ONT-TheNarwhal-ChrisLuna-LakeSuperior-DougBourgeault-WhiteKnuckles (1)

A white-knuckle ride to visit a lonely caribou

Ontario reporter Emma McIntosh penned a love letter to the last remaining Lake Superior caribou — after a boat trip that got a bit hairy
Humbled on White Knuckles
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A white boat with the name "White Knuckles" on it is moored on a beach. There's one person on the bow and three people on shore.


When she got on the boat in Marathon, Ont., reporter Emma McIntosh didn’t know what she was in for. Its name, White Knuckles, should have been a warning sign. “Hah, that’s funny,” she thought to herself, certain she was usually pretty good on boats.

Then, it unmoored into the waters of Lake Superior. The boat weathered rough waves, dodging whitecaps — and Emma found herself, well, white-knuckling it.

“I was quickly humbled,” she told me, laughing. 

Emma and photographer Christopher Katsarov Luna were out on the water this July, making their way to the Slate Islands, where a few of Lake Superior’s last caribou remain.

Before colonization drew settlers toward extractive industries like logging and mining, caribou from different sorts of herds weren’t uncommon sightings. As the forcible displacement of Indigenous communities began, the harm to the natural world and all that lived in it — caribou included — began to unfold.

“There’s something so deeply tragic about what’s happened to the Lake Superior caribou,” Emma told me.

Ontario has been slow to act on saving the lonely ungulates from habitat loss and hungry wolves, even though Biigtigong Nishnaabeg and Michipicoten First Nations have long had plans and urged the government to act on them. 

Now, the caribou are so close to the edge that it’ll take a monumental effort to save them — something we have to learn from if other herds are to avoid the same fate, Emma told me. This is complicated by the fact caribou tend to live in places reliant on logging and mining — just look to herd declines in B.C. and Alberta — where people worry about the economic impacts of conserving land.

A caribou swims across a lake, its head, antlers and tail emerging from the water, with rocky shores behind.
🔗 The lonely Lake Superior caribou and a lesson in limits

It’s why Emma, whose family is also from northern Ontario, wanted to write this love letter to the last remaining Lake Superior caribou in the first place. 

“Every single little thing that allowed my family to prosper came from chipping away at their habitat — and that felt important to sit with,” she said. “It has made me wonder: what do we owe them? Once we start messing with the natural world — when it’s not really natural anymore — what do we owe the creatures that inhabit it?”

Emma readied herself to leave the reporting trip without having seen any caribou. Then, later that day on White Knuckles, her guide finally spotted one, swimming in the lake. “It was pure luck,” she said.

I hope you’ll take some time to read this on-the-ground feature, complete with stunning photos, which might just be a lesson about enacting change in time.

Take care and hold on tight,

Karan Saxena
Audience engagement editor
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Gotta spend money to save money?


Why is the federal government paying millions of dollars to consultants for advice about climate change policies and how to build a pipeline? And whose interests are the consultants serving?

I spoke to our friends at The Big Story podcast about my recent reporting on the controversial international consulting firm known as McKinsey & Company.

I began the reporting this summer after getting a hold of a list of McKinsey’s clients. They revealed how some of those companies are from the Canadian oilpatch and might have interests that conflict with any government action that tackles greenhouse gas pollution.

Later I learned how Trans Mountain, the government-owned energy company, paid McKinsey more than $32 million for advice on how to save money on a pipeline expansion project that was already billions of dollars over budget.

One of the things that stood out for me was how secretive federal officials have been about exactly how much they knew about the work McKinsey was doing for other clients.

You can check out the podcast over here, and don’t miss my reporting on McKinsey’s federal contracts for advice on clean energy and Trans Mountain.

— Mike De Souza, director of investigations and enterprise reporting


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This week in The Narwhal

A bird with a slender body lands in shallow water next to a similar bird
North America lost 3 billion birds in 50 years. An Indigenous-led plan could protect a place where they’re thriving
By Julia-Simone Rutgers
In the Seal River watershed, the site of a proposed Indigenous-led conservation project, community members worked with the Audubon Society to identify more species than were previously known.

READ MORE
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault speaks with reporters, surrounded by cameras and boom mics
Canada never put a cap on carbon pollution from the oilpatch. New draft rules are ‘weeks’ away
By Mike De Souza & Carl Meyer
READ MORE
Illustration in an Indigenous style of a woman with a blanket over her shoulders on a coastal shore, looking towards an orange sunset. There are two stylized salmon in the water and a wolf in the sky.
‘Justice will prevail’: Indigenous families fight to reclaim status and land rights
By Gabrielle McMann
READ MORE
A woman speaks at a lectern with an array of flags behind her.
Don’t ‘axe the tax’: B.C. municipalities take a stand on carbon pricing
By Shannon Waters
READ MORE
Dozens of dancers in colourful jingle dresses dance in a powwow circle
In the powwow circle, Indigenous people are ‘dancing for our families, our Elders and our babies’
By Gabrielle McMann
READ MORE

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What we’re reading


Wet’suwet’en Nation never signed treaties with the Canadian or provincial governments. Yet, the latter took the land and leased forested acreage to logging companies. Today, just 20 per cent of B.C.’s old-growth forests remain, Erica Gies reports for the Guardian.

For Bloomberg Green, Zahra Hirji spoke with Nevada pediatrician Debra Hendrickson about her new book, which details how climate change hurts kids’ health — and what we can do about it. 
A small white dog is held up by the handle of its lifejacket. It is moving its legs as if swimming in the air.

POV: Emma, white-knuckling it on White Knuckles, has just spotted the safety of dry land. Assuming you still have your sea legs, why not forward this newsletter to a friend and remind them to subscribe
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