenous partner governments is getting resources to work toward area-based conservation goals as well as Guardian and stewardship goals.

In some cases, this will mean managing existing protected areas, such as Edéhzhíe in the Dehcho region or Thaidene Nëné near Łutsël K’é. In other cases, funds will support communities looking to explore or advance protected areas. Both Ka’a’gee Tu and Sambaa K’e First Nations, for example, have been working to establish protected areas that would conserve culturally and ecologically significant zones, home to wildlife such as moose, fish, waterfowl and caribou.

“There’s a number of initiatives that have been ongoing for quite some time,” Tsetso says. “Now the trust can help support their efforts.”

She adds that all of the Indigenous partners have ambitions to either initiate or expand their Guardian work. For instance, the K’ahsho Got’ine Guardians in Fort Good Hope are looking to expand, while the Gwich’in are developing a regional Guardian program.

Protecting roughly half of Tłı̨chǫ lands

The Our Land for the Future agreement covers existing protected areas in the territory, but it’s also expected to support 200,000 square kilometers of new protected and conserved areas, contributing to the federal government’s commitment to protect 30 per cent of Canada’s land and water by 2030. 

Last week’s announcement recognized a big step toward that goal. In November 2025, three protected areas on Tłı̨chǫ lands were officially recognized as Indigenous protected areas by the federal government and added to a national database. The online database is currently being updated to reflect more lands and waters protected as of the end of 2025, according to a spokesperson from Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The three protected areas are known as Tłı̨chǫ Nàowoò K’è Dèt’àhot’ı̨ı̨, Gowhaèhdǫǫ̀ Yek’e Aet’ı̨̀ı̨ K’è and Tıts’aàdı̀ı Nàdèe K’è Wexoedıı.

Altogether, they span 22,565 square kilometers— equivalent to about three times the size of Banff National Park, and encompassing about half of Tłı̨chǫ lands.

“It is a great piece of work,” Tłı̨chǫ Grand Chief Jackson Lafferty says.

He adds that there are also large areas where development is being promoted to support economic self-sufficiency. “It’s a balancing act,” he says. “We’re doing what we can to conserve and also develop.”

 Tłı̨chǫ Nàowoò K’è Dèt’àhot’ı̨ı̨ is aimed at preserving Chief Monfwi’s trails: traditional winter and summer travel routes that connect the four Tłıc̨hǫ communities as well as important cultural and harvesting areas, Brett Wheler, senior policy advisor on sustainability and resource management with the Tłı̨chǫ Government, says.

Similarly, Gowhaèhdǫǫ̀ Yek’e Aet’ı̨̀ı̨ K’è prioritizes the preservation of the ancestral Įdaà Trail, which connects Great Bear Lake to Great Slave Lake. There are important waterways and watersheds situated roughly halfway along the route.

Finally, Tıts’aàdı̀ı Nàdèe K’è Wexoedıı extends along the shoreline of the north arm of Great Slave Lake, and will protect habitat for birds and other wildlife such as caribou.

“These areas have been important for Tłıc̨hǫ people for a long time, basically forever,” Wheler says. Although Tłıc̨hǫ people have protected the areas since time immemorial, a lack of resources to get people on the land had kept them from fully realizing their vision of stewardship.  

The funds from the trust will support the “people component” of the protected areas, Wheler says, including Guardian work, environmental monitoring and cultural programming. One intention is to hire people full time — though the Tłıc̨hǫ Government already has several monitoring programs, patchy funding has meant most employees work on a part-time or casual basis.

The trust served as a catalyst for having the areas officially designated and recognized by the federal government, Wheler explains. In anticipation of funds flowing from the Our Land for the Future, Tłı̨chǫ law governing land protection was updated in 2023. In 2025, the federal government deemed the three areas equivalent to other protected areas, such as national or territorial parks, for achieving conservation goals. As a self-governing nation, the Tłı̨chǫ Government is the sole decision-making authority on its 39,000 square kilometres of land. A land claims and self-government agreement signed in 2003 gave the Tłı̨chǫ Government ownership of surface and subsurface rights on these lands.  

Stephanie Behrens, the Tłıc̨hǫ Government’s manager of lands protection and renewable resources, echoes Wheler.

“Our Elders have always said that the wildlife and the land need us to be out there,” she says. “Having this pot of money really ensures that we’re able to do that.”

Guardians funding will bring jobs, protect culture 

Behrens says the intent is to hire two full-time Guardians in each of the four Tłıc̨hǫ communities, along with a Guardian manager.

Employing Guardians full-time will also provide jobs in an economically challenging time for the region, Behrens says. The territory’s three diamond mines have long been major employers, but are all expected to close by the end of the decade. One is shutting down this month, and the two others are struggling financially.

Tłıc̨hǫ Guardians will help implement work set out for the protected areas, including stewardship, monitoring and harvesting. The work will support the Tłıc̨hǫ Government’s language and cultural programs, but also provide opportunities for individuals to exercise their culture, Wheler says. Elders will provide Guardians with guidance on how to re-establish and maintain cultural trails, along with a network of camps and cabins. 

A lot of that cultural knowledge might otherwise be lost.

“There are only a handful of people that actually know these historic trails,” Behrens says, adding much of her work is guided by her late grandfather’s vision. As an Elder, he was involved in negotiating the Tłıc̨hǫ self-government agreement.“To be able to utilize these trails once again in the way that our Elders and ancestors used to do, I think he would be extremely proud,” she says.

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In December 2023, Hilu Tagoona was sent a pair of maps depicting the area around her Nunavut community of Baker Lake. One map showed mining claims as of August that year. The other showed claims as of December. Tagoona was struck by the scale of the staking. Over a matter of months, the area under active mining claims had overtaken a large swath of land to the west of her community.

Tagoona is senior Arctic advisor for Oceans North, an organization that supports marine conservation. She is also involved with Friends of Land Use Planning, a small group run partly by volunteers that has been advocating for the adoption of the Nunavut Land Use Plan — a document that outlines where development should be allowed and where environmental protection needs to be prioritized. 

The process of building this plan started nearly two decades ago. When The Narwhal spoke to Tagoona three years ago, there was some hope a draft of the plan from 2021 would soon be adopted. But even after being revised in 2023, it remains in limbo, and the claims keep piling up.

Tagoona was not only surprised by the amount of land being staked, but by the fact some mining claims overlapped with zones proposed as “limited use” under the latest draft of the land use plan, including caribou calving grounds and freshwater crossings. In these areas, industrial development would generally be off-limits.

“This is cause for concern,” Tagoona says. “The staking of these sites is almost challenging or going against what communities and Inuit Knowledge Keepers have indicated are areas that need to be protected.”

The region around Baker Lake isn’t the only area that has seen a staking rush in recent years. Across the territory, upwards of 52,000 square kilometres of active mining claims have been staked, according to federal data — an area almost twice the size of Vancouver Island. More than half of these claims have been issued in the past two years.

Friends of Land Use Planning recently commissioned a series of maps that show where mining claims overlap with proposed limited use areas. Drawing on federal and territorial data, they found that, as of May 2025, 14,962 square kilometres have been staked within areas that would be designated limited use zones had the plan been approved.

“Honestly, it’s crazy,” Qajaaq Ellsworth, an outfitter and cinematographer in Iqaluit who is also involved in Friends of Land Use Planning, says. “There seems to be a concentrated effort to stake as much as possible before any limitations are put in.”

In the last few years, mining claims in Nunavut have increased dramatically in what some advocates see as an effort to stake claims before limitations are enacted through the Nunavut Land Use Plan. Existing claims prior to 2020 are shown in yellow on this map, with newly added claims marked in pink. Zoom in to see the increase in claims staked across the territory. Map: Nikita Wallia

Land use plan is a key piece of Nunavut’s creation

The Nunavut Land Use Plan is the largest outstanding piece of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, signed in 1993 by the federal government, the Government of the Northwest Territories and Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut, which represented Inuit at the time and later became Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.

The agreement led to the creation of Nunavut, which previously fell within the borders of the Northwest Territories. It gave Inuit surface rights to roughly 18 per cent of the land in Nunavut and subsurface rights to two per cent of the territory. It also mandated the creation of co-management institutions, including a commission responsible for land use planning, that would give Inuit a say in decision-making about land, waters and wildlife. Once finalized, the land use plan will be the largest of its kind in the world.

Developing such a sprawling plan has been a monumental endeavour, ongoing for the past 19 years. It has involved five drafts and extensive consultation with communities, governments, Inuit organizations, industry and conservation groups, among others

To come into effect, the plan needs to be approved by the Government of Nunavut, the Government of Canada and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., which is responsible for ensuring promises made under the territory’s land claims agreement are carried out. Since the latest draft was released two years ago, however, none of the signatories have signed off on it. And it’s not entirely clear why.

All the while, northern development has become a major talking point. In March, the federal government committed to reaffirming Arctic sovereignty by “unleashing the North’s economic potential.” Similarly, the Government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. — along with the mining industry — have proposed that unlocking the territory’s critical mineral potential could strengthen Canada’s economy, security and sovereignty.

Mining forms the backbone of Nunavut’s economy, comprising nearly half of the territory’s GDP in 2023. In a region marked by high levels of unemployment and limited economic opportunities, the industry supports employment, training and community development.

“No one is arguing against the fact that we need more investment in the North,” Brandon Laforest, lead specialist in Arctic conservation for the World Wildlife Fund Canada, says.

But without a plan in place to guide development, Laforest adds, continued staking in limited use areas and intense pressure to develop the Arctic is likely to create conflict.

“There’s just a major storm brewing,” he says.

A plan nearly two decades in the making stalls out

In 2006, the Nunavut Planning Commission began work on the land use plan to direct resource use and development, starting with broad planning policies and goals. Since then, it has undertaken a behemoth effort of gathering input and information on various types of land use, including culturally important areas, wildlife habitat, future conservation areas and regions with economic potential.

The land use plan aims to promote the well-being of Nunavut residents, striving for a balance between environmental protection and sustainable economic development. It covers the entirety of the Nunavut Settlement Area, which encompasses one-fifth of Canada’s land mass, as well as marine areas between Arctic islands.

Over the past 19 years, the commission has conducted in-person meetings in all Nunavut communities, held hours of public hearings and received hundreds, if not thousands, of written submissions.

The latest draft of the plan assigns areas to one of three land use designations: limited use, conditional use and mixed use. 

Limited use are those areas with year-round prohibitions on certain activities. They include caribou calving grounds and freshwater crossings, as well as some migratory bird habitats and certain watersheds that supply communities’ drinking water. In these areas, land uses such as mineral exploration and production, quarries, roads and hydroelectric infrastructure are generally not allowed. Overall, about 20 per cent of land is designated limited use.

Conditional use areas make up about 12 per cent of the territory. These areas permit all types of activities — including mining and other industrial developments, roads, research and tourism — although there are certain restrictions during specific seasons. For instance, icebreaking for shipping is not allowed in some areas when caribou typically migrate across sea ice, and activities can’t take place too close to polar bear dens during denning season. Mixed use areas, which allow all activities with no restrictions, make up 65 per cent.

“The beauty of this draft is that it was designed by Inuit Knowledge Keepers in the communities,” Tagoona says.

Although there have been some changes to the plan over the years, from a high-level perspective, the past few drafts have held fairly constant, Paul Crowley, a lawyer and consultant in Iqaluit who is involved with Friends of Land Use Planning, says. 

Some parties, including the World Wildlife Fund Canada, Friends of Land Use Planning and community and wildlife groups, hoped to see the 2021 draft adopted. In a 2023 letter to the Nunavut Planning Commission, however, the signatories highlighted several issues.

One area of concern was that limited use and conditional use areas on Inuit-owned lands would impinge on the rights of Inuit organizations to manage those lands. Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., in particular, objected to the impact the draft plan would have on Inuit-owned lands. 

Legal questions were also raised about the plan’s approach to grandfathering pre-existing land use rights, such as mineral claims. Usually, if a project were to undergo a “significant modification” — for instance, if an exploration project were to advance to a mining project — it would be required to conform to the land use plan. The 2021 draft, however, lists 52 projects with existing mineral rights in limited use areas that would be exempt from prohibitions.

In their 2023 letter, the signatories pointed out this approach, which doesn’t give the commission the authority to exempt some projects and not others, does not align with the Nunavut Project Planning and Assessment Act.

Projects with existing rights would also only be subject to some of the land use plan’s restrictions, depending on the work being conducted and when the rights were acquired, according to a legal analysis commissioned by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.

Ultimately, the signatories rejected the 2021 draft. The Nunavut Planning Commission released a revised version of the plan in June of 2023.

In the latest draft, prohibited activities are allowed to proceed in limited use areas that overlap with Inuit-owned lands, provided they have support from the relevant Inuit organization.

The draft also lists 89 projects with existing rights as of September 30, 2023 — 37 more than the previous draft. These projects, which include 86 mineral rights and exploration agreements, as well as three licenses that give companies exclusive rights to explore for or develop fossil fuels, are exempt from prohibitions when they undergo significant modifications, as long as the project remains within the same footprint.

The federal government still administers mineral rights in most of the territory. But with a devolution agreement signed last year, the territorial government is expected to take over responsibility for lands and resources, including minerals, by 2027.

If the 2023 draft land use plan were approved, projects with rights acquired after September 30, 2023, would not be eligible for exemptions, according to Jonathan Savoy, the Nunavut Planning Commission’s director of policy and planning.

It’s unclear if the commission has the power to set this cut-off date, however. According to the legal analysis on the 2021 draft, the commission’s use of a “specifically prescribed and limited list” of projects raises jurisdictional concerns.

And still, not everyone is happy with the latest draft. In a 2024 letter, the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines urged the signatories to reject the plan. The draft imposes substantial restrictions on areas with high mineral potential, the chamber wrote. The approach to existing rights also doesn’t allow for the development of infrastructure needed to support mining, such as all-season roads, airstrips and power generation facilities.

The draft plan “could notionally negate around 60 per cent of Nunavut’s currently known critical mineral potential,” the chamber wrote in an email to The Narwhal.

Others see the plan as good enough.

“We’re not happy with every aspect of it. No one is happy with every aspect of it,” the World Wildlife Fund’s Laforest says.

Given the plan will be reviewed and amended periodically, he added, it doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be finalized.

Since the draft was released in 2023, the signatories have shared little information on the plan’s status.

In an email to The Narwhal, Jacinthe Goulet, a media relations officer with Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, said the Government of Canada is collaborating with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and the Government of Nunavut to understand their perspectives before each party makes a final decision on whether to accept or reject the plan. 

“The decision-making process is taking time, given that the plan is complex and has weighed many interests and objectives, some of which are competing,” she wrote. 

Goulet added the federal government is examining the plan for legal compliance and consistency with federal policies, as well as whether it can be easily implemented, whether it contributes to the regulatory system’s efficiency, and whether the planning process was appropriate.

The Government of Nunavut’s Department of Environment and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., meanwhile, did not respond to requests for interviews or written comments before publication, despite several attempts to contact them over the past month.

“There hasn’t been a lot of movement,” Ellsworth says. “It seems to be kind of a waiting game.”

A missing piece of the regulatory process

Over the past few months, several members of the legislative assembly have sought updates in Nunavut’s Legislative Assembly.

“Many of my colleagues have been asking questions about why it is taking so long for the draft Nunavut Land Use Plan to be approved by the three parties,” Joseph Inagayuk Quqqiaq, MLA for the Netsilik riding, said in May.

“Can the minister provide a clear explanation today as to what specific issues have been causing the delays, and can he clarify what our government’s position is regarding these issues?” he asked.

In June, MLA for Iqaluit-Tasiluk George Hickes similarly pressed the territorial minister of environment for answers.

“When are we going to find out the timeline for the Nunavut Land Use Plan approval or denial?” he asked.

The response to these questions has generally been that the plan is still under review, and that specific issues and legal considerations are being worked out.

“It is with considerable effort that we are trying to balance the needs of different stakeholders,” David Joanasie, the territory’s minister of environment, told the Legislative Assembly in June. He added the three signatories are meeting weekly to discuss the plan.

Hickes told The Narwhal that his understanding is recent elections at the federal government and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. have caused delays. With a territorial election scheduled to take place in October, decisions about the land use plan may fall to the next government, which Hickes worries could cause further delays.

Indecision about the draft plan creates uncertainty about how projects will be allowed to proceed, according to Hickes, which affects investment in the territory.

A lack of an approved land use plan also means a layer of the regulatory system is missing. The Nunavut Planning Commission is supposed to provide the first level of screening to check whether proposed projects align with any applicable land use plan before they can move on to the next stage in the regulatory process.

In the absence of an approved territory-wide plan, the regulatory system has become heavily reliant on the Nunavut Impact Review Board, which generally assesses the impacts of individual projects rather than cumulative effects, according to Laforest.

Relying on the review board also places a heavy burden on communities, he says. It means residents have to keep tabs on individual projects proposed around their communities and make sure they take the time to submit comments, often reiterating their concerns about development in some areas — the same areas they have indicated should be off-limits in the land use plan.

“The tragedy of it is, there’s so much happening all the time around our communities, and many of us don’t have the resources and capacity to continuously submit to every single project,” Tagoona says.

If the land use plan were adopted, she added, it would direct companies away from areas where projects are bound to face local opposition. As an example, she points to a massive, proposed exploration project near Baker Lake, which the Nunavut Impact Review Board recently decided should be modified or abandoned due to its potential for unacceptable environmental and socio-economic impacts. The project would have overlapped with limited use areas.

Tagoona worries about other proposed projects around her community, especially in light of the recently passed federal Bill C-5, the One Canadian Economy Act, which would allow projects determined to be in the national interest to be expedited for development.

While the Act is not expected to change regulatory processes in the territory, Tagoona is concerned the focus on fast-tracking might reduce opportunities for community consultation.

According to Crowley, recent political pressure to develop the Arctic underscores the need for the land use plan.

“There’s only so much investment you can get into this territory. It’s best placed where it’s going to have the best chance of success,” he says.

Crowley added the plan could support the implementation of the One Canadian Economy Act by outlining where projects of national interest might be supported. The latest draft outlines corridors for linear developments, like roads and power lines, some of which territorial leaders have pitched as nation-building projects. One of them is the so-called Arctic Security Corridor, a proposed all-season road and deepwater port that would provide access to mineral-rich areas in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

According to Goulet, with Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, northern and Indigenous governments and organizations are informing the federal government about their priorities, including nation-building infrastructure projects.

With big decisions on large-scale projects ahead, Laforest says it’s high time the plan is adopted.

As the signatories’ review drags on, however, the staking continues. 

Reflecting on the delays, Ellsworth refers to John Amagoalik, an Inuk leader who played a crucial role in the signing of the Nunavut Agreement.

Speaking about the motivation for pursuing land claims in 1976, Amagoalik said: “We want to protect as much as possible of what we have left.”

The longer the process for finalizing the land use plan goes on, Ellsworth says, the less and less there is left.

“Time is not working in our favour,” he says.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

On a swath of frozen ocean outside Cambridge Bay, Nvt., a company has been testing an approach to thicken sea ice to prevent it from disappearing as the climate warms.

The U.K.-based company, Real Ice, is wrapping up its second season of tests outside the Arctic community, which lies on the coast of Victoria Island alongside the Northwest Passage. Its experimental approach involves drilling holes through the ice to pump water to the surface during the coldest months of winter, where it quickly solidifies in the freezing air.

Ice thickening is an example of a category of highly controversial interventions aimed at modifying the climate to combat warming. Real Ice has drawn sharp criticism from scientists, who question the environmental impacts of the company’s experimental efforts and the feasibility of scaling up. 

But unlike many geoengineering projects, Real Ice’s experiments have garnered local support so far. According to the Nunavut Impact Review Board, the work to date is unlikely to cause adverse environmental impacts. Although not all Cambridge Bay residents are aware of the project, those who have heard about it tend to be on board with the initiative.

The community—known as Ikaluktutiak in Inuinnaqtun, which is often translated as “place of many fish”—is home to nearly 1,800 residents, roughly 80 per cent of whom are Inuit. Located on Victoria Island in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Cambridge Bay sits above the Arctic Circle and serves as a hub for the western Arctic. Sea ice forms the backdrop of life for much of the year. As the climate warms, residents have been witnessing drastic changes.

For some, the goal of saving sea ice resonates because it supports the continuation of cultural and traditional practices. Others see applications for sea ice thickening besides fighting climate change. At a smaller scale, it could be useful for building roads, reinforcing snowmobile routes or supporting fish and wildlife populations.

Five Cambridge Bay residents tell us what sea ice means to them, as well as how they see their home changing and, if they have heard about Real Ice, what they think about the effort.

The following interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Talia Maksagak, executive director of the Kitikmeot Chamber of Commerce, born and raised in Cambridge Bay

There’s a lot of things that the sea ice provides to our communities. People travel on the ice to harvest on the mainland, a.k.a. Canada. People travel from Cambridge Bay to Kugluktuk on the sea ice, too. My sister is one of them. They camp along the way, so they go for about a week. It’s better than spending so much money on airline tickets.

Here in the bay, the ice is all smooth. But once you get out into the ocean, to the actual sea ice, it’s like all of these boulders. The way that the ice freezes and moves, you have to really be careful where you drive your Ski-Doo. Cracks in the ice happen earlier and in different areas than they used to be. It’s terrifying because there’s fresh snow that covers the cracks so you can’t always see them.

What we were taught as kids growing up is that there’s a sea ice monster called the Qalupalik who will steal you and take you under the ice forever and eat you. We teach our kids that because we don’t want them to get into dangerous situations. The Qalupalik have really long, stringy hair and really long hands.

I don’t remember the other sea ice legends, but that’s one of the ones where it’s like, ‘Do not go near black ice. Do not go near ice cracks because they’re gonna steal you.’ Terrifying — especially as a little kid.

I was part of some of Real Ice’s engagements. I also put them in touch with my grandfather, and we had a separate meeting. He was sharing cool stories about how they used to sell ice to Japan. They would go out to lakes and harvest all this ice and ship it by cargo to Japan for a special drink they had there. This was in the 1970s. He had some really good stories to share that I honestly don’t think I would have ever heard if Real Ice hadn’t been doing engagements.

We have a bunch of Elders who tell us stories about when they used to go on the ice. From their time to our time, we can’t go at the same time. I’m hoping that when I tell my kids stories, that they can have a similar experience and it’s not drastically changed. I’m very supportive of the Real Ice project because I do have a legacy and a family. I would like them to experience sea ice. But who knows how much it’ll change between now and then.

Henry Ohoilak, a Cambridge Bay Elder who was born in Igloolik

Long ago, we used to live in tents or snow houses in the winter. That’s how I grew up. I was mostly out on the land until I was 14. I would go into town only to resupply. We would fish, hunt, do chores. I was never bored and never lonely. You always have something to do when you’re out on the land.

One of the best parts was when my parents would bring a sled-load of fish to the co-op in Paulatuk. We would make an ice house to keep the fish in. We would build ice walls and then cover the top with plywood, so no animals could get in. Once in a while, we would go out in the ocean and go seal hunting.

We would go by dog team and see what kind of animals we could see. Dogs, they can find where the seal area is. When you find that area, you make the dogs go away a little bit and stand there really quiet, until you hear breathing. When the water comes up, you harpoon. The last time I went seal hunting like that was around 2003. I miss being out on the land.

The weather’s been changing quite a bit. The decreasing ice is kind of hard to detect with snowmobiles, but with dog teams it’s okay. Snowmobiles, you can’t hear the ice cracking, but dog teams know which way to go. They know when the ice is too thin. They just feel it. I grew up using dog teams, then I tried snow machines, and I don’t like machines. There was a dog slaughter, so the dogs are just coming back slowly.

I worry about melting sea ice for the younger people. It doesn’t matter to me because I can’t go out anymore. I worry about how the younger people are going to survive. Most of them are only playing with their phone, not paying attention to who’s teaching them. I feel sorry for the generation to come. When we’re gone and they want to do something for themselves, who’s going to teach them?

I only heard about Real Ice for the first time recently. That could be a good idea, but I don’t know. They can try. If the youth can learn about ice, it could be good for the future.

Navalik Helen Tologanak, a journalist and Elder in Cambridge Bay

I was born in that time before Cambridge Bay was ever built, or when it was just being built. It was quiet back then. Less people, there were no vehicles, barely any snowmobiles. No housing. Planes once a month. I was just a young girl, so I never really knew the difference, but now I know the difference, that it was very quiet and peaceful.

I went to school from kindergarten to grade three by dog team. We would travel across the bay to the federal day school. By that time, we all had to go to school as little kids. Then I was forced to go to residential school and move away from my family and my grandparents and my Elders, my community.

I’m not a hunter, but I’ve seen changes on the land. We don’t have any caribou anymore. I used to sit and watch caribou go by, heading from the ocean up towards the calving grounds. You don’t see that anymore. Muskox used to be everywhere. When you drive out onto the roads or out to the ocean, you could see muskox grazing everywhere. Not anymore.

We’re finding more grizzly bears coming to the island. They live more in the tree line area, but now they’re coming further north because it’s warming up. We never had that before. The grizzlies are very wild. They’re starting to wreck tents and cabins and look for food.

I went on a cruise ship a few years ago. What I saw really saddened me. The ice breaker was crushing the ice to make a trail for the fancy cruise ships coming through the Northwest Passage. That’s not right, that’s too much noise and pollution. It’s scaring all the animals away. I was at a hamlet meeting yesterday with the manager there, and he said we had 14 ships here last summer. That’s a lot.

I haven’t heard about Real Ice. But the changes make me sad. Breaks my heart. I miss the good old days. Life has changed here. But at same time, there’s lots of good things too.

Brent Nakashook, board member of the Ekaluktutiak Hunters & Trappers Organization and general manager of Kitikmeot Foods

Seeing if you can thicken ice from the bottom by flooding the top, that’s something that’s definitely interesting. There’s a project that’s proposing a road from Yellowknife right to the Northwest Passage, which potentially could connect us to the mainland by road. I think this project may play a role in that. There’s a lot of funding that’s been committed to the road project. They’ve been coming to the community. I actually asked one of the representatives jokingly, ‘When’s the earliest I’ll be able to drive from here to Las Vegas?’ Having something other than access by air would definitely help us as far as cost of living.

Having ice around longer could help our fish stocks too. The best fishing happens when the ice is melting and still there. The invertebrates that localize under the ice feed on the bugs that die on top the ice, and then the whole chain starts basically with ice.

There was a project that I took part in that took climate change into consideration and actually measured the biodiversity that’s happening from it. They said that there’s more life happening because of the warmer temperatures.

The polar bears are doing better. Grizzly bears are obviously doing better. The only things that are struggling are the herds of muskox and caribou, which seem to be, for the most part, struggling because there are more wolves and grizzly bears. And I guess humans play a role, too. But I think the more active environment might have a little more pressure on them because they’re not used to having all these other animals in their environment. That’s something that I’ve noticed personally. 

The ocean seems to be having more life right from the bottom up. So that’s something that needs to also be considered. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and paint everything grim. I’m not saying it’s a great thing happening. I’m just saying there are some winners in this and there’s losers.

Jim MacEachern, chief administrative officer of the Municipality of Cambridge Bay

I’ve been with the municipality since 2010. I also help coordinate with search and rescue. The ice melts sooner and it freezes up later in the year, which for travellers out on the land causes life and safety issues. When individuals are travelling, whether it’s on the ocean or across a lake, if the ice is not as thick as it should be at that time of the year, there’s more of a chance that the traveller is going to go through the ice. We’ve had that happen several times now in the past four or five years.

It takes a significant toll on the community, especially on the search and rescue crews. It’s challenging for them. It’s not easy work. And it takes an emotional toll as well. Almost everybody is related in one way, shape or form. When they’re out there, they’re rescuing their family members, their relatives.

Real Ice did a presentation up at the Canadian High Arctic Research Station. They explained a little bit about what they were looking for, and they were taking feedback on who they should engage with and who they should talk to.

My initial thinking about the project, and it’s still the same [now]: Anything that we can do to improve the safety and the ability for the Inuit to get out on land, anything we can do to improve that, the better. One hundred per cent.

This story was supported by a field reporting grant from the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, funders have no editorial input.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Just outside the Arctic community of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, two snowmobiles take off down an icy track. It’s a sunny, -13 C evening in May, and the high-pitched whine of engines cuts across the bay. The race lasts less than 10 seconds. Over a speaker, an announcer declares the winner, and another pair of riders make their way to the start line.

The races are part of Umingmak Frolics, the community’s annual spring festival, and take place on top of the frozen ocean that surrounds Victoria Island. Alongside the track, a crowd of roughly 200 has gathered to watch. The yearly festival also features traditional games, a parade, a fishing derby and a baby crawl contest. The sun won’t set until almost midnight, although this time of year it never gets completely dark.

For much of the year, life in this Inuit community revolves around — or happens on — sea ice. It not only serves as a venue for snowmobile races, but also a platform for fishing, hunting, accessing other communities, transporting goods and simply getting around town. But as the Arctic rapidly warms, residents are witnessing the effects of dwindling ice. They’re also on the frontlines of an effort to save it.

About seven kilometres farther off the coast, researchers from the U.K. company Real Ice have been testing an approach to thicken sea ice so that it lasts longer into the summer. Their experimental method involves drilling holes through the ice and pumping seawater to the surface during the coldest months of winter. In the frigid air, the water quickly freezes, adding to the ice below. This past winter, the team pumped water in December, January and February. In May, they returned to the community to check on the thickened spots.  

So far, the researchers have tested their approach over small areas, but their vision is to eventually refreeze one million square kilometres of the Arctic using underwater drones and hydrogen-powered pumps. The goal is to prevent — and potentially reverse — sea ice loss to help keep the planet cool.

Real Ice is wrapping up its second winter of experiments outside of Cambridge Bay, with backing from the University of Cambridge and the U.K. government. The project falls under the umbrella of geoengineering, a controversial category of climate-modifying interventions that includes tactics such as spraying reflective particles into the stratosphere to dim the sun, building giant underwater curtains to prevent ice sheets from melting and fertilizing the ocean to enhance its ability to absorb planet-warming carbon dioxide.

Despite their noble ambitions, geoengineering experiments have often been met with public opposition. In 2024, a Harvard-led project aimed at measuring the behaviour of reflective, sun-dimming particles in the stratosphere was abandoned after an initial test flight set to take place in Sweden drew backlash from a local Indigenous organization and environmentalists. In Alaska, a project proposing to spread tiny synthetic glass beads over sea ice was criticized by locals and cancelled due to potential risks to both wildlife and humans. Mexico is moving to ban solar forms of geoengineering, as are a growing number of U.S. states. Closer to home, a rogue ocean fertilization experiment off the coast of British Columbia in 2012 was condemned nationally and internationally.

Geoengineering is divisive among academics, too. While a growing number of scientists see geoengineering as a necessary form of climate action, others say such interventions are impractical, risky and a dangerous distraction from critical efforts to reduce emissions. Climate-modifying technologies also raise ethical issues. In the Arctic, attempts to fix the climate — often proposed by outsiders — have the potential to put northern communities at disproportionate risk while attempting to solve a problem that largely isn’t of their making.

But in Cambridge Bay — a hamlet of roughly 1,800 residents, most of whom are Inuit — people are largely supportive of the Real Ice project.

“I think almost everybody’s in agreement,” Jim MacEachern, chief administrative officer for the Municipality of Cambridge Bay, says. The more informed the community is about changes in sea ice and tools to mitigate those changes, the better, he says.

Project tackles the looming threat of an ice-free Arctic summer

The idea behind the Real Ice project has its roots in a place entirely unlike the Arctic: Arizona.

In a 2017 paper, researchers from Arizona State University proposed the notion of artificially thickening sea ice using wind-powered pumps.

“The Arctic is really the critical piece,” Steve Desch, a professor of astrophysics and the paper’s lead author, says. Desch typically studies ice in space. But after becoming disillusioned with the slow pace of climate action, he started looking for solutions to buy humanity time, turning his attention to the icy North.

Arctic sea ice regulates global temperatures by reflecting sunlight back out to space. As sea ice melts, it gives way to open water, which absorbs solar radiation instead of bouncing it back. Though some level of Arctic ice contraction in summer is historically normal, the self-reinforcing cycle of warming and melting has become extreme.

In recent decades, the extent and thickness of sea ice has been rapidly shrinking. Since 1979, the volume of ice that survives the melt season has declined by roughly 70 per cent.

A future where the Arctic is mostly ice-free in summer has become almost inevitable. Researchers predict this situation could arise as soon as the 2030s, even if nations cut emissions faster than they currently are. An ice-free Arctic could raise global temperatures by an extra 0.19 C — roughly equivalent to a decade’s worth of warming.

But if sea ice were thicker, it might survive the summer, according to Desch’s research.

In 2019, Desch’s paper caught the eye of Cían Sherwin, then a graduate student at Bangor University in Wales. At the time, Sherwin was volunteering on a project looking into ecosystem restoration technologies, including ways to counteract sea ice loss.

In 2022, Sherwin co-founded Real Ice to further investigate the idea of ice thickening. The team conducted an initial demonstration in Nome, Alaska in 2023. In early 2024, they relocated to Cambridge Bay, drawn to the community’s long-lasting sea ice and cutting-edge research facility, the Canadian High Arctic Research Station.

In 2024, the team pumped water onto an area roughly the size of a U.K. football pitch. They also conducted initial tests of a custom-built hydrogen-powered water pump. This past winter, using battery-powered pumps for the sake of efficiency, they re-iced an area of roughly 200,000 square metres — about four times the size of Toronto’s Rogers Centre.

Preliminary results are promising. In the winter of 2024, the ice in the test area was an average of 25 centimetres thicker than a nearby control area. This winter’s data has yet to be analyzed, but as of May, re-iced areas were nearly half a metre thicker on average than control areas, the researchers say. Re-iced areas are also thickening from the bottom, suggesting the approach stimulates natural ice growth by reducing the insulating layer of snow.

Residents want to protect sea ice, and the cultural traditions that go with it

According to Sherwin, the team’s relationship with the community of Cambridge Bay has also been positive. “We’ve been welcomed really well here,” he says.

Talia Maksagak was born and raised in Cambridge Bay. When she first heard about the project, she says the goal of saving sea ice immediately resonated.

“I’ve experienced a lot of changes in the climate in my 30 years,” Maksagak says. As the executive director of the Kitikmeot Chamber of Commerce, she helped the Real Ice team organize consultations when they first started working in the community.

“We used to see muskox right on the street and the roads, and caribou very close. My children don’t get to experience that because of how much it’s changed,” she says.

In Cambridge Bay, residents are experiencing the impacts of warming in other ways, too. Ice melts weeks earlier in spring and freezes months later in fall. Animals’ movements across the ice — including caribou’s twice-yearly migration to and from the mainland — are impeded, with some breaking through thin ice and drowning. Changes in the ice also put people at risk. Dangerous ice cracks show up in unexpected places, and in recent years, several people have fallen through thin ice.

Even the community’s spring festival has not been spared. For the past few years, organizers have had to schedule Umingmak Frolics a week early. This past winter was so mild it was unclear if the snowmobile races would happen at all.

If the community starts working toward saving sea ice now, Maksagak says, maybe local cultural practices and stories tied to the ice can continue for longer.

Henry Ohoilak, an Elder in the community, echoed Maksagak, saying he hopes future generations have the same opportunities he did. Ohoilak grew up on the land until he was 14, living in tents or snow houses, depending on the season, and travelling by dog team.

“I feel sorry for the generation to come,” he says, adding that Real Ice might help get the youth off their phones and out learning about ice.

Not everyone in Cambridge Bay knows about the project yet. Sherwin and his colleagues have conducted five public consultations since January 2024, which drew 50 participants. The community and its environment are constantly being studied by researchers drawn to the Canadian High Arctic Research Station, however, causing some residents to disengage.

“There’s just a small group of people that show interest in this stuff,” Brent Nakashook, a board member of the local hunters and trappers’ organization and general manager of the community’s fish and meat processing plant, says. Nakashook has also served as a local guide for the Real Ice team.

He described the community’s approach to new projects as welcoming, as long as they don’t pose a risk to natural resources. Many projects do: a pre-print co-authored by 42 scientists warns that geoengineering in the Arctic could cause “severe environmental damage and comes with the possibility of grave unforeseen consequences.” Injecting aerosols into the stratosphere, for instance, could alter global climate patterns, reducing rainfall in some regions, and underwater curtains could act as a barrier to marine life. In comparison, critics say thickening sea ice poses less of an inherent risk to the environment, although it is not entirely risk-free. 

Some Cambridge Bay residents have raised concerns about possible impacts to wildlife. For now, Nakashook thinks the research is unlikely to cause environmental harm. The Nunavut Impact Review Board, through which the team applied for research permits, also concluded the work to date is unlikely to cause adverse environmental or social impacts.

“We’re in the early stages, and we’ll see where it goes from here,” Nakashook says. The project is expected to undergo an environmental assessment as the research continues.

If negative effects arise, Nakashook says the project will be required to stop. 

He added, “It’s still interesting that somebody is giving it a shot.”

Research team focuses on community relationships

On an overcast morning, Sherwin and his colleagues mount snowmobiles and head to their research site to take final measurements of the re-iced areas. They bump across the ice in pairs behind Nakashook, who is the researchers’ guide for the week. Eventually, they reach one of the re-iced spots, which looks indistinguishable from the surrounding environment. Hardened, wind-swept snow stretches across the horizon, blurring into a sky of nearly identical white.

The team swiftly gets to work, drilling cores and measuring the thickness of snow and ice. The ice cores will be used to check that the new ice isn’t unnaturally salty, which could make it melt more easily in the spring. So far, the researchers say the ice seems to be rejecting brine quite well. 

As they work, the team chats and jokes around. It’s an unlikely mix of personalities. Along with Sherwin and Nakashook, Desch and another co-author of the 2017 paper are in the field, as are two doctoral students from the University of Cambridge. One student, Jacob Pantling, an engineer with a British accent, is the subject of much teasing from Nakashook, a skilled hunter and casual jokester.

When Nakashook offers everyone pieces of dried or smoked char as a mid-morning snack, he tells Pantling: “Have some fish, Jake. You need to build some muscle.”

“What are you saying? I’m not muscly enough as it is?” Pantling responds, laughing.  

The community’s relationship with the Real Ice team was described by one resident as “comfortable.” That hasn’t happened by chance.

Sherwin is mindful of avoiding the extractive dynamic that has often characterized Arctic research. He’s also careful to learn from the mistakes made by other geoengineering experiments. According to Sherwin, the ultimate downfall of projects such as the sun-dimming experiment in Sweden and the effort to spread glass beads on ice in Alaska was a lack of public consultation.

“The technology, obviously, is one part of it, but I think the engagement was the ultimate kind of nail in the coffin,” he says.

From the early stages of the project, Sherwin has sought to understand what northerners think about ice thickening. He initially travelled to Iqaluit to gauge interest in the technology. Since starting work in Cambridge Bay, the team has spoken with Elders, held a demonstration for middle schoolers and consulted with local organizations to select a site that wouldn’t disturb hunting or fishing activities. The researchers have also been hiring community members to work on the project and hope it will eventually be largely locally owned and operated.

Still, the team is conscious of not imposing their ideas or making assumptions about what residents want. They acknowledge that there may be certain benefits to declining sea ice.

“There are reasons to recognize that there is a give and take about the changing Arctic,” says Hilairy Hartnett, director of the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington and a co-author of the 2017 paper. Both Desch and Hartnett are now science advisors with Real Ice.

Some scientists skeptical of ice thickening at scale — but it could make a local impact

Compared to other types of geoengineering, the technology itself is somewhat familiar to people, Sherwin notes. A similar approach is already used to build ice roads and skating rinks.

In fact, Sherwin sees ice thickening as closer to ecosystem preservation than geoengineering. Because it enables a natural process, he says, restoring sea ice is akin to saving rainforests, peat bogs or coastal sand dunes.

Not everyone agrees. Outside of Cambridge Bay, some scientists warn that pumping water on top of ice could alter the region’s ecosystem. There have also been serious doubts about the feasibility of scaling up to a meaningful extent. The project’s ultimate goal, which would involve re-icing large swaths of the Arctic much further north than Cambridge Bay, would require an estimated 500,000 drones and cost $10 billion per year. And as sea ice drifts between international boundaries, ice thickening projects may face jurisdictional barriers.  

The fundamental issue, however, is that ice thickening does not address the root cause of sea ice loss, according to Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, who is not involved in the project.

“This is a Band-Aid,” he says.

Nonetheless, Serreze thinks there may be a role for the approach at a smaller scale to improve ice conditions for Arctic communities.

That’s what Cambridge Bay residents see in the project, too.

Sea ice thickening could be used to build a road to the mainland in winter, according to Nakashook. Already, a project has been proposed to build an all-season road from Yellowknife to Grays Bay at the edge of the Northwest Passage, just south of Victoria Island. An ice road across the passage could provide the final stretch.

Thickening snowmobile routes could also help keep residents safe, according to MacEachern.

Sherwin and his colleagues plan to continue working toward a larger-scale demonstration, with the goal of re-icing a 100-square-kilometre area three winters from now, likely somewhere farther away from the community.

But even if ice thickening were only ever used locally, Sherwin says he would be satisfied. The project would still have succeeded in providing residents with a means of addressing some of the problems they face, he says.

For MacEachern, combatting climate change is not top of mind.

“Anything we can do to improve the overall climate, great,” he says. “But the local impacts are the number one priority.”

This story was supported by a field reporting grant from the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, funders have no editorial input.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Get the inside scoop on The Narwhal’s environment and climate reporting by signing up for our free newsletter.

When Francois Rossouw saw that the summer of 2023 was shaping up to be a dry season in the Northwest Territories, he took steps to protect his home.

Rossouw lives off-grid in the boreal forest, about 30 kilometres outside Yellowknife. Having previously worked in forestry and wildfire logistics, he was no stranger to FireSmart — a program that offers recommendations on how to reduce wildfire risk to homes and communities.

That spring, Rossouw cleared dead wood from around his house. Although it’s not a key part of the FireSmart guidelines, he set up a sprinkler system on his property. He also installed a fire-resistant metal roof, which was only completed about a week before a wildfire raged toward his home, triggering a three-week evacuation.

The fire ultimately came within about 15 kilometres of Rossouw’s property. Even now, though, he doesn’t want to get rid of the spruce trees that envelop his home. FireSmart recommends removing combustible material within 1.5 metres of a building and removing or replacing flammable vegetation within 10 metres. But Rossouw worries that eliminating vegetation would dry out the ground, making it more prone to burn. His home is also sandwiched between a lake and a highway, so he depends on the forest for privacy in some spots.

“If I was to FireSmart to their measurements, I would have no trees on my property,” he said. “Well, what’s the point of living here?”

The FireSmart program took shape in Alberta in the early 1990s. Concerned about fires in the wildland-urban interface, a handful of provincial and national agencies and organizations formed Partners in Protection, a coalition aimed at reducing losses through awareness and education. In 1999, the group put out the first of many FireSmart manuals, outlining practical steps individuals and communities can take to reduce wildfire risk.

Despite the increasing frequency and intensity of Canadian wildfires in the decades since, Rossouw isn’t alone in his reluctance to apply some of FireSmart’s guidelines. While there is growing awareness of the need to adapt to increasingly destructive, climate-fuelled blazes, implementation of the program remains low.

“The uptake has not been huge,” Alan Westhaver, a wildfire mitigation consultant who helped develop the FireSmart program, said.

In British Columbia, FireSmart offers free home assessments, which provide tailored recommendations on reducing wildfire risk. Once a homeowner completes the recommended work and a follow-up assessment, the home is certified as FireSmart. Out of 7,428 assessments completed throughout B.C. since 2021, only 116 homes have been certified, according to Hannah Swift, chair of the FireSmart BC committee.

“It’s a really high standard, so it’s hard to get,” she said. But even the number of assessments completed represents a drop in the bucket compared to the number of homes province-wide.

There are places where FireSmart has seen success. Logan Lake, B.C., became the country’s first FireSmart community in 2013, and the work to manage fuels in the surrounding forest, implement FireSmart practices around houses and install rooftop sprinklers helped save the town from a wildfire in 2021. Interest is also growing: in Vernon, B.C., residents of a large strata complex recently spent $225,000 to remove 670 metres of flammable cedar hedges — an “unheard of” level of investment and work, according to Wes Brassard, the city’s FireSmart coordinator.

Considering the scale of the wildfire threat, however, experts say implementation is far from where it needs to be.

Nationwide, about 12 per cent of the population lives in the wildland-urban interface, where communities face the risk of wildfire because of their proximity to forests, according to a 2021 study. That amounts to more than four million people. And as Canada scrambles to address a nationwide housing crisis, millions of new homes are planned for wildfire-prone areas, the Canadian Climate Institute recently reported.

“We are, in my view, behind the curve in terms of getting homes and communities ready for fire,” Eric Kennedy, associate professor of disaster and emergency management at York University, said.

Research on wildfire mitigation has long focused on how and why things burn, but implementation is a social science issue. Some researchers are moving toward examining human factors that influence why we act to reduce the risks — or not. Scaling up, they say, will require addressing common barriers, accounting for the ways people make decisions and adjusting solutions to different local contexts.

To create fire-adapted communities, experts say, the public needs to better understand how to live with fire, but fire professionals also need to hone their skills in working with people.

An expensive undertaking

The FireSmart program was modelled after Firewise, a similar program in the United States. It also drew on research going back to the 1970s showing how a building’s characteristics and its surroundings affect its chances of surviving a blaze.

FireSmart guidelines for homeowners are largely built around the concept of the home ignition zone, an area within 30 metres of a building. The zone is made up of three concentric priority areas, each with its own batch of recommendations intended to address a specific aspect of fire risk.

Within the first 1.5 metres, the goal is to reduce the likelihood that embers will cause ignition. That might mean choosing non-combustible building materials, keeping the roof and gutters clear of debris and clearing vegetation around the house. Further away from the structure, recommendations focus on managing the spread of flames and the intensity of radiant heat by, say, using fire-resistant landscaping and pruning evergreen trees.

Evidence suggests FireSmart recommendations can make a meaningful difference. After the 2016 wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alta., Westhaver investigated why some homes survived in otherwise charred neighbourhoods. Unharmed homes generally exhibited FireSmart attributes, he found, while those that burned often did not.

In every fire, Westhaver said, there’s a damage-free building that ends up labelled a “miracle house.” But, he said, “Every time you look at one of those situations, it’s not luck and it’s not random. That home was not easily ignited.”

According to Amy Cardinal Christianson, a Métis fire scientist and policy advisor with the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, FireSmart recommendations are grounded in solid science. The issue has always been implementation.

“How do we get homeowners to actually do these things that are being recommended?” she said. There’s also the question of how to handle renters, and others who have little ability or incentive to invest in protecting their homes. In Indigenous communities, Christianson said, many people live in homes owned and managed by the Indigenous government.

While a slew of factors influence adoption, by far the most common barrier identified by Christianson and others is financial.

In an unpublished analysis from 2018, Christianson and her colleagues estimated that retrofitting a 186-square-metre (or 2,000-square-foot) home in the Edmonton area to FireSmart standards would cost between $37,000 and $54,000. That price has likely since increased, she said. Last year, a U.S.-based non-profit estimated that retrofitting a similar-sized home in California would cost between US$2,000 (for simple tasks, like installing a thin sheet of metal where a deck meets a wall) and US$100,000 (for a full renovation using fire-resistant materials and components).

According to Robert Gray, a fire ecologist in British Columbia, census data suggests the median age in many rural B.C. communities is in the high 50s to low 60s, and the median household income is often less than $80,000 a year.

“You’re asking people who physically can’t do the work, on a fixed income, to spend tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said. “That’s not going to happen.”

While some FireSmart recommendations require minimal effort and investment, depending on the situation, these steps alone may not be enough, Christianson said. 

The financial incentives available only help offset a small part of the cost. In B.C., certain communities provide rebates, often set around $1,000, for recommended FireSmart measures. Some insurance providers also offer discounts to clients with FireSmart-certified homes or in FireSmart-recognized neighbourhoods, but these can be difficult to access.

When Christianson looked into applying for a discount, she found she would have had to make tens of thousands of dollars worth of changes to her home. Meanwhile, her insurance provider would only have shaved a few hundred dollars off her annual premium.

Clouded judgement gets in the way, sometimes

FireSmart is not the only disaster mitigation program that has struggled to take off. Whether the hazard is fire or flooding, getting people to protect their properties is a real challenge, Glenn McGillivray, managing director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, said.

More than 30 communities in Canada provide homeowners with incentives to install devices that prevent basement flooding. In virtually every case, McGillivray said, uptake is dismal, even when the money provided will entirely pay for the work.

“It’s very puzzling,” he said. “You can theorize until you’re blue in the face, but it’s a pretty complicated issue. You’re getting into human nature, basically.”

McGillivray and his colleagues are trying to figure out what an ideal incentive program for mitigating basement flooding would look like by reviewing past and current programs to determine what has helped and hindered uptake. Cognitive biases are known to cloud people’s judgement when it comes to preparing for disasters — we tend to focus on the near term when weighing costs, for instance, and follow the herd in our decision-making. Although it’s still too early to say what a program designed for both human and logistical considerations would look like, McGillivray said, the findings will likely be transferrable to wildfire.

Decision-making around wildfire mitigation is not always straightforward.

When Tara McGee started studying wildfire social science in Canada in the early 2000s, the line of thinking was that experiencing wildfire once would lead people to implement FireSmart recommendations. But that’s not always what happens, the professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta said.

After a fire, some people think they are unlikely to experience another in the near future. Others develop doubts about the effectiveness of mitigation measures.

Recent history shows that communities devastated by wildfire do not necessarily build back to be more fire resilient. Last year, Lytton, B.C., abandoned its plans to rebuild in line with FireSmart guidelines, citing the prohibitive cost of mitigation measures. In Fort McMurray, too, FireSmart implementation continues to be patchy. According to a 2022 survey, roughly 80 per cent of residents had cleaned up dead vegetation close to their homes, but only 19 per cent were willing to replace siding with fire-resistant material.

Part of the problem may be a lack of public understanding of how homes ignite, said Magda Zachara, FireSmart Canada’s program manager. Many think homes burn because of an encroaching wall of flames, she said, and that nothing they do can stop something so powerful. But in most cases, wind-blown embers are the source of ignition.

“Once people have that knowledge and understanding, then the mitigation recommendations we make start to make more sense,” she said. 

Responding to the local context can improve uptake

Mitigation recommendations may also need to be better aligned with the way people think about managing risk, according to Travis Paveglio, professor of natural resource sociology at the University of Idaho.

Paveglio and his colleagues have studied wildfire mitigation in communities throughout the western United States, finding that differences in social characteristics — how people work together, who they trust and how they understand the role of fire in the area — influence how communities approach adaptation.

One of the most robust findings in wildfire social science, Paveglio said, is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Drawing on at least 20 years of case studies, Paveglio and his colleagues have come up with five broad categories of community types, or “archetypes,” with distinct social contexts. In each archetype, certain approaches to mitigation are more likely to be adopted than others. 

For instance, communities with more formal, suburban structures tend to be inhabited by professionals who generally trust government. Residents are likely to support education programs or regulatory approaches to mitigation. In contrast, residents in rural, resource-dependent communities tend to be highly knowledgeable about wildfires, and may not respond well to being told what to do. In these communities, informal, grassroots methods might be most promising.

In the U.S., the Firewise program tends to resonate more with some community archetypes than others, Paveglio said. That may be true for FireSmart too: while the program is intended to be flexible and community-driven, in the past, it has often relied on simply giving people information on best practices without considering specific communities’ context, according to Christianson. In some places, she said, the approach fits in well with local values, while in others, the recommendations are not as doable. 

The FireSmart team is trying to expand the program’s appeal, particularly in Indigenous communities. Last year, FireSmart released an educational graphic tailored to Indigenous and northern communities. Since 2022, FireSmart BC and the First Nations’ Emergency Services Society of British Columbia have also run an Indigenous outreach alliance, where FireSmart coordinators working for First Nations can share feedback on the program and suggest adjustments to better align with their communities’ needs and values.

The situation is improving. In B.C., the number of people employed to deliver the program locally has nearly doubled in the past year. 

While many communities are doing good work, Christianson thinks there is still a need for more fire experts who understand their local context and are trained to work intensively with people toward adaptation. 

That, she said, is the hard work that has yet to happen at scale.

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On a wintry morning in Behchokǫ̀, a community roughly 100 kilometres northwest of Yellowknife on the shore of Great Slave Lake, leaders of more than 20 Indigenous governments and organizations from across the Northwest Territories gathered for a day of speeches, jigging and drum dancing. They were joined by representatives of Crown governments, philanthropists and community members, including toddlers, teenagers and Elders. The crowd had assembled to celebrate the signing of one of the largest Indigenous-led land conservation agreements in the world.

“Today is a big day,” Danny Gaudet, Ɂek’wahtı̨dǝ́ (elected leader) of the Délı̨nę Got’ınę Government, said at the Nov. 14 celebration. 

The event, which took place at the Behchokǫ̀ Cultural Centre, opened with a fire-feeding ceremony on the edge of a frozen lake. Later, attendees moved indoors, where they listened to leaders’ reflections on the occasion, shared a lunch and, finally, pushed aside the tables and chairs to dance under a large drum-shaped light fixture. 

“We’ve been removed from the land for 100 years,” Gaudet told the assembled crowd of more than 200. “This signing allows us to go back. It will help us go back to our traditions and our culture.”

The agreement, known as NWT: Our Land for the Future, provides $375 million to support Indigenous-led conservation and stewardship activities, including the establishment of new protected and conserved areas, Guardian programs, ecotourism, traditional economic activities and climate research, among others.

The deal combines $300 million from the federal government with $75 million from private donors, using a funding model inspired by practices employed by bankers and Wall Street executives — as far from conservation efforts as they may seem.

Altogether, 22 Indigenous governments and organizations signed the agreement — representing the majority of Indigenous nations in the territory — along with the federal government, the Government of Northwest Territories and private donors.

This level of collaboration is rare. Several attendees commented on how they had seldom, if ever, seen so many N.W.T. leaders in the same room.

New protected areas cover a region larger than Great Britain

The expanse of protected and conserved areas that could come out of the agreement is huge. By funding the management of existing protected areas and the establishment of new ones, the deal has the potential to cover roughly 380,000 square kilometres. This includes approximately 200,000 square kilometres of new protected and conserved areas, which is roughly the size of Great Britain.

“That’s how much is at stake here, and that is why I think this is such a historical moment,” Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Gary Anandasangaree said.

The new conserved areas would contribute more than two per cent to the federal government’s commitment to protecting 30 per cent of Canada’s land and inland water by 2030. It would bring the total protected area in the territory to more than 412,000 square kilometres, or more than 30 per cent of the territory. 

The agreement, however, is about a lot more than protected areas, according to Dahti Tsetso, deputy director of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, an organization that supports Indigenous-led conservation and stewardship. Tsetso played a key role in convening the agreement’s partners and facilitating negotiations.

“It’s not just about the hectares, it’s really about the people,” Tsetso said.

The funds mean Indigenous governments will be resourced for their stewardship and conservation work, she said, which might involve establishing or growing Guardian programs and implementing cultural or land-based programming.

These activities have a big impact, according to Tsetso. Young people will have examples of leadership to look up to, she said, which could catalyze interest in further education and promote community healing. 

The agreement, she told The Narwhal, “has so much transformative potential.”

As the funds are dispersed over the next decade, the initiative is also expected to support hundreds of jobs each year. It will provide opportunities for economic diversification by bolstering a conservation economy and building up Indigenous governments’ capacity to engage with industry and regulators, thereby supporting a balance between conservation and development.

“It’s the beginning of a new journey for our nation,” Tłı̨chǫ Grand Chief Jackson Lafferty said at the gathering.

Addressing the room in Behchokǫ̀, Dehcho First Nations Grand Chief Herb Norwegian said, “We are going to create something totally beautiful, something totally unique.”

An up-and-coming model for conservation

To reach this landmark agreement, signatories used an innovative approach to conservation finance known as project finance for permanence, or PFP.

The agreement, also known as the NWT PFP, is one of four initiatives using the project finance for permanence model announced by the federal government in December 2022. A project in the Great Bear Sea, in British Columbia was finalized last summer, while initiatives in Nunavut and northern Ontario are still being negotiated.

The model is intended to address funding issues that often hamper conservation work. 

Funding arrangements differ from one conserved area to another, but in many cases, they run on minimal public dollars and short-term grants. Effectively managing these areas over the long term in the face of inadequate and uncertain funding is a constant struggle. As one conservation leader put it in a 2012 article, “Our goal this year is to hold off disaster, and to raise the money for the next year so that we can live to fight another day.” 

More than a decade later, Indigenous-led conservation still faces similar challenges.

Ts’udé Nilįné Tuyeta, an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) established in the Northwest Territories in 2019, covers a swath of boreal forest near Fort Good Hope. The protected area receives just over $200,000 per year from the N.W.T. government, according to a 2023 MakeWay report. But its annual operating budget is closer to $3 million.

“We’re just kind of going on the fly with whatever funding we have now,” Daniel Masuzumi Sr. said. Masuzumi is the executive director of the K’ahsho Got’ine Foundation, the management arm for Ts’udé Nilįné Tuyeta. He said he spends roughly 75 per cent of his time trying to cobble together funds. 

Jessica Jumbo, who worked as Sambaa K’e First Nation’s environment and lands coordinator from 2011 to 2023, echoed Masuzumi’s comments. (Jumbo is now the director of lands and resources for Dehcho First Nations.)

“Even when you’re doing that, there’s not enough funding to keep any of your community members on a permanent, year-round basis,” she explained, which makes attracting and retaining staff difficult.  

“The turnover is really high,” she added.

In 2011, a group of former investment bankers, management consultants and conservationists developed the project finance for permanence model, with the intention of providing a more sustainable approach to long-term, large-scale conservation. They drew on Wall Street practices for organizing and funding expensive, complex projects, such as dams and power plants.

In the model, partners coalesce around a shared conservation goal, laying out all the plans, funding and policy changes needed to sustain that goal’s long-term success. These initiatives typically leverage both private and public funds, with investors committing their funds upfront when the deal is closed to finance all the essential components of a project simultaneously. In this way, project finance for permanence aims to ideally provide full, perpetual funding to conservation initiatives.   

This approach to project finance is common in private industry, but it is relatively new to the world of conservation. The basis for the model came from lessons learned from the Great Bear Rainforest agreements in coastal B.C. in 2006 and 2007, as well as major conservation projects in Costa Rica and Brazil. Project finance for permanence initiatives have since been explored in a handful of countries, including Bhutan, Colombia and Mongolia.

In the Northwest Territories, the possibility of applying this model of conservation financing first arose in 2021. At the time, the territory was already a leader in Indigenous-led conservation, with three federally recognized IPCAs established within its borders. These initiatives, along with Guardian programs, had demonstrated the benefits of the work, and leaders were looking for additional support. Around the same time, a group of international philanthropists formed a collaboration aimed at tackling large-scale conservation using the project finance for permanence model. Meanwhile, Canada was looking for ways to meet its 30-by-30 goal.

In 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced $800 million for four initiatives, one of which was the Northwest Territories’.

Tsetso had recently come into her position with the Indigenous Leadership Initiative when she was tasked with assembling partners for the project finance for permanence initiative. At first, she wasn’t familiar with the model. Neither were many of the Indigenous partners she was charged with convening.

“At the very beginning, a lot of people had never heard of such a thing,” Tsetso recalled. The early discussions focused on ensuring everyone understood what the initiative was about.

Tsetso said another big part of the process was driven by Indigenous governments’ expectations for true collaboration.

“Literally every element of the agreement, all the advocacy efforts around it, even the public communication for this initiative, has been co-drafted,” she said. “We spent countless hours together on Zoom with everyone’s legal technical advisors, reviewing every single word, every single provision.”

“The investment of time and energy and capacity by all partners was staggering,” she said.

Given the number of partners at the table, she added, the final agreement was reached in record time.

Indigenous self-determination a ‘top priority’

A draft of the final agreement was tabled at the N.W.T. Legislative Assembly on Nov. 1. It lays out the initiative’s objectives, core activities, financial plan, strategic plan and oversight mechanisms.

The funds will be held by a trust. A bill to create that trust was swiftly passed in the legislature prior to the signing of the agreement at the celebration on Nov. 14.

Of the $375 million, $285 million will be directed to a conservation and stewardship fund, which will be spent down over a 10-year period. The remaining $90 million will go into an endowment fund, which will cover ongoing operational costs and, eventually, the management of established protected and conserved areas.

Exactly how the funds will be distributed has yet to be determined, but several bodies will be formed to provide oversight. All 28 signatories will appoint a representative to a partnership table to provide overall guidance on the initiative’s implementation. In addition, Indigenous governments will appoint five directors and donors will appoint two directors to form committees to oversee the fund. 

Private donors include the Metcalf Foundation, The Sitka Foundation, The Waltons Trust, Ducks Unlimited, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Wyss Foundation, Bezos Earth Fund (founded by Jeff Bezos, founder and former CEO of Amazon) and ZOMALAB (co-founded by Ben Walton, grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton). 

Given the big players involved, the project finance for permanence model has sparked concerns about the interests of private donors. A project finance for permanence initiative in Chile that eventually fell through was criticized for allegedly giving wealthy donors influence over the country’s environmental decision-making.

In the N.W.T., however, participating Indigenous governments appear to be comfortable with private donors’ involvement.

“These were tough negotiations,” Steve Ellis, who represented the Łútsël K’é Dene First Nation in negotiations, told The Narwhal. “Ultimately, private donors, I think, understood that this is a place where Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination is the top priority.”

Tom Dillon, senior vice-president at the Pew Charitable Trusts, was involved in bringing together the private donors. He said the initiative’s governance is set up to give the Indigenous communities authority over decisions.

While all seven directors appointed by Indigenous partners and donors will govern the fund’s financial management, only the five directors appointed by Indigenous partners will decide how funds are distributed among Indigenous governments and organizations. 

“There’s a level of trust between the community leaders and the philanthropies that goes both ways,” Dillon said.

Conservation funding agreement designed to withstand political changes

The bulk of the funds will be spent over the next 10 years, so the agreement falls short of providing a truly permanent solution to funding challenges, Ellis said. Nonetheless, he thinks it will provide a significant leg up in terms of establishing robust stewardship and conservation programs.

With a federal election on the horizon, the project finance for permanence model will also provide stability over the coming years, regardless of potential changes to federal leadership. The Conservative Party of Canada, which is currently leading polls, did not respond to a request for comment regarding their support for Indigenous-led conservation initiatives by publication time.

Project finance for permanence “agreements have been designed to be politically agnostic of who’s in power,” Eddy Adra, chief executive officer of Coast Funds, explained. Coast Funds manages the funds from the Great Bear Rainforest agreement and the Great Bear Sea Project Finance for Permanence. Since the first Great Bear Rainforest agreement was signed in 2006, Adra said changes in federal and provincial leadership have not altered governments’ financial commitments.

In the Northwest Territories, the initiative stands to make a substantial difference over the coming decade, according to Jumbo.

Although Jumbo was not able to attend the celebration in person, she said she teared up while watching a livestream of the event.

“This means a lot for our people,” she said. The funding will help communities work toward their Elders’ vision of what protecting and working with the land should look like — something communities have been holding onto for so long, she said.

While the signatories celebrated the end of a years-long negotiating process last week, much of the work still lies ahead. As the Northwest Territories initiative moves into its implementation phase, Tsetso said oversight bodies, policies and operational budgets will have to be put in place. If all goes well, she said, the funds should start flowing next spring. Over the coming decade, partners will also be tracking the impacts of the conservation work to demonstrate its value and, hopefully, attract future investments to the initiative.

At the celebration, Gaudet described signatories as having reached a starting line rather than a finish line.

“We have tons of work to do,” he said, “and the journey has just begun.”

Editor’s note: The Narwhal has received funding through Metcalf Foundation and Sitka Foundation, which are also listed as donors to NWT: Our Land for the Future. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, no foundation or outside organization has editorial input into our stories. All of The Narwhal’s funding is disclosed annually.

Updated on Nov. 21, 2024 at 2:10 p.m. PT: This story has been updated to correct a caption which mistakenly identified Itoah Scott-Enns as her sister, Dahti Tsetso.

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