Łutsel K’e, N.W.T. — Our nine-passenger Cessna drops 2,000 feet out of the sky as pilot Andy Brock descends into the East Arm of Great Slave Lake. 

Seen up close, the blurry and distant landscape resolves itself into full relief.

What had been a low, rolling landscape of bogs and Canadian Shield rock as we left Yellowknife to the west now pops up like braille: imposing cliffs drop off into the world’s deepest freshwater outside of Siberia. Wind blows up the East Arm, catching the waves and pulling them over into whitecaps and swaying the tiny plane’s wings as it buzzes overhead. 

Jutting out from the shoreline in the distance is the small community of Łutsel K’e, population 303.

With me on board is a group of conservationists from Nature United making their way to Łutsel K’e to celebrate Canada’s newest national park: Thaidene Nëné (pronounced THIGH-den-nay NEN-ay), The Land of the Ancestors. 

The park — part wildlife conservation area, part territorial park and part national park reserve — makes up 26,525 square kilometres of lakes, old-growth spruce forests, rivers and wildlife. 

It straddles the tree line, a fuzzy border between the boreal forest and the barren lands to the north. In that way it can act as a buffer against climate change, providing a refuge for the species that live on the edge, such as caribou, relieving those animals of the stress development brings.

The community of Łutsel K’e at sunset. Photo: Pat Kane

“If you think of an intact, unimpeded watershed — and how many of those are left on the planet, really? — I mean, that’s an incredible opportunity that Thaidene Nëné has,” says Kris Brekke, executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society for the Northwest Territories.

The smooth ceremony heralding the park’s inauguration belies the rough, incremental negotiations that have brought it there. 

Like the landscape itself, the process looks cleaner from afar.

Thaidene Nëné was first proposed in the 1960s, and now after five decades and a fundamental inversion of the power structure between the federal government and the Łutsel K’e Dene First Nation, the park is becoming a reality. 

Its creation speaks to a rebalancing of Parks Canada’s relationship with Indigenous communities and a rethinking of the colonial mentality of creating parks by removing people from the land.

“It’s almost a complete flip,” says Rob Prosper, a retired VP of parks establishment and conservation for Parks Canada.

James Marlowe meets the group in his ancient blue pickup truck moments after the plane kisses the gravel landing strip. The East Arm is legendary among anglers for its enormous lake trout, but, remote and lacking in infrastructure, it has been mostly left out of Yellowknife’s tourism boom. Marlowe started River’s East Arm Tours in the last year, with some government support for equipment and licensing, in anticipation of a spike in tourism. 

“I know that it’s a good business and since I have the equipment on hand, I’ve decided to see if I can take people out on fishing tours,” he says. 

Marlowe’s truck bounces into an empty lot next to his house on the edge of Łutsel K’e. The makeshift camp is a collection of canvas wall tents — the preferred bush lodging, lined with spruce boughs and fitted with a small wood stove — a lean-to over a picnic table, an outhouse and a small wash station. 

“Welcome to The Ritz,” he says.

James Marlowe reclines by the fire at “The Ritz.” Photo: Jimmy Thomson / The Narwhal

‘This is our highway’

There are no hotel rooms available in Łutsel K’e the week of the Thaidene Nëné announcement. On a quiet day, there might be as many as 10 rooms available, but this is among the busiest days the community has had in years.

Łutsel K’e’s handful of meandering and nameless dirt roads are surrounded on three sides by water, making up a vaguely rectangular community that was only established in any permanent form a generation or two ago. But the community is strong, with an enduring connection to its lands and waters; more people here own boats than cars, Chief Darryl Marlowe explains. There are no roads connecting Łutsel K’e to the rest of the territory. 

“This is our highway,” he says as we cruise out on the lake in the boat he inherited from his grandfather. 

There are no highways connecting Łutsel K’e to the rest of the Northwest Territories. Photo: Pat Kane

The community of Lutsel K’e, as seen from the water. Photo: Pat Kane

The water, now calm after its mid-afternoon bluster, reflects the evening light as Marlowe’s boat skims along. Across the water from Łutsel K’e is the Frontier Fishing Lodge. The community is buying the high-end business; it will form one cornerstone of its strategy for growing the tourism industry, from its current three independent startup operators to a more centralized system complete with bookings, promotional materials, accommodations and networking. As it is now, none of the tourism businesses in town has a website or booking system.

With or without the fishing lodge, the community expects the financial returns from Thaidene Nëné to be substantial. A $30 million trust fund — established by a $15 million federally matched donation from Nature United — will generate dividends for the community. The fund is expected to roll off at least $1 million per year, which can pay for guardians, training, planning, research partnerships and youth engagement: “Anything that’s about taking care of this land,” explains Jenny Brown, the director of conservation for Nature United.

“It’s critically important,” she says of the trust fund. “The park is three different governments working together to manage it, and without a source of revenue for Łutsel K’e to perform that role, it would be difficult for them to do that.”

Jenny Brown, the director of conservation for Nature United, sits on the back of Marlowe’s truck at “The Ritz.” Photo: Jimmy Thomson / The Narwhal

That money and the activities it enables could make the difference between the community being able to take meaningful part in managing Thaidene Nëné National Park Reserve and sitting on the sidelines. Without that capacity, several people told The Narwhal, the community would not have agreed to accept the park — but it did, with 88 per cent support in a February vote.

Cruising alongside Marlowe’s boat is a crowded vessel carrying Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna, surrounded by aides and Parks Canada officials (though without the personal security she recently took on amid ongoing harassment. “You’re safe here,” Marlowe assures her). 

The camp the community has prepared for McKenna includes a second group of canvas wall tents and a fire. Two trout, fresh from the lake, are roasting on the fire. The peaceful setting is a welcome reprieve from the ramp-up to the federal election, her aides say, a lull before the storm of campaigning.

McKenna’s hosts for the night are the Ni Hat’ni Dene Rangers, the Watchers of the Land. As the “moccasins on the ground,” guardians are the embodiment of the First Nation’s relationship with its land. Crews made up of paired adults and youth monitor, patrol and conduct sampling operations across the territory. They interact with tourists and other users of the area, gently reminding them whose territory they’re visiting.

The Ni Hat’ni Dene Rangers transport Environment Minister Catherine McKenna to their camp. Photo: Jimmy Thomson / The Narwhal

Ni Hat’ni Dene rangers on patrol near Łutsel K’e. Photo: Pat Kane

“The importance [of the guardians] for me and the community is just knowing that we have our own people out there, monitoring the waters that we know,” explains Prairie Desjarlais, who heads up the program. “No one’s disrespecting it.”

The guardians are expanding into year-round operations now, and expect to add new teams and new responsibilities such as monitoring caribou. 

Ashton Catholique is 15 years old, and has seldom been out on the land. But he knows he wants to be a guardian. It’s not just a chance at a job, though the opportunities are set to grow in the coming years. He says it’s a chance to learn the traditional skills and “to pass them down to the next generation.” 

Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna meets with youth, including Ashton Catholique (right front) and members of the Ni Hat’ni Dene guardians. Photo: Pat Kane

A 2016 study of the Ni Hat’ni Dene Rangers program found a $4.5 million investment in the program had returned $11.1 million in social, environmental, economic and cultural benefits. It decreased crime. It strengthened language retention. It increased the availability of traditional foods. The study suggested that a sustained, long-term investment by the government would increase those benefits. 

“This renewed responsibility for territory is going to bring a mentality in a community that’s going to encourage people to stay in school, to participate in traditional territory management and the pride associated with playing that role,” explains the now-retired Prosper, who, aside from his work for Parks Canada, is a member of the Acadia First Nation

Accordingly, that basic premise — having the local people on the land, monitoring their own waters — has been baked into the park. 

Standing by the water of the East Arm, McKenna explains that she expects the concept to be a central part of most new park negotiations in the future.

“This is part of reconciliation,” she says. “When you talk about reconciliation, often it’s an abstract concept, but in the context of protected areas, land, water, air, animals, ice ⁠— that’s really everything for Indigenous peoples.”

A musk ox mother and calf appear on the hill above the camp where McKenna stayed the night. Musk oxen have become increasingly common near Łutsel K’e. Photo: Jimmy Thomson / The Narwhal

Suddenly, yells from up the beach interrupt McKenna’s train of thought. A pair of CBC reporters have spotted a mother musk ox and her calf, on a ridge overlooking the campsite. McKenna, never having seen a musk ox, tears off to get a look. It’s explained to her that the animals have become ubiquitous near the community lately, even verging on an annoyance (indeed, that night, the animals would have to be chased away from the minister’s campsite after wandering in amongst the tents). 

But to the outsiders watching the exotic northern animals amble across the horizon, it’s a small taste of what the park will be protecting.

Changing parks

‘Protecting’ may be too strong a word here — and that, explains McKenna, is a long overdue approach.

“Could you imagine establishing a park where the Łutsel K’e Dene weren’t allowed to hunt or fish?” McKenna marvels in her speech at the following day’s ceremony, witnessed by a room packed with First Nation members and guests. The musk oxen spotted by McKenna’s camp will be fair game for Indigenous hunters within the park.

That’s in line with what some conservation organizations have been saying for years. “Economic diversification has to be part of conservation,” says Tracey Williams, Northwest Territories lead for Nature United. “You have to have revenue,” she says, if the community is going to have a diversity of opportunity for its people.

A circle dance forms around the sacred fire prior to the signing ceremony. Photo: Pat Kane

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna makes an offering of tobacco to the fire at a ceremony before the signing. Photo: Jimmy Thomson / The Narwhal

Parks Canada, it seems, would agree. 

The agency will create “opportunities to advance the socio-economic well-being of Indigenous partners,” reads a Parks Canada document released in July. The document commits the agency to working with Indigenous communities to maximize local economic benefits — not just cultural benefits — from parks.

Long before the current era of reconciliation-driven conservation, however, and far from McKenna’s disbelief at a park without Indigenous harvesting, a previous generation of government officials could scarcely have imagined the current park.

“There’s some horrific stories by Indigenous people,” says Steven Nitah, a former chief who acted as chief negotiator for the Łutsel K’e Dene First Nation during the planning process. 

Wood Buffalo National Park looms large in the minds of northern Indigenous peoples, especially the Métis. It was established in 1922, and “all Aboriginal rights were considered extinguished,” a Parks Canada webpage reads. Some Indigenous harvesting was allowed, but only in arbitrary ways dictated by government officials. Métis were excluded entirely for more than 80 years.

Nitah says the policies were violently enforced.

Steven Nitah, Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation’s lead negotiator for Thaidene Nene National Park. Photo: Pat Kane

“I know of a story where a family was forced out at gunpoint — and after walking to a community that they’d never lived in before, they burned their home,” he says.

Kevin McNamee, director of protected areas establishment for Parks Canada, says that while he isn’t aware of those exact events, the history of Wood Buffalo is a troubling one for the agency. 

“The history of that park certainly hung over some communities, particularly the Northwest Territories Métis Nation,” he says. 

That kind of relationship was by design: the government wanted control of the land.

“Parks were established, almost by definition, by removing Indigenous people, disconnecting them from their traditional territory, taking away any responsibility for management of their traditional territory,” explains Prosper. “It has taken 130 years to rebuild that trust.” 

Those stories, or ones like them, were known by the Łutsel K’e Dene when Parks Canada first approached them in the late 1960s to establish a park in the East Arm.

The government’s expectation would have been similar to its expectations in places like Wood Buffalo — that the park would be a place of wilderness carefully managed by Ottawa bureaucrats, not by the people on whose doorstep it would be established, the people who had stewarded and depended upon that land since time immemorial.

“In those days, a national park would not allow them to continue their traditional ways of life: no hunting, no trapping, no fishing,” explains McNamee.

Then-chief Pierre Catholique was taken across the country from park to park by the government officials in a charm offensive. He wasn’t swayed.

If the plan was intended to exert pressure to make a decision, it backfired spectacularly. “He says, ‘I’ve got to talk to my people first,’ ” says Nitah. A subsequent meeting of Dene chiefs, to discuss these dealings with Ottawa, would form the beginnings of what became the powerful Dene Nation.

The chiefs together decided to reject the proposal. “We said no — then thought about it for 35 years,” Nitah cracks. He says a second overture, in 1982, was met by a demand by hereditary Chief Joe Lockhart that they “Pack up [their] maps and go.” 

It wasn’t until the helicopters arrived that the community started seriously considering the idea. 

Warding off a mining boom

The same year that Parks Canada was first approaching the Łutsel K’e Dene, a geologist named Chuck Fipke got stuck on the side of a mountain on the other side of the Northwest Territories. A week into his ordeal, a helicopter landed to rescue him, at the behest of Stewart Blusson. The two became friends, then business partners and then they altered the course of Northwest Territories history.

The fortunes of the territory were beginning to sink during the 1980s. The price of gold, which had driven the economy of Yellowknife and powered mines around the territory since the 1940s, dropped by more than 60 per cent throughout the decade. Exploration was down, and the mines were beginning to close. 

But then, for the industry, a miracle: in November of 1991, Fipke and Blusson found 81 small diamonds at a site 300 km northeast of Yellowknife. The discovery made both men fabulously wealthy, and set off an unprecedented staking boom across the territory. The Northwest Territories became known overnight as one of the world’s great diamond mining districts, and everyone wanted in on the action. By 2004, an area bigger than New Zealand had been staked in the territory.

“Helicopters were hovering in people’s yards, and putting stakes into their yards,” Nitah says. “That’s when the elders said, you know, it was getting a little out of hand; we need to protect the core of our homeland.” 

The people of Łutsel K’e decided that using the federal government’s laws would be a way of warding off the danger of a mining boom in its backyard. And things had changed on the Parks Canada side: a new designation, the “national park reserve,” had been created, which recognized Indigenous harvesting rights and in some ways acted as a placeholder for land claims. 

Following the ratification of the Constitution in 1982 — which included Section 35 and its hunting and gathering provisions — the community also felt confident the park could not take away their rights. 

Other parks had been established in the interim; most significantly, northern parks like Kluane, which allowed harvesting, and Gwaii Hanaas National Park in Haida Gwaii, which is co-managed by the Haida and monitored by their Watchmen.

Armed with these new possibilities, Łutsel K’e Dene chief Felix Lockhart approached Parks Canada in 2000, and the proposal went ahead. Thaidene Nëné started down the long road toward establishment in 2004. The details began to trickle out: it would be co-managed between Parks Canada, the Łutsel K’e Dene and the territorial government. It would be open to First Nations and Métis fishing, hunting and travel throughout the region. There would be an administrative and welcome centre built in the community, creating and sustaining local jobs.

The negotiations went on, led by a few negotiators. But Dene cultures, until just a few generations ago, relied on oral history and a set of broadly applicable Dene laws to make decisions — and a network of chiefs that would usually be appointed for set purposes, for set periods of time. 

“We never really had a centralized leadership in the Denesołine culture,” Nitah explains.

For the Łutsel K’e Dene to now be put in a position of articulating those traditions on paper, as dictated by representatives behind closed doors, to a government that, historically, had acted in bad faith too many times to count, was a leap of faith.

A major sticking point in negotiations, according to negotiator Steve Ellis, was deciding who had what powers between the Indigenous communities and the governments. 

Steve Ellis acted as a negotiator for Lutsel K’e during the park negotiations. Photo: Jimmy Thomson / The Narwhal

“How do you preserve a minister’s discretion while also recognizing the inherent authorities and jurisdictions of the First Nation?” he asks. “So that was, by far, the hardest piece: who’s the boss?”

There were competing claims by other northern First Nations to resolve. The Yellowknives Dene First Nation, with a land claim in progress that overlaps with the territorially managed part of the park, would later go so far as to boycott the signing ceremony.

“We want it, as per our original area we selected,” says Yellowknives Dene Chief Ernest Betsina. “We want it for us.”

Debating these sticky issues of competing jurisdictions and rights would take up the next 15 years — plenty of time for the mining industry to find as many ways as it could to keep a share of its own.

Mining for controversy

A backgrounder from the Łutsel K’e Dene First Nation from 2013, ten years into the planning process, lauds the ongoing work to create a 33,000 square kilometre reserve. At the same time, work was underway to cut the limbs off the park.

A 2013 mineral and energy resources assessment ⁠— a normal, required part of the park establishment process ⁠— shows where the conflicts between mining and conservation were going to occur: the area surrounding the Gacho Kue diamond mine to the northwest, a set of prospecting permits to the northeast, gold-copper-iron deposits in the southwest and uranium deposits in two separate areas on the southern end of the park.

Those would all be hacked off like the branches of an unruly tree. 

“We reduced the size of the area of interest by over 7,000 square kilometres to address [the mining industry’s] concerns,” says Nitah. “And we even cut off a big chunk on the southern side where there’s very little to no geological information.”

In its final form, including the territorial protected area and national park, Thaidene Nëné would be 26,525 square kilometres.

Despite the concession of more than 20 per cent of the park, the vocal Northwest Territories mining lobby was not happy to have a park in its backyard — an area it has always had free access to. Nitah dismisses their concerns.

“For them it’s all about having access to land in the spirit of colonialism,” Nitah says. He maintains that the community is not anti-mining — and that in fact mining companies would be welcome to work with the community to explore their territory — but that development needs to be on their terms. The original 33,000 square kilometre area, he says, is still an Indigenous Protected Area in the sense that it remains under the jurisdiction of the community.

As the plan progressed, op-eds, open letters and press releases bashed the park for closing off some of the Northwest Territories to development. The Northwest Territories and Nunavut Chamber of Mines complained that the minerals assessment had “glossed over” areas with high potential for mines, and not done as thorough a job as a mining company would have done in looking for minerals.

Alan Latourelle, the CEO of Parks Canada at the time, disagrees. 

“I think that we’ve done our homework,” he says. “We, the federal government, when I was there, invested a significant, significant amount in terms of the Mineral and Energy Resource Assessment.”

One letter from the Chamber of Mines to the territorial government’s Standing Committee on Economic Development, dated May 1, 2019, asked that the government change the legislation to allow pipelines and transmission lines through the park, limit the size of protected areas and redefine a park as a “development” so that it would require the same level of environmental scrutiny as a new mine would.

A Chamber of Mines submission to Parks Canada in July of 2019 complained that the park was withdrawing too much land from development. That included the Lockhart River, what it characterized as “the Northwest Territories’ third most attractive and natural hydropower development opportunity.” 

The Lockhart River is home to the Ts’ankui Theda, the Old Lady of the Falls, and an important spiritual gathering place for the Łutsel K’e Dene First Nation. Since the 1970s, the site has been repeatedly considered as a potential hydropower site, and each time, the plan has been rebuffed by people familiar with Ts’ankui Theda’s significance to the Dene. 

In a final bid to prevent the park from becoming a reality, the lobby complained that “cumulative effects of land closures” — i.e. areas not open to mining — had not been considered, and also demanded an environmental assessment of the park. 

Proponents of the park, meanwhile, were doing their own analysis, and they liked what they saw. One study, Nitah says, found that the economic benefits of the park that would accrue directly to Łutsel K’e were about the same as would come from a diamond mine, in terms of the amount of employment each would generate.

Peter Lockhart works at the Diavik mine. He says he would rather work in ecotourism. Photo: Jimmy Thomson / The Narwhal

Derek Sanderson and his children in Lutsel K’e. Many families are hoping the economic opportunities of Thaidene Nene will benefit their children and future generations. Photo: Pat Kane

“There’s nothing you can do that’s going to appease the mining community, for the simple fact that exploration activity is not allowed in a national park,” Nitah says.

As he emcees the signing ceremony in the Łutsel K’e community hall, Nitah declares victory.  

“We’ll never have to defend our homeland within Thaidene Nëné from industrial development again,” he announces. “We can live free from that stress.” 

Peter Lockhart is among the crowd at the ceremony. He works at the Diavik mine, but says he’s glad the park is coming.

“The mines will close,” he says. Diavik Mine is set to close around 2025, with the other two following suit soon thereafter. There are no new diamond mines on the horizon, and just a handful of smaller metal mines in progress. Regardless, Lockhart would rather work as an ecotourism guide — an industry with an unlimited future, or so the community hopes.

‘A little less remote’

“I hope my kids come here,” McKenna says, as she closes out her speech, before she and the other dignitaries sign the documents that would formally establish Thaidene Nëné. “I hope they meet the young people here, who will be the leaders one day — that they’ll have good jobs here in your own community, on your land, protecting your land.”

There’s a long way to go before that vision, one shared by the people of Łutsel K’e, is ready to be implemented. 

The 45-minute flight back to Yellowknife can feel like a vast gulf separating the northern hub from the tiny community. That short trip, $500 return on scheduled flights, means that just a tiny fraction of the 75,000 tourists visiting Yellowknife each year ever make it as far as Łutsel K’e. 

“This place is remote,” says Williams, who lived in Łutsel K’e for 12 years. “It just became a little less remote.” 

A document from the territorial government, which lays out the challenges of growing the tourism industry, points to a lack of trained guides and operators, little marketing, a lack of accommodation and food service and the high cost of airfare. 

Ray Griffith, originally an outsider who has worked for the band in different capacities for decades, was recently tasked with bringing would-be tourism operators like James Marlowe up to code and helping them grow their businesses. So far there are three tourism businesses in Łutsel K’e — a small start for a community hoping to grow an ecotourism-based economy. But Griffith remains optimistic.

Ray Griffith, originally an outsider, has been living in the community for decades. He has been tasked with getting the tourism industry in Lutsel K’e off the ground. Photo: Jimmy Thomson / The Narwhal

“I’m expecting that we can develop a pretty vibrant economy that could make a huge difference to the community,” he says, “because it’s long-term, and it’s the kind of jobs that people enjoy: getting them out on the land, making money from their own land and their own cultural experiences.”

Tourism may have unintended consequences for the community as well. The sacred falls of Ts’ankui Theda, for instance, are part of the park, having been included to avoid their disruption by a hydropower development. They are not, however, a place that the Dene visit lightly but only in times of “great need,” Williams explains. Tourists may not share that view, so the park’s managers will have to decide who can visit, and when.

Rain pours down on Marlowe’s canvas tents at “The Ritz” the morning after the announcement, pausing just long enough for the visitors to pack up the tents and eat some breakfast in the lean-to. 

Sitting in the drizzle by his campfire, Marlowe contemplates the possibilities for his business and his community. For young people like Ashton Catholique and Peter Lockhart there will be jobs on the land. For leaders like Steven Nitah and Darryl Marlowe, there will be decisions to be made about how to use the park and the proceeds of the $30 million trust fund for the benefit of their people. For Prairie Desjarlais’ guardians, and for the conservationists, there will be data to gather, waterways to study and fisheries and hunts to monitor. 

And for James Marlowe and his fellow guides, there will be visitors.

A small propeller plane waits for passengers on the gravel Łutsel K’e airstrip. Photo: Jimmy Thomson / The Narwhal

The entire Nature United crew piles into the back of the blue pickup for the short ride to the airport, but they’re met with bad news: the charter flight is cancelled due to weather, and they will have to find another way back. The place may be a little less remote now than it was before, but there are more hurdles to visiting here than the vast majority of tourists are willing to cross.

Northern parks are well known to be under-utilized relative to their southern counterparts. Aside from Kluane in Yukon, all eight national parks in the north last year saw a total of 6,338 visitors — and more than half of those were visiting Wood Buffalo. Aulavik, on Banks Island, had 18 visitors; Tuktut Nogait, in the northeast part of the Northwest Territories, recorded zero.

What the northern parks have that the southern ones do not always have is living Indigenous culture: they are mostly on the traditional territories of First Nations and Inuit communities that are actively practicing the activities that keep their cultures alive. In these new parks that encourage traditional activities to continue rather than limiting or eliminating them as before, visitors can experience something truly unique and authentic. 

“They advertise geography, but invariably the most powerful experience people have is a cultural one,” Prosper says. 

If Griffith and his small cadre of guides are hoping to cash in on an immediate boom in tourists now that the park has become a reality, they’re probably setting themselves up for disappointment. But Marlowe says he’s busy enough already. He spent all of August hosting and guiding, and new opportunities are arising from unexpected places: a group of survivalists has already booked him for a winter camping excursion, testing their mettle against the harsh elements of the Northwest Territories.

“There’s going to be an influx of people from all over the world,” he says, certain of himself, and of the draw of Thaidene Nëné’s wilderness and culture. “I’m ready.” 

Editor’s note: The Narwhal was invited to join Nature United’s charter flight to Łutsel K’e, as well as their camp at “The Ritz.” As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the organization did not have any input into the writing of this article.

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Canada aims to conserve 17 per cent of its land and fresh water by the end of 2020. This noble objective will help protect water, air, food and biodiversity and improve the health of humans.

Indigenous peoples in Canada are a part of this conservation movement. As they hunt, gather and harvest, they also monitor the land to keep it healthy and ensure their traditional activities are preserved. Their efforts to protect the Earth benefit us all.

A group of women swim in the Mackenzie River during a trip with the Dehcho First Nations to learn about the river and the communities it passes. Photo: Pat Kane

Initiatives for protected lands

In October 2018, Dehcho First Nations and the Government of Canada announced the creation of the first Indigenous protected area in Canada. Located in the Dehcho region of the Northwest Territories, Edéhzhíe covers 14,218 square kilometres — more than twice the size of Banff National Park — and protects an area of spiritual and ecological importance to the Dehcho and Tłichô Dene.

Edéhzhíe Indigenous Protected Area. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

It is not the only Indigenous initiative to protect lands.

The Tsá Tué Biosphere Reserve, created in 2016, protected more than 9,000 square kilometres of land and water. First Nations, Inuit and Métis have put in place other initiatives too.

‘Serengeti of the north’: the Kaska Dena’s visionary plan to protect a huge swath of B.C. wilderness

These Indigenous groups are interested in protecting the land because their holistic approach to ecosystems will help preserve their traditional way of life.

This holistic approach to conservation is the concept of being “in tune with nature.” It’s a fundamental understanding that although they are human, Dene are part of the environment and the ecosystem.

This concept doesn’t just refer to the nature in the sense of trees, wildlife or the natural processes of an ecosystem, but the nature of reality as a whole, where people have a role in the natural world and have a responsibility to maintain it.

Harvesting wild game is a measured and carefully considered practice. By protecting these lands, traditional ways of life, including language, harvesting and other cultural elements, are maintained for present and future generations.

Robert Grandjambe pulls a lake trout from his nets in Lake Athabasca near Fort Chipewyan, Alta. Photo: Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC

Harvesting and conservation

Harvesting was the main source of food of Indigenous people for millennia. Even though people living in remote communities now have access to store-bought foods, quality remains an issue. Fresh food is often limited and expensive, and may cost as much as three times the Canadian average.

In some northern communities, the rate of food insecurity is alarming and can affect up to 70 per cent of the households. In the Arctic, the consumption of traditional foods is associated with better nutrition. Hunting is, therefore, associated with healthy living.

Some people, including settlers, those living in cities or involved in the animal-rights communities, may see harvesting and hunting as damaging to the ecosystem. Attacks against seal harvesting are recurrent.

Yet hunting is an integral part of the traditional Indigenous lifestyle and it can occur within protected areas. By hunting, they are also making the commitment to protect the land.

Winston Tallio, a youth from Anahim Lake, B.C., checks deer jerky in the smoking tent of the Yunesit’in traditional hunting camp. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

For example, even if harvested local foods such as caribou are subsistence foods in several Indigenous northern nations, some communities have initiated a program to assess how to preserve Northern Mountain Caribou herds and minimize the cultural impact.

They monitor the harvest and decide whether hunting limits should be set. They restrict access to certain lands, educate hunters and ensure protection of caribou habitat. The aim is to establish sustainable hunting and a healthy dynamic between the communities and the animals.

This Indigenous perspective on sustainable development and conservation integrates the responsibility to give back.

Indigenous monitoring of the land

Indigenous Guardians are the eyes and ears for the land and water. They patrol a designated area and monitor ecological health, including species at risk and early indicators of climate change such as water levels and landscape changes.

The monitored areas include remote locations where limited observations are available. As such, the science of the land contributes significantly to the overall monitoring strategy and data gathering in the region.

This bottom-up management and conservation approach leads to practical planning by local people who have an interest in the issue. The Indigenous Guardians program contributes to the connections between Indigenous culture and natural environment by using traditional knowledge and science of the land, while increasing the protection of the land.

Remote locations are also subject to resource development such as mining and fracking. The Guardians watch for the potential impacts of these projects, often in collaboration with scholars, to ensure a clean environment for future generations.

Fisheries technicians from Lax Kw’alaams Fisheries Stewardship program conduct Dungeness biosampling data as part of surveys occurring year-round in Stumaun Bay and Big Bay. First Nations have conducted 222 species research and habitat restoration initiatives with support from Coast Funds. Photo: Lax Kw’alaams fisheries stewardship program

Parks Canada acknowledges the contributions Indigenous peoples have made in managing ecosystems and in their traditional knowledge of these ecosystems. Traditional ecological knowledge is generally described as the body of environmental knowledge, practices and beliefs acquired over time and passed down over generations within an Indigenous group. It provides information that is complementary to academic science, supporting, for example, changes in biodiversity or identifying early indicators of climate change.

Not only can these new protected areas improve Indigenous self-governance and stewardship, but they recognize Indigenous peoples’ contributions to ecosystem conservation.

Healing and hope: how Indigenous guardians are transforming conservation

Parks Canada endorses the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, and their acknowledgement of Indigenous rights to use the land is a first step towards decolonization and Indigenization of land use. These Indigenous-led protected and conserved areas aim to preserve the traditional land and support the conservation of traditional activities that respect the environment.

Everyone should acknowledge the positive impact Indigenous hunting can have on the protection and monitoring of the environment. These efforts benefit all of us in protecting the ecosystem for a healthy environment and healthy people.

Jeffrey Fabian, Yaidih-ih “Eyes Unclouded,” coordinator of the Indigenous Guardian program in the K’atl’odeeche First Nation, in Hay River, NWT, co-authored this article.

Meet the scientists embracing traditional Indigenous knowledge

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Rare species like American badgers, flammulated owls, yellow-breasted chats, desert night snakes and western rattlesnakes make their home in the southern Okanagan Valley grasslands in the heart of B.C.’s wine, golf and beach country. 

For more than 15 years, efforts to create a national park in the grasslands, one of Canada’s most unusual and beautiful landscapes, have started, stalled and re-started. 

Cattle graze near the border of a proposed national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior, just west of the White Lake Grasslands Protected Area, near Okanagan Falls, B.C. Photo: Jake Sherman

On July 3, the fiercely debated South Okanagan-Similkameen National Park Reserve took a large step closer to becoming a reality with the signing of a memorandum of understanding among the province of B.C., the government of Canada and the Syilx/Okanagan Nation.

The memorandum establishes a working boundary for the park and the framework for negotiations moving forward, but it doesn’t seal the deal on the national park, which has polarized pro- and anti-park factions since the idea was first pitched in the early 2000s.

“It’s an important milestone for sure,” says Richard Cannings, MP for the South Okanagan-West Kootenays and the federal NDP’s natural resources critic. “I grew up in these grasslands and it’s one of the top-four endangered ecosystems in Canada.”

But Cannings, who is also a well known biologist and field guide author, is also cautious about the future of the area long on the radar of conservationists and scientists.

South Okanagan-West Kootenay MP Richard Cannings photographed on his property above Penticton, B.C. Photo: Jake Sherman

B.C.’s southern grasslands — which include an arid ecosystem around Osoyoos reminiscent of the Arizona desert and characterized by antelope brush and fragrant sagebrush — face intense development pressure. People want to live and play in an area known for its hot summers and mild winters. Changing normalized patterns of behaviour on the landscape, whether it’s ATVing or hunting, is always an uphill struggle. 

Desert brush photographed in the White Lake Basin, which is at the centre of a debate over the future of a proposed national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern grasslands. Photo: Jake Sherman

Desert brush in the White Lake Basin. Photo: Jake Sherman

By national park standards, the proposed South Okanagan-Similkameen National Park Reserve is small. It’s roughly 300 square kilometres and covers an area from Taylor Lake north of Oliver to the U.S.-Canada border, bounded by the Similkameen River and the west side of the Okanagan Valley. (Banff National Park, Canada’s first national park, is more than 6,600 square kilometres by comparison.) 

The park would be composed of a patchwork of existing provincially protected lands, open Crown land and private parcels. More than 30 federally listed species at risk and 60 provincially listed species live within the proposed park boundaries.

The White Lake basin and grasslands. Photo: Jake Sherman

The White Lake Grassland Protected Area, basin and biodiversity ranch are at the centre of a heated debate of the future of a proposed national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior. Photo: Jake Sherman

It’s a naturalist’s paradise and also unfinished business for Parks Canada. It would fill a gap in Canada’s national parks plan, which identifies B.C.’s southern grasslands as one of 39 eco-regions that form a distinctive component of the national landscape — an ecosystem that so far lacks national park representation. 

Ken Wu is co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, a conservation group he left early this year to launch a new organization, the Endangered Ecosystem Alliance. 

“Most people associate me with big trees and coastal forests,” Wu says. “But I believe this is one of the greatest conservation opportunities in Canadian history. It would have some of the highest densities of listed species of any national park in Canada.”

However the anti-park faction is as passionate as pro-park conservationists like Wu and Richard Cannings, whose professional association with this landscape dates back to the 1970s when, as a young university grad, he got a job surveying existing scientific literature on B.C.’s interior grassland regions as possible candidates for protection.

A home in the unincorporated town of Olalla, B.C. Photo: Jake Sherman

The issue has divided communities such as Oliver, where in April the confusingly named anti-national park group known as the South Okanagan Similkameen Preservation Society held a public meeting that drew 300 people. 

Many in attendance were opposed to the proposed park, including Rick Knodel, the Area C director for the regional district of Okanangan-Similkameen, who likens a national park to sacrificing local sovereignty to the federal government. 

Antipathy toward Parks Canada and the federal government runs deep among society members. Group spokesman Lionel Trudel, an Okanagan Valley-based photographer, insists the society supports conservation of the area’s unique grasslands, just not by bureaucrats based in Ottawa.

“We as a society are looking elsewhere for solutions and we don’t want Parks Canada as an entity in this region,” Trudel says.

He says the prospect of thousands of new visitors a national park would bring to the busy Okanagan Valley tourism corridor would add unwanted pressure to policing, ambulance services and other resources, as well as more traffic to the already busy Highway 97. 

The Crowsnest Highway, between Osoyoos and Keremeos, B.C., the site of a proposed national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior. Photo: Jake Sherman

Trudel also says his group is concerned about potential special hunting rights for First Nations in a national park reserve that would otherwise be off-limits to hunters, ATV users and other groups.

Parks Canada held a series of 39 information meetings between January and March 2019, which were attended by more than 600 people, and also received feedback on the park from another 2,800 people in the form of  a survey. The results reflected a sharp divide between support and opposition.

Hunters and Marron Valley, B.C., residents Marty Clark, Sean Duncan, Doug Cowe, Michelle Parott and Dominic Gorkoff oppose the establishment of a national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior. Photo: Jake Sherman

MP Cannings believes many concerns about the park are based on misinformation that continues to spread among anti-park activists, such as the claim that Parks Canada will expropriate private land and drive out cattle ranchers. 

Neither is true according to Sarah Boyle, a Parks Canada project manager. She says the federal government cannot expropriate private property in order to establish or enlarge a national park or national park reserve.

“Private lands would only ever be purchased on a willing-seller/willing-buyer basis,” Boyle told The Narwhal.

Boyle added that Parks Canada will continue to work with ranching families to provide “stability and certainty on Crown grazing lands, tenures, water and other resource values.”

Cannings has heard Parks Canada address these concerns many times in the past.

“It’s frustrating to be going to public meetings 17 years into the process and still hear people talking about expropriation,” Cannings says. “Honestly I think there’s a lot of mistrust and dislike of the federal government that’s behind this.”

Uthlxanica7, 67, is a Syilx elder who opposes the establishment of a national park reserve in British Columbia’s Southern Interior. He lives on the Keremeos Forks Indian Reserve #12 and #12A between Kaleden and Keremeos, B.C., and said he sees the federal government’s encroachment as yet another tool of colonial exploitation. “The land is my home,” he told the Narwhal. “I don’t need the federal government to explain that to me. They tell me we’re multicultural. I’m not a multi-culture. I come from here. History repeats itself. Look at Yellowstone where my people can’t even get their medicine. The animals are leaving. The earth is talking. No one wants to listen. This is not gonna be fit for nobody.” Photo: Jake Sherman

Don Gayton is an American-born Vietnam War resistor, author and grasslands ecologists who has lived in Canada since the late 1960s. For the past dozen years Gayton has made his home in Summerland on the west shore of Okanagan Lake, about 40 kilometres from the proposed park’s northern boundary. He calls grasslands “the Rodney Dangerfield of ecosystems.” 

“They get no respect. In mountain parks, the scenery with all the waterfalls, glaciers and mountains does all the work for you. In grassland country, you have to do the work and get down on your hand knees to truly appreciate it. If you put in the effort, the quiet and amazing diversity is breathtaking,” Gayton says. 

“But this is a challenging place to create a national park. It’s basically a suburban area.” 

Don Gayton is a grasslands ecologist and the author of six books. He is a vocal proponent of a national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior. Photo: Jake Sherman

For park opponents worried about hunting access, Gayton points out that national parks can act as refugia for wildlife, which could benefit hunters in the long run. But as a grasslands ecologist, concerns about lost hunting opportunities rank low in importance. 

“Species like antelope brush, badgers and tiger salamanders are at the very northern end of their range. Their genetics are important because they’ve had to adapt,” Gayton says, pointing out that the South Okanagan belongs to the vast and arid Western Great Basin that spans North America from Mexico to just across the U.S.-Canada border. “This is an extremely rare and important region, ecologically.”  

That’s why he believes the region deserves the highest form of protection possible — and in Canada that means national park status. 

However, Gayton says Parks Canada is omitting two areas from the park proposal that biologists consider critical from a species and ecosystem perspective — Vaseux Lake and the White Lake Basin.

Vaseux Lake is the only place in the south Okanagan Valley where undeveloped land reaches the valley floor on both sides. Photo: Jake Sherman

Vaseux Lake, located between Okanagan Falls and Oliver, is a critical area excluded from the current national park reserve proposal. Photo: Jake Sherman

Vaseux Lake is found where the Okanagan Valley pinches to a narrow opening north of Oliver and is bounded on the west by soaring cliffs. It’s the only place in the south Okanagan Valley where undeveloped land reaches the valley floor on both sides. 

Immediately to the west is the natural grassland basin of White Lake, where nationally significant populations of the endangered sage thrasher are found, as well as unique mosses that thrive in the saline conditions of White Lake, tiger salamanders and a host of other listed species. 

Gayton calls White and Vaseux lakes one of the “jewels in the grasslands crown” and, like most conservationists, he’s confounded that they have been omitted from the national park reserve proposal. 

The White Lake biodiversity ranch between Okanagan Falls and Marron Valley, B.C. Photo: Jake Sherman

White Lake is one of the “jewels in the grasslands crown,” according to ecologist Don Gayton. Photo: Jake Sherman

Two federal agencies already own land in these areas, the Canadian Wildlife Service and the National Research Council, which runs the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory near White Lake.  

The Nature Trust of British Columbia owns the 940-hectare White Lake Basin biodiversity ranch and also co-manages — with B.C.’s Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations — roughly 480 hectares of land along Vaseux Lake, which includes important habitat for bighorn sheep. 

Wu says his organization will continue to push to have White Lake Basin and Vaseux Lake included in the park proposal. Cannings says he hasn’t heard “a reasonable explanation” for why they have been left out, but at this point prefers not to put up any more roadblocks.

“I suppose it speaks to the complexity of this national park proposal,” Cannings says. “At this point, I think most of us are feeling that we need to get this done.”

Getting final approval for the park won’t happen without the consent of  the Syilx/Okanagan Nation, which represents the Okanagan Indian Band, Osoyoos Indian Band, Penticton Indian Band, Upper Nicola Band, Upper and Lower Similkameen Bands and Westbank First Nation. 

The conservation model under consideration is a national park reserve, distinct from a national park in that it applies to lands that are also subject to a claim of Aboriginal title. Both Pacific Rim on Vancouver Island’s West Coast and Gwaii Haanas on the southern reaches of Haida Gwaii are national park reserves.

Clarence Louie, the tough-talking chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band, scoffs at park opponents who suggest a national park would lead to increased crime and wildfire risk, two tropes often trotted out at anti-park meetings. 

Louie believes much of the opposition is rooted in “white peoples’ ” mistrust and resentment of Aboriginal rights and title in the lands at stake. 

Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band is a proponent of a national park reserve in the South Okanagan. In early July he signed a memorandum of understanding that signalled the first formal steps toward the park’s creation in partnership with local First Nations. Photo: Jake Sherman

Though the bands that form the Syilx/Okanagan Nation are supportive of the park concept in principle, Louie says much work needs to be done before the distinct brown and yellow Parks Canada signs start appearing in Okanagan and Similkameen territory.

“We don’t have all the information. There needs to be hundreds of more meetings and discussions,” Louie says.

Gayton is taking the long view on the South Okanagan Similkameen National Park Reserve. He hopes to see it come to fruition in his lifetime.

“The average timeline for creating a national park is 30 years so we’re about halfway there,” Gayton says.

A sign in support of a proposed national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior, photographed along the Crowsnest Highway, between Osoyoos and Keremeos, B.C. Photo: Jake Sherman

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Canada will not provide the UNESCO World Heritage Committee with an assessment of the impacts of the Site C dam on Wood Buffalo National Park, despite a recommendation it do so to keep the 4.5 million hectare park off a list of world heritage in danger — a list usually reserved for sites in countries facing war, poverty or disaster.

The clock is ticking towards a deadline for Canada to demonstrate to the committee that it is serious about saving Canada’s largest national park from energy development, dropping water levels and pollution.

The World Heritage Committee warned Wood Buffalo would be placed on the ignominious list unless there is a “major and timely” response to 17 recommendations made by the international body in 2017.

Canada has quietly release a draft action plan in response to those recommendations made by a team of experts from the World Heritage Committee and International Union for Conservation of Nature who, in 2016, visited the World Heritage Site at the invitation of the Mikisew Cree First Nation.

Canada’s action plan provides a response to all of the UN body’s recommendations, save one: a review of the social and environmental impacts of the Site C dam.

Wood Buffalo: Canada’s largest national park and its people in peril

Wood Buffalo threatened by industrial development, hydro dams

Following a visit to the park in 2016, the committee released a stinging report saying Wood Buffalo is threatened by unfettered upstream energy development, including the Alberta oilsands, hydro dams on the Peace River, a lack of cumulative impact studies on the Peace-Athabasca delta and poor management.

Canada must finalize a plan to substantively address these threats to Wood Buffalo by February 1, 2019.

Key measures of Canada’s draft plan for the park in northern Alberta and southern Northwest Territories are strengthening Indigenous management of the site, preserving and monitoring ecosystems in the Peace-Athabasca delta and improving understanding of hydrology and water flow in the delta, Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna said in a statement.

However, as the draft plan is being circulated among 11 Indigenous communities and other interested groups, many are baffled that the recommendation to assess the Site C dam is being ignored.

Recommendation 4 in the UNESCO report says that there should be “an environmental and social impact assessment” of the Site C dam and the effect of the controversial dam on the Outstanding Universal Value of Wood Buffalo National Park.

Failure to respond to that recommendation affects the validity of the plan according to some Indigenous communities, who witnessed dropping water levels in the Peace-Athabasca Delta after construction of the Bennett dam on the Peace River in 1968 and the Peace Canyon dam in 1980.

As the reservoir filled behind the Bennett dam, parts of the delta dried up and, according to residents of communities such as Fort Chipewyan, levels never again reached their former heights. Simultaneously, spring floods changed because the dams stopped the formation of ice jams that previously forced the water to back up into the delta.

Climate change and silting in the Peace-Athabasca delta are exacerbating man-made problems, meaning Indigenous families are often unable to reach traditional hunting grounds and winter supplies for communities such as Fort Chipewyan are restricted because of a shorter season for the ice road.

Now, those who live around the Peace-Athabasca delta and Wood Buffalo are looking with trepidation at construction of the Site C dam and asking why Parks Canada is not recommending a full assessment.

‘Nowhere else to turn’: First Nations inundated by oilsands projects face impossible choices

‘We need to have some action from Canada’

Becky Kostka, Smith’s Landing First Nation lands and resources coordinator, said Parks Canada is saying that the Site C joint federal-provincial environmental assessment is enough to protect the Peace-Athabasca delta.

“They have basically said ‘the assessment has been done on that. They have got their approvals and it’s going ahead,’ ” Kostka said.

“We are really not okay with that…We need to have some action from Canada on this.”

Kostka said her nation requested Parks Canada reconsider.

“They have refused,” she said.

Amy Lusk, Slave River Coalition coordinator, said the lack of an independent Site C assessment and cumulative impact study are major problems.

“They said the previous assessment from the joint review panel was sufficient,” she said.

The joint review panel released a report on Site C in 2014 in which it did not make a recommendation for or against the project, arguing the province had not demonstrated a need for the highly environmentally destructive project while also failing to explore alternatives.

During the federal-provincial review of the project, Parks Canada presented testimony to the panel indicating Site C would have a negative impact on the Peace-Athabasca delta.

Lusk said Parks Canada’s current decision to omit a new Site C impact assessment distorts the country’s entire response to UNESCO.

“The Site C recommendation and the calls for a cumulative impact study feed into everything else that’s touched upon,” she said.

“It’s not complete without that.”

Map of threats to Wood Buffalo National Park from UNESCO report.

Parks Canada considering future mitigation measures

Parks Canada told The Narwhal the draft action plan sets out new initiatives related to environmental flows and hydrology which will increase understanding of the impacts of dams on the Peace River, including Site C.

In July the federal government announced it would spend $27.5 million over five years “to support the development of an action plan to secure the future of Wood Buffalo National Park World Heritage Site.” The figure amounts to approximately $125 per square kilometre of the park, an amount local communities criticized as insufficient.

The draft action plan also looks at options for future mitigation measures, a spokeswoman said via e-mail.

Site C was approved after a cooperative assessment by Canada and B.C. and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has been conducting inspections of the project to ensure BC Hydro is in compliance, the spokeswoman added.

Many are not convinced that is sufficient.

In a letter and petition addressed to Parks Canada and carbon copied to environment minister McKenna and provincial politicians, Lusk argues the failure to respond to Recommendation 4 is a significant shortfall.

“By failing to meet this recommendation, Parks Canada undermines efforts to successfully address the threats to Wood Buffalo National Park. Water quality and quantity are the key underlying challenges to the other 16 recommendations identified,” says the letter, which was also distributed to the World Heritage Committee.

“If Canada fails to address the above concerns in the Action Plan, we will recommend Wood Buffalo National Park be added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in Danger,” the letter reads.

The Northwest Territories chapter of the Council of Canadians echoes many of the same concerns in an additional letter, where the organization says an environmental and social impact assessment of Site C is needed to try and mitigate negative impacts to the Peace-Athabasca delta and Wood Buffalo’s unique ecosystem.

“If impacts cannot be mitigated, the Site C project must be abandoned,” it says.

“Already, two-thirds of the drying of the Peace-Athabasca Delta, which supports Wood Buffalo’s unique ecosystem is the direct result of the existing dams on the Peace River. Site C will escalate drying in the delta,” the letter states.

“In addition, after flooding, decomposition processes will create poisonous methyl mercury which will bio-accumulate in the aquatic food chain, poisoning fish and those whose diet relies on fish for two or three generations. These effects will be experienced in the Peace-Athabasca Delta.”

‘The delta’s best chance’

Ron Yaworsky, technical adviser to the Northwest Territory Metis Nation, said he believes attention must be put on the cumulative impacts of dams on the Peace River, the Bennett dam as well as Site C.

And, like others, Yaworsky is pleased with some aspects of the draft plan, such as work on hydrology, including the possibility of building weirs and other infrastructure to retain water in the delta.

The lower bare rocks of an island in Lake Athabasca indicate where the lake’s water mark used to be decades ago. Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, June 2018. Photo: Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC

“But the proof will always be whether they are actually going to follow through and whether  Canada is actually going to fund this,” Yaworsky said.

“I think, if the action plan is implemented to the fullest, it’s the delta’s best chance in a while,” he said, adding that it is sad that it took an international spotlight on the park to get action.

“At least now we have something, so let’s hold everyone’s feet to the fire,” he said.

Parks Canada closed the period for public feedback on December 10, 2018 after receiving criticism for not sufficiently publicizing the release of the draft plan, which is still not made public on Parks Canada’s website.

Lusk said it is disappointing that the review period is not being more widely promoted, even though Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna said that she encourages “everyone to share their views on the future of Wood Buffalo National Park World Heritage Site.”

“I would see this as a failure,” Lusk said.

Action Plan Draft WBNP WHS Nov. 16 2018 by The Narwhal on Scribd

Update December 13, 2018 2:36 p.m. PST: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Parks Canada closed the public comment period for the draft action plan on December 10 and did not, as previously reported, extend that period until December 14.

Update December 31, 2019, 1:25 p.m. PST: Ron Yaworsky’s name was spelled incorrectly in the first version of this article. We regret the error.

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The Narwhal’s investigation into the muzzling of Parks Canada staff has created quite the stir in the month since it was published.

The article — based on nearly a year of research, interviews with 10 Canadian journalists and several sources within Parks Canada — revealed that despite promises by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to unmuzzle government staff, Parks Canada employees continue to be limited in their freedom to speak to the press.

Journalists reported lengthy wait times for interviews, advanced e-mail approval of questions, limited access to experts and denial of field requests. Parks Canada scientists, too, expressed their frustrations with being so heavily managed by media relations staff, confirming they were unable to speak openly about their work.

The story raised such serious concerns that a week after publication, the Society of Environmental Journalists and Canadian Association of Journalists sent a letter to Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna and Parks Canada’s incoming interim CEO Michael Nadler.

The letter called for transparency and greater public accountability from Parks Canada, and insisted that journalists be able to speak freely and openly with Parks Canada staff and scientists in a timely manner, whether that be on the phone, in person or in the field.

In response, Nadler agreed to set up a conference call between Parks Canada and members of the Society of Environmental Journalists. A month after the investigation, he also issued a four-page letter in response to the concerns expressed by Canadian journalists.

Nadler’s response largely failed to take responsibility, choosing to refute the investigation rather than acknowledge a problem within Parks Canada.

In the follow-up, on-the-record conference call on October 18, which was intended to be a two-way dialogue with Parks Canada media relations staff, journalists posed a number of questions and commented on their own experiences.

Asked how Parks Canada intended to improve the relationship between Parks Canada and journalists, Nadler responded:

“I think we have a good relationship with journalists. Our level of responsiveness is very, very high. We’ve got a very collegial, positive and constructive relationship with journalists at the local and national level. Over the last two years, under a new government we’ve had the ability to be even more open on science than we were in the past.”

Contrast that with comments from a Parks Canada scientist who described the agency’s media protocol as “embarrassing” and “tragic.” Or with the comments of Ed Struzik, an award-winning environmental journalist and author who’s been covering the Arctic for more than three decades.

“It’s absolutely clear to me that Parks Canada scientists are not free to speak to the press,” Struzik told The Narwhal for the original article.

Parks in the dark

With few constructive remedies being proposed, Emma Gilchrist, editor-in-chief of The Narwhal and member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, stepped in:

“We have lots of environmental issues we need to report on — far more than we ever possibly could. I assure you we are not using our limited resources to write on non-issues. There are more than 10 environmental journalists quoted in this piece. We also have spoken with several scientists from within Parks Canada who can not go on the record, even anonymously, for fear of reprisals about speaking about their work. These are scientists who want to speak about their work and who are continually blocked from doing so. The first step to solving a problem is to acknowledge it exists, and right now I’m not hearing any acknowledgement that a problem exists within Parks Canada.”

Nadler responded that he didn’t think the data supports what journalists are asserting and added that he suspects Parks Canada media relations numbers are probably better than the other departments.

When asked to address the issues raised by journalists, Nadler said, “I want to underscore that four out of five interviews are interviews with experts or scientists. They aren’t a written response. An interview has been facilitated with an expert at hand. I hope that’s clear.”

This runs counter to the direct testimony of journalists covering Parks Canada, and still doesn’t address whether those questions had to be screened in advance.

Nadler pointed out that Parks Canada scientists are working in applied science, which may make them less accessible than scientists in other departments.

“They aren’t working on bench science. These scientists are often literally on the backside of a mountain introducing new species to an ecological area, or dealing with a survey, or gathering data, or even working with our firefighters to manage the risk to ecology. They are not as accessible as a bench scientist will be in some other federal institutions.”

However, journalists’ experience indicate that logistics are often not the barrier to gaining access to Parks Canada scientists. For instance, while in the Banff townsite in 2017, I ran into a Parks Canada staff member who said they would have been more than happy to provide a ride-along, but that the higher-ups would not allow it. My request for access was denied.

Ultimately, The Narwhal stands by its investigation, and the journalists and scientists who shared their experiences with us. A number of scientists have reached out to us in the past few weeks, and we would love to speak to more Parks Canada staff for a follow-up article.

We recommend reaching out to us from a personal device, using a personal e-mail address. Your comments are extremely valuable, even if you appear anonymous in our coverage. We treat all contact with sources who wish to remain anonymous as confidential.

You can contact us at editor@thenarwhal.ca to share your experiences and perspectives. Hopefully you’re not on the backside of a mountain.

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.

When Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government assumed office in November 2015, it came with promises of overturning Stephen Harper’s regressive, nine-year media regime which prevented many of the nation’s scientists from speaking with the press, often regarding hot-button environmental issues like climate change.

Some of the hardest hit by Harper’s policies had seemingly been Parks Canada employees.

In 2012, staff received letters warning they were not allowed to criticize the agency or the federal government amid job cuts. In 2014, a new policy forbade Parks Canada employees from speaking to the media without approval and required all requests for information to go through the national office.

And in the months leading up to the federal election, Parks Canada employees were even muzzled on operational issues, such as bear deaths, rescue operations or wolves in the townsite of Banff National Park.

On November 6, 2015, two days after the Trudeau government took office, Navdeep Bains, minister of innovation, science and economic development, openly stated that “government scientists and experts will be able to speak freely about their work to the media and the public.”

But nearly three years later, Parks Canada staff and scientists report significant freedom of information issues remain under Trudeau’s government.

Journalists say they continue to experience absurdly long wait times for media requests; are required to e-mail interview questions ahead of time for prior approval; and are frequently denied access to accompany employees on field operations. Many of these factors have ultimately led to media outlets killing stories about Parks Canada due to their non-compliance.

After Harper, Parks Canada staff thought things could only get better. But “if anything, it’s gotten worse,” one Banff National Park employee told me.

The Narwhal spoke with 10 environmental journalists across Canada for this investigation. Every journalist reported facing significant challenges with Parks Canada since Trudeau’s Liberal government came to power.

Requests for field access denied

Last summer, I arrived at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity to work on a feature regarding grizzly bear deaths on the railroad, and the efforts of Parks Canada and Canadian Pacific Railway to address the issue. This was meant to be a follow-up to some reporting I had done back in fall 2014, under the Harper government, when Banff and Lake Louise-Yoho-Kootenay media relations staff facilitated the opportunity to shadow scientists, engineers and human-wildlife conflict specialists on how they were addressing issues with bears in the parks. But this time, my requests for field access were denied.

First, media relations responded that staff were too busy. When I pressed further, I received another reason. “Thanks for your interest in bear/human management in Banff National Park. Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to accommodate shadowing of our resource conservation staff for the safety of wildlife, staff and media,” wrote Christie Thomson, the public relations officer for Banff Field Unit, after several e-mails in which I explained the work I had done prior and what I was looking for.

This was in marked contrast to my previous experience. Something felt off.

As a science and environmental journalist, I routinely report on environmental issues in the United States and Canada. This requires dealing with several federal agencies on both sides of the border, including the U.S. Department of Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and Environmental Protection Agency. In Canada, I report on the work done by Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Department of Ocean and Fisheries. It’s fair to say that Parks Canada has been far and above the most difficult agency to access.

After my own troubling experience, I began asking around the town of Banff where I heard the same thing again and again from local reporters. It quickly became clear that this was now the status-quo for the mountain parks of Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay.

Colette Derworiz, who spent four years working as the environment reporter for the Calgary Herald, departed the paper a year into Trudeau’s administration, but recalled still facing issues as of November 2016.

“[Press access] has improved on some fronts, but there are still challenges with speaking to Parks Canada scientists in a timely manner,” Derworiz said.

“I can’t do my job. It’s really frustrating.”

“Journalists mostly work on daily deadlines and it’s never helpful to wait several weeks to speak with someone who knows the subject area. Parks Canada scientists are often experts in their field, and they have to wait weeks to speak. If a new study is published, the news value is instantly diminished.”

A reporter who asked to remain anonymous cited repeated issues since the Trudeau government moved in.

“Interviews are highly scripted and can take a lot of time to organize,” she said. “We often have to go to sources outside of Parks Canada, so we don’t actually have the full picture.”

“I can’t do my job,” she said. “It’s really frustrating.”

Lack of access a ‘terrible disservice to the public’

After my field access requests were turned down by Parks Canada, I was directed to speak with Colleen Cassady St. Clair, an unaffiliated University of Alberta researcher who had worked with Parks Canada and Canadian Pacific Railway on their five-year joint action plan to investigate why grizzly bears were dying on the rail corridor between Banff and Yoho. St. Clair was one of three representatives at a press conference in January 2017, accompanied by Rick Kubian, acting superintendent of Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay, and Joe Van Humbeck of CP Rail.

Since then, St. Clair had been doing the majority of media relations on behalf of muzzled Parks Canada scientists, picking up the slack. When I met her on a June day in Tunnel Mountain Campground, our visit was sandwiched between two press trips with CBC.

“We have so many great stories to tell — hopeful and inspiring stories…It’s tragic.”

“No one can speak more knowledgeably and effectively about many of the things that matter to Canadians than their own publicly funded scientists,” she said. “That’s especially true of the Parks Canada agency ecologists, who have been tremendously tightly managed, even sanctioned for speaking out. Muzzling those voices and replacing them with generic statements by upper managers is a terrible disservice to the public, as well as science. Sometimes, it also causes lasting harm to the very resources those scientists were hired to steward and protect.”

And, she added, Parks Canada scientists and media relations staff in the field units are frustrated, too.

A Parks Canada biologist who spoke to The Narwhal on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals said he’s “painfully aware” of Parks Canada’s restrictive treatment of media, which he called “embarrassing.” “There is often a pretty big disconnect between the managers I deal with and what the minister actually wants to happen,” he said. If scientists speak out of turn, he says it could be a “career-limiting move” and they’d be stripped of their ability to speak with the media in the future. “We have so many great stories to tell — hopeful and inspiring stories — but the risk management prevents us from sharing many of them. It’s tragic.”

Eventually, I began to wonder, was this issue only happening with Parks Canada staff working in the mountain parks? Or was it bigger than that?

“Banff was always a highly political park,” former Banff superintendent Kevin Van Tighem told The Narwhal. “Anything that happens in Banff can make national headlines.”

It stands to reason, then, that staff might be under tighter control here. But as I would uncover in the months to come, the issue was hardly limited to the Rocky Mountains.

‘This shouldn’t happen in a democracy’

Ed Struzik is a Canadian environmental journalist who has been writing on the Arctic for more than three decades. He’s the author of Future Arctic: Field Notes from a World on the Edge and the 2017 non-fiction book Firestorm: How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future.

While flipping through an advanced copy of Firestorm last year, one paragraph regarding Struzik’s experience in Yukon’s Kluane National Park stuck out to me:

“We didn’t stop to see how the spruce bark beetle had ravaged the park’s forests because the Parks Canada fire and vegetation specialist wasn’t allowed to take us on a tour. (I had made the request six weeks beforehand.) The muzzling of Canadian scientists that occurred in the years when Stephen Harper’s climate-change denying Conservative government was in power still lingered in the first year of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration.”

And into his third, apparently.

I called up Struzik to talk more about his experience with Parks Canada.

“In spite of what the Trudeau government has said about liberating scientists from the gag orders they had under the Harper administration, Parks Canada, in particular, seems to be stuck in that mentality. It’s not entirely clear to me why, but it’s absolutely clear to me that Parks Canada scientists are not free to speak to the press.”

His story about Kluane, he noted, was not particularly incendiary (the same thing I had said about my human-bear conflict reporting) and yet he was told he would not be able to go out into the field, though could get an office interview.

“I’ve had this problem in other cases — I was working on a story for Arctic Deeply a couple years ago right at the beginning of the Trudeau government about the future of tourism in the Arctic. I wanted to go to one of the western Arctic parks — I’ve already been to all of them and written many stories with the cooperation of Parks Canada prior to Harper — and could not get them to talk at all about what they were doing for tourism. They did absolutely nothing to encourage me on that story.”

Eventually, even with funding secured, Struzik gave up and didn’t write the story.

“It’s absolutely clear to me that Parks Canada scientists are not free to speak to the press.”

“This business of writing down all the questions beforehand — they treat every enquiry from a journalist as though it’s a bomb that’s about to blow up.”

Though Struzik noted he did get some cooperation from the mountain parks on the book, where he had previously built up relationships, he thinks it’s still a nationwide issue.

“I kind of stay away from Parks Canada now. It’s a crazy mentality. This just shouldn’t happen in a democracy.”

Judith Lavoie told me she had a similar chilling experience when working on a feature story on Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories for The Narwhal.

During the Harper years, Lavoie worked on the environment beat at Victoria’s local newspaper, the Times Colonist, frequently reporting on Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve.

“I dealt with Parks Canada on a routine basis. They were always great. Every time you phoned, they usually persuaded you to come out on a trip. I never anticipated this,” Lavoie said.

Lavoie hadn’t covered Parks Canada since she semi-retired, up until The Narwhal sent her on assignment to cover diminishing water flows and pollution in the Peace-Athabasca Delta this June. UNESCO is considering adding Wood Buffalo to the list of World Heritage Sites in Danger because of threats such as oilsands development and hydro dams.

The experience left her flabbergasted.

Lavoie had intended to hitch a ride in an empty airplane seat with Sierra Club B.C., which was visiting the area. (The entirety of Lavoie’s trip was paid for by The Narwhal.) But when Parks Canada found out that Sierra Club would be bringing a journalist with them to report independently on Wood Buffalo, their tone swiftly changed.

“We can’t speak to you as a journalist without knowing the topic and without going through our process. We want to be open and helpful but we cannot take shortcuts with that process. We can talk further when you arrive in town,” wrote Parks Canada Southwest NWT Field Unit media relations officer Tim Gauthier in an e-mail on May 31. The trip was still five days out — ample time to receive such unnecessary press permissions from Ottawa. Gauthier indicated this would be impossible.

When Lavoie arrived with Sierra Club at the Parks Canada office in Fort Smith on June 1 she was immediately separated from the Sierra Club representative and taken to a separate room. “Divide and conquer,” she surmised. “They sat us down and said, ‘You know, we’re not going to be able to talk to you.’ ” The park’s resource conservation manager, Stuart Macmillan, she recalled, stood there looking sheepish.

Over the next two days in Fort Smith, while Lavoie visited sites with Parks Canada and Sierra Club, Parks Canada staff stayed entirely silent. After the trip, she was told if she e-mailed her questions — a subversive tactic for the government to be able to review questions from the media before responding — she could get a response that way. The final results were, expectedly, generic.

Eventually Lavoie was able to cobble the story together using about 10 sources besides Parks Canada. But the experience left her angry. “Parks Canada, which is supposed to be in control, is not giving us any useful information at all.”

Illustration: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Who is responsible for muzzling Parks Canada?

So where is this Parks Canada gag order coming from?

Kevin Van Tighem, who retired as Banff National Park superintendent in 2011, thinks it ties closely to a bureaucratic problem within the agency. (It’s worth noting that Van Tighem also writes books and articles about nature, and the parks. He says he has had similar challenges with lengthy wait times as a writer).

“The philosophy during most of my years at Parks Canada was that media relations was about managing the relationship and facilitating communication. Now it’s moved very much into gatekeeping and risk management and that persists to this day.”

This, he says, is bizarre and controlling given Parks Canada’s strong mandate for public education. “There’s a million stories to be told and they’re sitting on them. They’re surrounding them with firewalls instead of enabling people to be informed by it.”

“You’re not respecting the media for what the media is.”

At the start of July 2018, I  reached out to Parks Canada’s national communications office. I wrote:  

“It’s become apparent that this is not a hearsay problem, and that journalists around the country are struggling to adequately report on Parks Canada issues (….)

I think it would be appropriate that Parks Canada issue a response to these concerns, and the public’s right to know about PC operations. If your policy does indeed state that ‘Parks Canada is wholeheartedly committed to working proactively with the media to promote public awareness and understanding of government policies, programs, services and initiatives’ then how are you going to improve upon access and relations with Canadian media given the number of complaints from working journalists?”

After nearly a month, a Parks Canada spokesperson responded:

Parks Canada is committed to providing Canadians with timely, accurate and clear information. The Agency adheres to the principles of open and transparent communications of the Government of Canada. As it relates to media relations, Parks Canada follows the Government of Canada’s Directive on the Management of Communications to ensure that communications activities are effectively managed, well coordinated and responsive to the diverse information needs of the public.

Parks Canada researchers and experts are available to share their research and speak freely about their work with the media and the public. The Agency regularly communicates the work of Parks Canada researchers through media interviews as well as speaking engagements and other activities, including open houses and public forums as well as through the Parks Canada website or other digital channels. Parks Canada also delivers large media events and announcements, some of these relating to science and conservation. Due to the high volume of media requests following these events and announcements, written responses are often provided to media to enable more rapid handling of requests for general information and to help media outlets meet their publication deadlines.

As an Agency that directly serves the Canadian public, Parks Canada actively seeks opportunities to share information and engage Canadians on the research happening at national parks, historic sites and marine conservation areas. Parks Canada promotes scientific research and conservation through proactive media outreach, on the Agency website, over social media, and on other digital channels, such as the Agency’s Youtube presence. Parks Canada’s commitment to open and transparent communications is evidenced by the high rate of responses to media requests in the chart below, which includes details on the number of media interviews provided on subjects related to science and conservation. Information for all of Parks Canada and for the Mountain National Parks are provided below.

Suffice to say, this was not the response I had hoped for, but one I was definitely expecting.

Attached were the numbers of press enquiries and responses received nationally and by the mountain parks division in 2017. Parks Canada received 482 media enquiries on science and conservation last year, 78 per cent of which resulted in interviews. However, such raw numbers don’t reveal the timeliness or quality of information, whether it was delivered in person, via telephone or e-mail, nor the number of journalists, who like Struzik, Lavoie and I, were requesting field access and offered e-mail or phone interviews instead.

“I’m aghast. All of this is very disquieting.”

For example, while wrapping up this story, The Narwhal contacted Parks Canada media relations staff for a separate story, asking for usage of stock photos from the Banff bison reintroduction. One week later, we received a nine-question “proposal form” to fill out. Most notably, Parks Canada asked how this project would benefit Parks Canada and the bison reintroduction program. (It is not the media’s job to benefit the government nor the topics we cover.)

Canadian restrictions worse than those under Trump administration in many cases

Finally, I spoke with Nikita Lopoukhine, who served as director general of national parks from 2000 to 2005 and continues to be involved with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. He also serves on Environment Minister Catherine McKenna’s national advisory panel on Canada’s Conservation 2020 initiative.

“It’s really fascinating to hear this,” he told me after I filled him in on my experience and those of others. “I’ve had some contact with [Environment and Climate Change Canada] Minister Catherine McKenna who adamantly says there is no concern about scientists talking about science. I’m aghast. All of this is very disquieting.”

Though Parks Canada scientists aren’t under a topic-wide gag order, problems with response times, reviewing of questions and field access pose a long-term and more insidious problem.

In a June 2017 poll by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which was sent to more than 15,000 federal scientists, 53 per cent of respondents disagreed that they were able to speak freely and without constraints to the media about their work. How many of those scientists, I wondered, work at Parks Canada?

“Canadians are generally complacent,” said author Ed Struzik. “We haven’t cared that the government hasn’t responded to the media as they have in the past. But look south of the border, at the Trump Administration, and you can see where that leads you. You can end up having an autocratic regime because they know they can get away with it.”

Indeed, many Canadians are quick to criticize press freedoms in the United States with little inward reflection. I serve on the board of directors of the U.S.-based Society of Environmental Journalists, including their Freedom of Information task force. Over the past year, we’ve written several letters to the Department of Interior and Environmental Protection Agency condemning new restrictions on the press in the United States. But, it occurred to me as I contemplated the Canadian side, that many of these restrictions were exactly how Parks Canada has been operating for years under Trudeau and Harper, unchallenged.

“You can end up having an autocratic regime because they know they can get away with it.”

“There’s this assumption that the Trudeau government have changed things, and no doubt they have, but we still have this hangover from a bureaucracy that got its start with the Harper administration,” said Struzik. “Don’t think big. Don’t get into the newspapers. Don’t promote your agenda. Just maintain the status quo and we’ll get along. That’s not what we need to build a country.”

— With files from Emma Gilchrist

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.

This is Part 1 of the series "Science on the Chopping Block," an in-depth look at federal cuts to science programs in Canada and what they mean for some of the country's most important researchers.

As cuts to science budgets and programs continue by the federal government, former scientists and academics who’ve lost their funding say the cuts have upended their careers, compromised knowledge about Canada’s environment and undercut development of the next generation of scientists.

Since the cuts began about five years ago, the federal government has either reduced funding or shut down more than 150 science-related programs and research centres and dismissed more than 2,000 scientists.

With the recently announced cuts to Environment Canada, by 2017 the department will be operating with close to 30 per cent fewer dollars than it had in 2012.  

As the impacts of the cuts grow, DeSmog Canada has reached out to former government and university scientists to hear their stories.

Unwatched Parks?

When Dana Haggarty started at Parks Canada in 2007, her job was to take stock of the ecological integrity of Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Northwest Territories. Haggarty saw it as “a dream position” at an organization where she “saw room for growth.” [view:in_this_series=block_1]

It was an exciting time. In 2005, the auditor general had found gaps in the monitoring of parks and Parks Canada was feverishly working to improve its knowledge of regions like Nahanni National Park.

Haggarty, along with other researchers at Parks Canada, was getting ready to announce an expanded boundary for Nahanni in 2009.

Already understaffed and overworked, Haggarty and fellow scientists worked “their butts off” to complete their part of the State of Parks report. The report, produced every five years, provided decision-makers with science-based evidence to help them direct resources.

Haggarty, excited about the future, decided to go on unpaid educational leave to get a PhD in marine biology, focusing on rockfish conservation. She saw it as a career-building move and she wanted to return to Parks Canada and work on restoration efforts along the Pacific coast.

Then major cuts came in 2012. Parks Canada had $29.2-million cut from its budget and 638 jobs were deemed surplus. The cuts drastically affected Parks Canada’s regional service centres, which were consolidated across the country. For her work in the remote area of Nahanni, Haggerty depended heavily on the experienced scientists at the local regional service centre.

She was “just floored” when her mentor Phil Lee’s job was deemed surplus. Lee provided support to scientists in fields in all of the western and northwestern parks, she said.

“There was no way I could do my job without Phil,” Haggarty said. “It said they were absolutely not committed to ecological integrity or basically doing science in parks.”

After the cuts, Haggarty’s position was still available in Nahanni, but there was a lot of confusion around it, she said. On cusp of finishing her PhD, Haggarty saw all of the coastal parks positions she’d hoped to have some day eliminated, so she gave up her job.

“I had such a bad taste in my mouth over what happened to science at Parks Canada. The program that I had worked so hard on and cared so much about was just gutted,” she said.

In response to a previous criticism of its ecological integrity program, Parks Canada said the scientists were hired to develop monitoring programs, but now the agency was moving to another phase of the work.

A 2013 auditor general report stated Parks Canada “has been slow to implement systems for monitoring and reporting on ecological integrity. It has failed to meet many deadlines and targets, and information for decision making is often incomplete or has not been produced.” 

In an e-mail response to questions from DeSmog Canada, Mélissa Larose, a Parks Canada media relations officer, said: “Parks Canada will continue to undertake priority natural resource conservation actions, including species at risk recovery, in national parks and national marine conservation areas that result in tangible and measurable conservation outcomes.”

Haggarty is now considering postdoctoral research, consulting work or moving into the private sector. She would return to Parks Canada if commitments were made to fund the science, she said.

Forgotten Forests?

At one time, Philip Burton managed a multi-disciplinary team of 12 people studying the mountain pine beetle epidemic for the Pacific Forestry Centre.

During the last decade, the beetle — fuelled by climate change — went on an unprecedented tear across British Columbia, infesting and killing large swaths of lodgepole pine trees.

The beetle then expanded beyond its historical range jumping the Rockies into Alberta, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Today, as Saskatchewan gears up for its battle with the beetle, scientists fear the problem could jump to the boreal forest, potentially spreading across Canada.

It’s after the beetle tears through an area that the story gets interesting, Burton says. How is the forest going to recover? What needs to be done to make the forest more resilient to future pests, especially in a changing climate?

“Just as we were getting to the more interesting aspects of the problem, the plug was pulled,” Burton said.

Jacinthe Perras, spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada, said in an email response to questions that “research on mountain pine beetle is ongoing, including field study in all affected parts of British Columbia, Alberta and beyond.

Burton agrees other aspects of the beetle’s biology are being studied however “field study in all affected parts” is “physically impossible,” he said. Furthermore, even though studies continue “field-based research has clearly decreased over the last many years, with a growing emphasis on policy support, remote sensing, and simulation modelling instead,” he said.

Burton’s position was eliminated and his office in Prince George, connected to the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), was consolidated with a Victoria location. He had the opportunity to re-apply as a research scientist in Victoria, but declined.

“All employees at UNBC were offered the opportunity to continue their work at the lab in Victoria,” Perras, from Natural Resources Canada, said.

After the pine beetle epidemic moved through British Columbia, the provincial government closed its forest research division and unsustainably ramped up harvest rates to capture the dying pine trees and bycatch, Burton said.

“We are back into 1890s Gold Rush mentality instead of thoughtful planning for the future,” he said.

Burton stayed in the north in Terrace, B.C., working at a satellite campus of UNBC as the regional chair of ecosystem science and management. He was hired to grow the science program, but is doing limited new science.

“In a 30-year career, this is first time where I have run out of ideas as to where to apply for research funding to support field research for graduate students,” Burton said. “The funding is really poor unless you are going to partner up with industry.”

Image Credit: DeSmog Canada

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.