The Yukon government has rescinded approval of a controversial resource road that would have opened ATAC Resources’ access to vast mineral claims in the Beaver River watershed.

A spokesperson with Yukon’s Department of Energy, Mines and Resources confirmed the decision Monday in an email to The Narwhal. The 65-kilometre ATAC road, which was given a conditional green light by the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board in 2017, would have created all-seasons access to a portion of the company’s three mineral claims that form the Rackla gold property. The new route would have connected Keno City to the Tiger gold deposit, the site of a proposed open-pit gold mine where ATAC Resources hoped to produce 268,000 ounces of gold.

Those who worried the road would have opened an undisturbed watershed to scalable development welcomed the news.

“I am ecstatic,” Randi Newton, conservation manager with the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), told The Narwhal. “I’ve hoped for this outcome for many years, and it’s a relief that it’s finally here.”

“What this decision does is remove a major looming threat to the environment of the Beaver River watershed and it creates the opportunity to set down a sustainable vision for that watershed,” Newton said.

ATAC Resources, a Vancouver-based exploration company, is seeking legal counsel regarding the decision, according to Andrew Carne, the company’s vice-president of corporate and project development.

“ATAC does not agree with many material aspects of the government’s decision,” Carne said in an email to The Narwhal. “The Tiger gold deposit remains a high-quality advanced-stage exploration asset with significant value to be unlocked.”

A spokesperson with Energy, Mines and Resources said the department was unable to immediately provide comment.

Location of ATAC Resources Rackla gold property in Yukon. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Concerns the ATAC road would open up wilderness to growing development

The proposed ATAC road would have provided an initial entrance to the company’s 185 kilometres of mineral claims and exploratory projects. During the road’s assessment and eventual approval by the Yukon government in 2018, many conservation groups and Yukoners expressed concern the road would act as an invitation to further industrial incursion in the watershed.

ATAC Resources currently accesses its claims through a series of trails and by air, making exploration work costly.

A map showing ATAC Resources’ three Rackla gold properties and the location of their airstrips.The ATAC road would have provided 65 kilometres of access to the company’s mineral claims within the Beaver River watershed but those claims extend for a total of 185 kilometres. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

The prospect of a new road caused concern for the CPAWS, which noted easy access could lead to an avalanche of new development proposals, none of which were considered as part of the proposed route’s cumulative impact when it was approved.

The road flamed frustrations that mineral development is allowed despite the absence of completed land use plans. In a recent public engagement process conducted by an independent review panel, participants pointed to the ATAC road as an example of Yukon’s failure to consider the cumulative impacts of mining and industrial development on the landscape.

A report released by the panel found the road “was used as an example of a poor consultative process, where free entry staking was used for the purpose of creating road access to a property against the wishes of the First Nation and community.”

The panel found the road’s approval led to the retroactive creation of “a sub-regional land use planning process outside of Chapter 11, with the assumption made by many that the future road would be part of the plan and the landscape.”

One participant told the panel, “This is planning done entirely backwards and driven by private industry action without consideration of actual community- and Indigenous-driven processes.”

The sub-regional land use plan for the Beaver River watershed was conducted by the Yukon government and the Na-cho Nyäk Dun First Nation, on whose territory the ATAC Resources’ gold claims are located.

Without the ATAC road, some hope the sub-regional land use plan can be scrapped for a broader land use plan that will encompass the entire Beaver River region.

“What this has done is create space to develop a land use plan that’s right for the region, that respects the long relationship that the First Nation of Na-cho Nyäk Dun has with the land, that respects the ties that Yukoners have to the Beaver River and respects the wild creatures that live there,” Newton said.

Na-cho Nyäk Dun Chief Simon Mervyn didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Roads can significantly alter how environments function

Roads can literally slice and dice the environment, affecting the habitat and ingrained migratory patterns of wildlife. The Beaver River watershed is home to moose, wolves and grizzly bears.

The ATAC road would have crossed through wetlands and over rivers, potentially disrupting otherwise intact ecosystems, Newton said.

She added the road would have introduced a cascade of impacts to the watershed, including opening up the region to new hunting pressure.

“There’s beautiful salmon habitat in the Beaver River watershed that could have been impacted,” Newton said. “This 65-kilometre road was very likely the start of what would have been a very long road network.”

CPAWS recently released a report that cautioned the assessment board against approving road projects before land use plans are completed.

A porcupine climbs over a concrete safety barrier on the outskirts of Whitehorse. Photo: Malkolm Boothroyd

“Land use planning can take that broader view of how much development is allowable in an area, which areas should we keep remote and free of roads,” Malkolm Boothroyd, the report’s author and campaigns co-ordinator at the Yukon chapter of CPAWS, told The Narwhal in a previous interview.

“I think we’re hoping that Yukoners will talk about it and figure out how many roads there should be in this territory and what areas we want to keep road-free,” he said. 

“I think what’s very special about the Yukon is that there are still areas that you can’t drive to. That’s incredible habitat for caribou and grizzly bears and that’s really rare in this day and age.”

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To the north of Dawson City, Yukon, lies a large swath of relatively undisturbed wilderness that caught the eye of Art Webster, the former vice-chair of the Dawson Regional Planning Commission.

But in order to protect the landscape, the commission would have to get to it before the miners — a race Webster increasingly felt like the Yukon government was setting him up to lose.

Faced with what felt like an impossible task, Webster recently wrote a letter to Premier Sandy Silver, tendering his resignation from the commission to place a spotlight on what he considers the Yukon government’s disappointing prioritization of mining.

“By allowing the staking of mineral claims, it basically sends out a message saying, ‘This is the highest value of this land, the extraction of minerals’ … at the expense of considering any other values for that land,” Webster told The Narwhal in an interview.

In his letter, Webster said Yukon’s actions are at odds with the “significant majority of Yukon people [who] want specific areas of our territory free of industrial activity and accompanying road infrastructure. They want development prohibited and wilderness protected.”

Mineral staking to be suspended when draft land use plan complete

Webster’s resignation is drawing new attention to the work of the commission, which is tasked with creating a plan that will manage and monitor lands, waters and industry within the Dawson region, a roughly 40,000-square-kilometre area that makes up about 10 per cent of the territory’s land mass. The Dawson is also home to the Indian River watershed, where more than 50 per cent of the territory’s gold from placer mines is produced.

In February, the commission, which was appointed in 2018, requested a meeting with the Yukon government to resolve calls from the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation to temporarily halt mineral staking while a land use plan was developed. That meeting never happened and the government ultimately refused an interim withdrawal, according to Webster’s resignation letter.

Webster said land use contracts should be put on hold during the planning process.

“It kind of defeats the purpose of having a land use planning process if a placer miner can go in and usurp it,” he told The Narwhal.

Ranj Pillai, Yukon minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, said it would be inappropriate to shut down the entire planning area to mineral development but staking will be paused once the draft land use plan is complete in the spring. 

In his letter, Webster noted that Yukon’s plan to implement a staking moratorium once the land use planning is complete “is at odds with … the commission.”

“Our view is that [mineral] exploration is important,” Pillai said. “It’s still important to the economy of Yukon.”

He said the government is working to find a balance between conservation efforts and bolstering the economy.

“We’re committed to getting this right,” Pillai said.

What does the Dawson region contain anyway?

The Dawson region in the territory’s central west is home to the mighty salmon-bearing Yukon River — the third longest in North America — and some old-growth forests that are upward of 140 years old.

According to a regional resource assessment report conducted by the commission, 10 per cent of the planning region is made up of rare wetlands.

“Due to their low abundance relative to other areas of Yukon, all wetland areas in the planning region are considered ecologically important,” the report states. 

Sebastian Jones, wildlife analyst at the Yukon Conservation Society, said the area north of Dawson City is particularly important because it’s mostly undeveloped, a plus for wildlife. 

Compared to the heavily mined placer fields south of Dawson City, this northern part of the region has little to no mining. It’s also essentially roadless, aside from the Dempster Highway, which runs through an eastern portion of the region. This is good news for the Porcupine caribou — a transboundary herd threatened by potential oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — which use this area as part of their winter range. 

The Dempster Highway cuts through a portion of the Dawson region. Aside from the presence of this highway, the Dawson region north of Dawson City remains relatively free of development. Photo: Peter Mather

“The area north of Dawson fits the bill for conservation,” Jones said. “It would have been fairly easy for the government to have withdrawn those areas from mineral staking for the duration of the planning process.”

The planning region overlaps with the traditional territories of several First Nations, including Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in. 

Chief Roberta Joseph told The Narwhal that citizens use much of the nation’s traditional territory for subsistence purposes, whether that’s fishing for salmon or hunting moose. Trapping concessions are common along waterways in the area, too, and there are certain heritage values such as ancient foot trails south of Dawson City.

“The [Yukon River] is important, for example, because it provides chinook salmon,” she said. “We have people who harvest, trap and hunt in many different areas. It’s very widespread.”

Thousands of mining claims already staked in Dawson region

While the planning region is ecologically and culturally rich, it’s also an area that has been extensively mined for well over 100 years, dating back to the Klondike Gold Rush.

There are already thousands of active placer and quartz claims in the planning region. Placer mines, which used to be small but now can be quite large, operate in the beds of rivers and streams and can have enormous impact on watersheds — as evidenced by the dramatic alteration of parts of the Yukon River near Dawson City. 

The impacts of placer mining are very visible in the unnatural pilings running throughout the Klondike Valley near Dawson City, Yukon. Before the Gold Rush, the Klondike River was one of the healthiest spawning rivers in the Yukon Watershed. However, placer mining throughout the Klondike devastated the salmon run in the region. Only in recent years has the river seen a return of Chinook salmon due to significant reclamation efforts. Photo: Peter Mather

Placer mining can damage riparian areas, water quality and fish habitat. Mining in rivers and streams can disturb sediment that can disrupt the growth of plants and insects. The presence of sediment in water can make life difficult for fish by negatively affecting their breathing, eating, movement and reproduction.

A 2002 report from the Klondike Placer Miners’ Association estimated five per cent of streams in Yukon have been impacted by placer mining and that for operations taking place in rivers and streams, “the disturbance or destruction of these wetlands usually cannot be avoided.”

Placer mining is regulated under the Placer Mining Act, which is largely based on laws written in the early 1900s, well before the ecological impacts of the practice were understood. Legislative reviews of the act, which does not prevent the staking of claims in sensitive environments like wetlands, have stalled since they were first promised in 2003.

Read more: ‘It’s An Environmental Law-Free Zone’: B.C. Auditor General Asked to Investigate Unregulated Placer Mining

According to data supplied by Energy, Mines and Resources, there are roughly 18,600 placer claims and 40,600 quartz claims as of Oct. 27, representing about 3.5 per cent and 19.5 per cent of the Dawson planning area, respectively.

The Yukon government invested in 102 mineral exploration projects this summer, 37 of which fall within the parameters of the planning region, said Sue Thomas, a spokesperson with Energy, Mines and Resources, adding that there could be more claims as not all claimholders applied for government grants.

But the number of claims in the planning area appears to be going down, with 5,000 fewer claims compared to 2018, when the commission started its work, Pillai said.

“When people start to say there is going to be an increase [of claims], that’s not what we’re seeing,” he said. “We actually have about eight per cent less claims that are now in that area.”

Pillai added that this likely has something to do with preliminary work on a land use plan for the region, with some miners perhaps anticipating more risk to their businesses.

If areas are identified for protection where claims are present, those claims could be relinquished and miners could be eligible for compensation, Pillai said.

“I am very encouraged and very comforted by the fact that the companies that are working in the Yukon understand how to be good corporate citizens,” he said. “They want to do the right thing because they want to continue to work here.”

Request for staking moratorium in Dawson isn’t new

Chief Joseph said the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation has been calling on the Yukon government to halt staking in parts of the Dawson area since 2007.

She pointed out that the current work of the Dawson commission represents the second attempt to come up with a land use plan for the region.

The first regional planning commission was established in 2010 but put on hold four years later until litigation connected to land use plans for the Peel watershed, the region neighbouring the Dawson, was resolved.

Clouds and mountains above the Snake River in the Peel Watershed, Yukon’s largest wilderness area north of Dawson City. Photo: Peter Mather

The Yukon government faced a lengthy legal challenge from First Nations and conservation organizations over the question of how much land in the Peel should be open to development.

The 15-year Peel watershed saga brought a contested version of the regional plan to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2017. The court ruled in favour of First Nations and environmental groups and the plan was eventually amended and adopted in 2019.

The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in have wanted a land use plan for the Dawson region since 1998, when the nation signed a final agreement with the federal government that settled a claim to their traditional territory. 

Eleven of 14 First Nations in Yukon have signed final agreements, which can help pave the way for future land use plans.

Joseph said her nation anticipated they would enter into a land use planning process soon after they signed their final agreement. 

“But it’s been 22 years and the plan is still not complete,” Joseph said, adding that the delayed land use plan in the Dawson region has resulted in more mineral development.

The goal now is simple, she said: the process for marking certain areas for protection should not be predetermined by the presence of mining. An interim suspension of staking before the draft plan is released would have helped with this, Joseph added.

“We wanted a much more fair process for the land use planning,” she said. “As it stands, there’s been a lot of activity that has taken place over the last number of years, which has already dictated a large part of the Dawson planning area.”

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In early July, Tahltan Central Government President Chad Norman Day boarded a helicopter in Dease Lake, flying to a nearby cluster of rogue mining claims exploiting one of the world’s richest deposits of nephrite jade.

“Jade mining has put a nasty facelift on the land,” says Day of what they saw on the flight. 

“They’ve built roads and ripped up a lot of land and forest.”

Jade miners have also built camps with outhouses and garbage dumps, he says, and the Tahltan suspect the waste is being buried instead of hauled out.

It’s becoming a cliché to say that British Columbia is a “wild west” for mining, but when it comes to nephrite jade, the official provincial gemstone, it’s no exaggeration. 

Location of Tahltan traditional territory in northeast B.C. Map: Tahltan Central Government

Jade placer mining operations occur without an environmental assessment. Photo: Tahltan Central Government

Out on this remote landscape 1,750 kilometres north of Vancouver, critics say there is no active enforcement to speak of, no meaningful requirement for reclamation, and no necessity to consult and seek permission from the Tahltan Nation to work on the land. 

Back in June, Day sent a letter demanding the province take immediate steps to shut down the jade and gold placer mining (mining surface areas near streams and digging in old riverbeds) across the Tahltan Nation’s nearly 100,000 square kilometres of territory. 

Weeks later, Day showed up in person with a film crew to document his eviction of the biggest players, putting them on notice that the party was over. 

The growth of B.C. jade

The term “jade” refers to two different kinds of ornamental rocks — jadeite and nephrite, which have been revered in China since the Stone Age. Today British Columbia is the world’s largest producer of nephrite jade, with deposits documented in more than 50 sites — but nowhere is it more plentiful than in the northwest corner of B.C., including east of the Stewart Cassiar Highway near Dease lake. 

Jade is an unusual mining commodity, says Glenn Grande of the Fair Mining Collaborative: some miners finding it by placer mining, while others mine it from hard rock like other minerals. There’s an opportunistic element to it as well — sometimes big jade boulders are found randomly by miners looking for other things, like gold. 

“It can be a deliberate seek or an accidental find,” Grande says.

In recent years especially, there is a big cash incentive to look for jade. 

Jade scattered on the ground near a placer mining operation. Photo: Tahltan Central Government

Jade claims near Dease Lake, B.C. Because of B.C.’s antiquated mining laws, anyone can stake a mining claim online, even in Indigenous territory.

According to a report from Visual Capitalist, the average AAA B.C. jade price jumped from less than $200 per kilogram in 2004, to around $1,400 per kilogram in 2016. During that same period, average yearly B.C. jade sales grew from fewer than 400 tonnes per year to about 1,000 tonnes per year.

Talk of this lucrative trade is a sore point for Day.

“In terms of Tahltan Nation benefits, revenue sharing, anything like that, benefits that would flow to the nation as a collective and in a significant way, there’s nothing.”

Day points to the “impact benefit agreements” the Tahltan has with other industries — including mining exploration, guide outfitting, logging and clean energy — and says the jade industry will need to follow these examples.

“We’re very experienced in terms of drawing up agreements to make sure that the Tahltan are intimately involved, in processes, especially around permitting and the environment, and that our people and our communities are receiving benefits and opportunities,” he said. “None of these things are currently [in place] with the jade industry at all.”

Placer mining in particular is a bust for the province too: according to research by the Fair Mining Collaborative, B.C. collected less than $79,000 in royalties from 558 permitted placer mines in 2017. That same year, placer gold sales alone were estimated at almost $16 million.

Reality TV catches Jade Fever

Excitement about Dease Lake-area riches has been fanned by the Discovery Channel reality show Jade Fever, which follows a group of financially stressed jade miners, working on and off for Chinese backers, as they do battle with the rough, mountainous topography of jade country.

Like other mining reality shows in recent years — there are at least 13, most dedicated to placer gold mining — Jade Fever is a clarion call to every weekend warrior with access to heavy machinery and dreams of making easy money plucking “million dollar” jade boulders from streambanks and out of mountainsides.

“This isn’t mining,” says one of the hapless miners on Jade Fever. “It’s treasure hunting.”

The drama doesn’t always stop when the camera cuts. In October 2017, CBC reported that Ken Foy, the star of the History Channel’s Yukon Gold was fined $145,000 for the environmental damage inflicted on his placer claim near Dawson City. The actual taxpayer cost was reportedly closer to $1 million.

If Jade Fever is any indication, you find jade not with geological knowledge, but with “your gut” — and by driving lots of heavy equipment through watercourses, drilling speculative holes, and digging big pits in the ground.

Clash of two legal systems

The conflict over jade in northwest B.C. is the result of two clashing legal systems. 

According to B.C. law, the gold rush that started in 1859 never ended; in many cases, mining remains the highest use of Crown land. 

The current system of free-entry not only allows you to stake claims online without physically touching the land, but once you’ve done so, your rights to access the subsurface trump most other land rights.

Jade miners have staked claims and applied for permits that give them the right, under provincial law, to be on the land exploring and mining for jade.

Jade placer mining operations on unceded territory of the Tahltan nation. Photo: Tahltan Central Government

But many of these same miners are coming on to unceded Tahltan Nation territory, without any contact or consultation with the First Nation, creating significant land disturbances and environmental harm as they go.

Although B.C. recently proposed some mining reforms, they only apply to the Mines Act and not the Mineral Tenure Act which undergirds the free-entry system. 

That’s why, when Day was flying around in a helicopter, he was evicting jade miners that have every right to be there under provincial law.

“The online staking regime, it’s definitely illegal under Tahltan law,” says Day. “I’m sure if we took this thing to court at the highest level, the Supreme Court of Canada would likely agree.”

President of the Tahltan Central Government, Chad Day, speaks with a placer miner during the process of handing out eviction notices. Photo: Tahltan Central Government

Implementing new Indigenous rights framework

There is real hope that B.C. mining laws will be reformed in the near future, thanks to the NDP government’s unveiling of new legislation to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP).

Under article 32 the declaration grants Indigenous peoples “the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands or territories and other resources.” 

It also requires governments to “consult and cooperate in good faith” with Indigenous peoples through their own representative institutions. 

When it comes to resource development like mines, UNDRIP mandates governments obtain free and informed consent of Indigenous peoples prior to the approval of “any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.”

Placer mining in some areas takes place along watercourses but has not been subject to an environmental assessment. Photo: Tahltan Central Government

Members of the Tahltan survey placer mining operations from the air. Photo: Tahltan Central Government

B.C.’s proposed legislation, introduced through Bill 41 in late October, would require the province to work in tandem with Indigenous legal systems. 

But just what the integration of colonial and Indigenous law will look like on the ground and in places like Tahltan traditional territory remains unclear, although some have indicated it could be transformative when it comes to long-promised nation-to-nation decision-making. 

It is written into the mandate letter of Michelle Mungall, Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources that her ministry participate in bringing “the principles of the [U.N.] declaration into action.”

Terry Teegee, regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, said the new legislation is likely to bring more certainty to mining operations because it will more clearly establish what is required for gaining Indigenous consent. 

“Consent is about agreement. It is a process to achieving and maintaining agreement … about respecting our laws as equals and as partners,” Teegee said at the B.C. legislature, during Bill 41’s unveiling. 

“One of the greatest uncertainties for project development in B.C. is not knowing if a project has the consent of affected First Nations,” he said. “Laws that are co-developed … will deliver economic, legal certainty and predictability in this province.”

Placer mining operations in a valley. Photo: Tahltan Central Government

“The courts have been clear that Indigenous peoples have rights in their territories and the legislation will help provide a plan and a path forward for all of us,” Sarah Plank, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, told The Narwhal.

In mid-September, Day attended meetings with the ministry to talk about what the implementation of UNDRIP will look like for the Tahltan.

“I think [UNDRIP] will definitely play a role in how to address these issues with jade mining,” says Day. “It’s a hopeful step, but the devil’s in the details.”

No shortage of solutions

Day says another part of the solution is to complete Tahltan land use planning — already under way for several years, buoyed by new funding, which will ultimately dictate where resource development happens in Tahltan territory.

“The big change that needs to take place is that Tahltan land use planning needs to take place ahead of time, to ensure that no outside interests can stake land that [we] have said is off limits.”

Mount Edziza Provincial Park in the territory of the Tahltan nation. Mining occurs on the outer boundaries of this park. Photo: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Day points to the success of the Klappan Plan, unveiled by the province and Tahltan this past summer, which has created three separate land use zones across about 640,000 square hectares, including the subalpine basin known as the Sacred Headwaters. 

In the recent past, this area has been a conflict flashpoint in conflict over coalbed methane extraction via fracking, coal mining, mineral exploration and moose poaching.

Future land use planning like in the Klappan, Day says, will not only determine where resource activities can happen, but will “ultimately bring more certainty to everybody, including industry.”

Make claims conditional

B.C. could solve a lot of problems by making mineral claims conditional, depending on what other activities and uses are competing for the same area, says Jessica Clogg, executive director and senior counsel at West Coast Environmental Law.

This would end the persistent idea, born in the 1860s gold rush era, that mining is always the highest and best use of B.C. land — and could spell the end to mining claims being staked in sensitive First Nations territory, important watersheds for drinking water and fisheries, and more.

“The idea that mineral claims are appropriate in any of these places is a bit crazy, really.”

Day walks around jade placer mining equipment while posting eviction notices at mining camps, some of which were empty. Photo: Tahltan Central Government

B.C. also needs to rethink the statutory right to compensation, introduced by the B.C. Liberals, which forces taxpayers to generously compensate miners if their claims to an area must be sidelined for things like park creation.

Clogg adds that updating B.C.’s mining laws will be a boon to industry.

“If we reform our mineral tenure system to be clearer about where mineral claims and mining activity is not appropriate, it will create greater certainty for industry, and avoid situations where millions and millions of dollars are expended, only to be mired in controversy and lawsuits.”

You only have to think of recent mining history for examples: the ongoing Taseko Mines debacle, the proposed Ajax mine near Kamloops city limits, and now, the rush for Dease Lake-area jade.

Preemptive changes already being made

The province says it has already made changes to begin meeting UNDRIP — including committing $500 million over 10 years to support the construction of Indigenous family housing, and $50 million to revitalize languages.

In mid-September, they also proposed a plan to modernize the environmental assessment process, which could potentially affect placer mining. 

The threshold that would trigger an environmental assessment for a placer mine has been lowered from 500,000 tonnes to 250,000 tonnes of annual “pay dirt.”

(Pay dirt is an old term for mined gravel that is processed in a sluice box, wash plant or other device for extracting precious metals.)

Jade placer mining operations. Photo: Tahltan Central Government

Perhaps the biggest problem is that the miners themselves, often working in very remote locations, would be expected to “self-report” when they reach the threshold to trigger an assessment which means a placer miner has to phone up the ministry and request an environmental assessment.

“Project proponents are responsible for making their own determination as to whether or not their proposed project falls within the thresholds set out in the Reviewable Projects Regulation,” wrote a spokesman from the B.C. Ministry of Climate Change and Environment. “[They] must identify themselves to the [Environmental Assessment Office] if they are reviewable.”

Sharing the benefits of jade

Back up near Dease Lake in July, Chad Norman Day is reading an eviction notice to Claudia Bunce and her husband Robin, the stars of the reality TV show Jade Fever, as the cameras roll.

It’s a strange moment: a film crew is already on the site filming the show, and the Tahltan have brought their own cameras to document the eviction process for their members.

“To be clear, your activities here are unlawful and deeply disrespectful to our Tahltan culture, people and ancestors who shed blood for these lands,” reads Day from the eviction notice he is delivering to Bunce. 

“This letter is your final notice to shut down.”

Months have passed since the eviction notices were presented to the jade miners in Tahltan territory. In the interim at least two miners have indicated to the Tahltan that they have ceased operations and are exploring options for moving forward.

The Tahltan Central Government also confirmed they are now working with the province to chart a path forward. 

The days of the roaring 1860s gold rush are long gone, and the Tahltan are determined to move British Columbia’s jade industry into the 21st century, one way or another.

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