The federal government is promising to create artificial ice jams, strategically release water from BC Hydro dams and assess cumulative impacts on northern Alberta’s Peace-Athabasca delta in an attempt to retain the World Heritage status of Canada’s largest national park.

However, Ottawa’s long-awaited action plan for Wood Buffalo National Park rejects a World Heritage Committee recommendation calling on Canada to  conduct an environmental and social impact assessment of the controversial Site C dam. The action plan says the federal government’s hands are tied because an assessment of the project was completed by a federal-provincial review panel before the dam was approved in 2014.

“There is no legal mechanism in federal legislation to suspend or negate the authorization or undertake a new environmental assessment for a project that has been approved,” says the 96-page report compiled by Parks Canada, in consultation with 11 Indigenous communities and the B.C., Northwest Territories and Alberta governments.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is “actively verifying that BC Hydro is complying with the conditions,” the report adds.

In 2014 the Mikisew Cree First Nation, alarmed by the deteriorating park environment, asked UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee to add Wood Buffalo to the list of World Heritage in Danger.

Following a visit to the park by committee members and representatives of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, UNESCO warned that, because of poor management, the park was in danger of losing its World Heritage status and made 17 recommendations, including an assessment of the effects of Site C on the park.

Canada was asked to produce a plan addressing the recommendations and detailing how to restore ailing ecosystems in the 4.5-million hectare park.

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

Decreasing water levels cause for concern

Water levels in the Peace-Athabasca delta dropped after the 1968 construction of the Bennett dam on the Peace River, followed by the 1980 Peace Canyon dam. Indigenous communities, many of whom rely on the delta for fishing and hunting, are among those who fear the Site C dam — the third dam on the Peace River — will mean further decreases in water levels in the delta.

BC Hydro community relations manager David Conway disagrees that the delta’s water woes stem from the Bennett Dam or that Site C will be a threat.

“Researchers from a number of universities across Canada who conducted research at Wood Buffalo National Park have found the changes observed with the Peace Athabasca Delta are consistent with that of a naturally evolving delta with climate change,” Conway wrote in an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal.

“During the environmental assessment of Site C, we commissioned studies from leading experts to evaluate the potential downstream effects of the project and, in all cases, it was concluded that the project would have no notable effect on the Peace-Athabasca Delta,” he wrote.

The view from the ground is different and Indigenous communities say there are areas of the delta where they can no longer take boats to reach traditional hunting grounds, while fewer ice jams are changing the landscape and causing lakes to dry up.

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

Climate change is acknowledged as part of the cause — with the action plan estimating that the average annual temperature in the park has increased by two degrees and the winter temperature by four degrees — but residents believe many of the delta’s problems are caused by Peace River dams, water withdrawals by the oil and gas industry and contamination from the oilsands.

Cracked earth details in Wood Buffalo National Park’s Salt Plains Outlook trail. Photo: Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC

Site C dam unaddressed in action plan

Site C looms large in those concerns, said Becky Kostka, Smith’s Landing First Nation lands and resources coordinator.

“This is not good enough. Canada really needs to step up,” said Kostka, who was hoping pressure from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination would help push the federal government into taking another look at the ramifications of Site C.

Last month, the committee wrote to Canada’s ambassador to the UN expressing concerns that the dam would permanently affect the land rights of Indigenous peoples in B.C.

Galen Armstrong, a campaigner for Sierra Club B.C., said omission of a Site C assessment means the plan — although it includes some long-overdue measures for improving and monitoring the health of Wood Buffalo — fails  to address underlying issues.

The fact that BC Hydro is considering releases of water from the Bennett dam is an admission of the impact the dam has had downstream and building another dam is contrary to protecting the delta, Armstrong said.

“When the committee meets again, I don’t expect it to be satisfied with this response. Canada is leaving Wood Buffalo National Park open to earning a World Heritage Site in Danger status and, to me, it shows it wasn’t taken as seriously as it should have been,” he said.

Gillian Chow-Fraser, boreal program manager for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, pored over the draft action plan and the final document looking for differences and, although she applauds the weight given to Indigenous experiences in the final version, she is disappointed the two documents are so alike.

It is odd to say cumulative impacts will be considered and then ignore the Site C dam, which is one of the biggest potential impacts, Chow-Fraser said.

“They don’t address the impacts of Site C at all. They just throw their hands up in the air and say it has been approved.”

Site C dam construction on the Peace River, July 2018. Photo: Garth Lenz.

Strategic water releases and ice dams

The action plan recommends coming up with a protocol to look at how water releases from the Bennett dam could enhance ice jam flooding and what risks “strategic flow releases” would have on communities and infrastructure downstream from the dam

Proposals include “enhancing” spring flooding and creating ice-dams from spray ice, but Chow-Fraser hopes any artificial manipulation of hydrology in the delta will be approached cautiously.

“We don’t know the potential knock-off effects,” she said.

“It seems like a really big action and I don’t know if it’s the most effective way of restoring the ecosystem — especially when they are ignoring Site C,” she said.

Melody Lepine, director of government and industry relations for the Mikisew Cree, believes timed releases from the dam could be positive and she is encouraged that BC Hydro is willing to help restore some ecological functions of the delta.

“It’s a start. BC Hydro needs to be part of the solution. They control the faucet,” said Lepine, who is also encouraged that the final plan toughens up the requirement for buffer zones around the park and that industry withdrawals of water from the Athabasca River will come under scrutiny.

Peace Valley farmers Ken and Arlene Boon look out onto the Site C dam’s construction zone from a neighbour’s property downstream on the Peace River. Photo: Sarah Cox

Funding concerns

But a funding question mark hangs over the action plan with fears that the $27.5 million earmarked over five years by the federal government for development and implementation of the action plan isn’t enough.

Lepine, looking at potential costs, said Canada should have started budgeting for Wood Buffalo several years ago and determining a cost for the actions should have been part of the action plan development.

“Now it’s an afterthought,” she said, pointing out that Australia has spent half a billion dollars to restore the Great Barrier Reef. “When I look at other sites around the world and what other countries have spent, I give my head a shake.”

Lepine worries that the plan has big ambitions, but is too vague, leaving questions such as how, when and who is going to pay for it.

“There are so many issues and challenges, so it’s hard to measure what success will look like. That’s how Canada gets caught up in these broken promises,” she said.

Kostka echoes concerns that the plan lacks specific measurements — with Alberta’s role largely limited to dealing with problems through existing legislation — and that the funding is insufficient.

It is unclear how the existing funding will be used and whether Indigenous groups will be offered funding to help with implementation of the plan, she said.

“We need a long-term commitment…  I don’t know how many ways that $27.5 million can be split over five years,” Kostka said.

Lepine’s hopes are now pinned on the World Heritage Committee and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature  when the plan is presented in Azerbaijan in early July.

“I think the committee has a lot of influence and can push Canada to do something. Canada is not going to do anything unless they are forced to,” Lepine said.

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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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This is part one of a three-part series on Wood Buffalo National Park featuring photos by Louis Bockner, Sierra Club BC. Find the second story here and the third story here.

The Slave River races and tumbles over rose-coloured rocks at the Rapids of the Drowned in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, as pelicans dive headfirst into the churning water, searching for lampreys and whitefish.

The river is the raison d’etre for small communities dotted along its banks. It is the reason Indigenous communities settled in the area, followed by fur traders and missionaries. It provides spiritual balm, recreation, fish and draws tourists to the remote region for paddle-boarding or viewing the most northerly nesting areas of American white pelicans.

But pollution and shrinking water flows are changing this river, which flows out of the Peace-Athabasca Delta in Wood Buffalo National Park. The Peace and Athabasca rivers wend their way from the dams of B.C. through the massive land disruptions of the Alberta oilsands to the park, a UNESCO world heritage site since 1983.

Wildflowers at sunset in Fort Chipewyan along the shores of Lake Athabasca.

White American Pelicans take a graceful flight above the Slave River near Fort Smith, N.W.T. The birds fly North from their winter homes in the Gulf of Mexico to spend their summers in Canada’s north.

Calypso orchids, also known as fairy slippers, near Fort Smith, N.W.T.

Forest flowers. Fort Smith, N.W.T.

‘It’s kind of scary’

Roughly 230 kilometres south, swerving through the channels of the Peace-Athabasca Delta, Kevin Courtoreille looks at the banks of grasses and willows and shakes his head in disgust.

“Five years ago there was none of this here. The lake was wide open and the water was clear,” he said, digging an oar into shallow, murky water, then shaking off mud before being forced to stop and backup to clear the boat engine of weeds.

“This will be Mamawi Creek, not Lake Mamawi, in maybe 20 or 30 years. It’s kind of scary,” said Courtoreille, who has spent his life in the northern Alberta hamlet of Fort Chipewyan, and now works as a technician testing the delta’s water, plants, wildlife and sediment for Mikisew Cree First Nation’s community-based monitoring program.

The Peace-Athabasca, one of the largest freshwater deltas in the world, is facing a perfect storm that will not only change the geography, but also the way of life for people who, for generations, have lived off the land, trapping, hunting and fishing. 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.

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

There is general consensus that problems started with B.C.’s WAC Bennett dam, constructed on the Peace River in 1968 before federal environmental assessment guidelines existed. The WAC Bennett dam — one of world’s largest earth-filled dams — was followed by the Peace Canyon dam in 1980.

As the reservoir filled behind the Bennett dam, parts of the delta dried up and, afterwards, levels never reached their former heights, said Courtoreille pointing to a line on the Lake Athabasca rocks which show water was several feet higher in the past.

Spring floods changed because the dams stopped the formation of ice jams that previously forced the water to back up into the delta and, a flyover of the delta showed that, even though the water is higher than usual this spring, small ponds and streams remain obstinately dry.

Far left: Wood Buffalo National Park salt plains. Centre and right: Aerial view of Wood Buffalo National Park’s famed wetlands.

Cracked earth details in Wood Buffalo National Park’s Salt Plains Outlook trail.

From the air, the stretches of boreal forest give way to chains of small lakes, with rivers meandering through marshland towards the watery expanses of the delta, but stretches of bright yellow grasses and empty channels show dry areas.

That means hunters are unable to get to traditional hunting grounds and animal populations are changing.

Mikisew Cree First Nation elder George Sloan Whiteknife, who has been guiding moose hunts for 30 years, pointed to where, last fall, a mud bar appeared slap in the middle of the lake.

“We can’t get anywhere now,” he said.

Then, there are the recurring stories about damage and dangers when BC Hydro periodically releases water.

Mikisew Cree Chief Archie Waquan used to trap, but, with drying of the delta and the additional complication of unexpected releases of water, he believes it is no longer a viable way to earn a living.

Chief Archie Waquan of the Mikisew Cree First Nation, in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta.

“We would set our traps and they would let go all the water and we would lose all our traps and all the creatures like beavers burrowing on the banks, when the water comes up, they are dead,” he said, reflecting on how the community is being forced to change its way of life to meet the new reality.

Climate change, natural sedimentation and pollution from rampant development of the Alberta oilsands play a role in the changing delta and another factor is post-glacial rebound — the slow lifting of the lake bottom after the end of the ice age.

Also, the Peace and Athabasca rivers flow into the delta and, as oilsands development surges ahead industry withdrawals from the Athabasca River are increasing, with current figures hovering around 111.5 million cubic metres of water annually.

But dams on the Peace River remain in the crosshairs as the major culprit and fears are growing about what will happen when Site C, the third dam on the Peace River, is built.

These concerns don’t seem to sink in for provincial and federal governments considering projects such as Site C or the massive Teck Frontier oilsands mine proposed for 30 kilometres south of Wood Buffalo Park, said Melody Lepine, government and industry relations director for Mikisew Cree First Nation.

Lepine knows from studies and the stories of elders how much water levels in the delta dropped after the Bennett dam was built in 1968, followed by the Peace Canyon dam in 1980, and, like those who rely on the delta and the surrounding land for trapping, hunting and fishing, she fears the changes what Site C will bring.

“Site C is a huge concern because of the problems the Bennett dam caused and the neglect from BC Hydro and the B.C. government in not recognizing downstream impacts,” said Lepine, who presented countless submissions to try and ensure downstream impacts on the delta were recognized and incorporated into the Site C environmental assessment.

Aerial view of river in Wood Buffalo National Park.

The Athabasca River near Fort McMurray.

A heavy hauler truck in an open pit mine in the Alberta oilsands.

Alberta’s oilsands North of Fort McMurray.

The Joint Review Panel’s report on Site C concluded “there would be no effect from the project on any aspect of the environment in the Peace Athabasca Delta and a cumulative effects assessment on the PAD is not required.”

Parks Canada asked for a cumulative effects study of dams on the Peace River during Site C hearings, but BC Hydro has consistently claimed there is no effect on the delta 1,100 kilometres downstream.

BC Hydro spokeswoman Mora Scott said leading experts were called to evaluate potential downstream effects of Site C.

“In all cases, the studies concluded that the project would have no notable effect on the Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD), which is located 1,100 kilometres downstream of the project,” she said.

Indigenous concerns were basically dismissed, Lepine said bleakly.

Now, the push for consideration of cumulative effects of the dams and climate change is gaining momentum however with the release of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of Wood Buffalo National Park.

The assessment was demanded by UNESCO after the Mikisew Cree petitioned the World Heritage Committee to have the park added to the list of World Heritage Sites in Danger and a monitoring visit by World Heritage Committee inspectors confirmed risks faced by the park.

The assessment is a stepping stone to the action plan, which has to address 17 recommendations and is scheduled to be completed by Dec. 1.

Mikisew Cree man tying up a motor boat in Fort Chip, AB.

Stop sign in Fort Smith showcasing indigenous languages alongside French and English. Fort Smith, NWT.

Improving identification and management of cumulative effects is a priority, says the assessment, which concludes that dams on the Peace, combined with climate change have changed the delta.

“Flow rate changes on the Peace and reduced seasonal flows on the Athabasca, in conjunction with climate change, have decreased water levels and the extent of open water in the Peace-Athabasca Delta,” it says.

Land users say they no longer feel it is safe to drink the water or eat the fish and the report acknowledges problems, pointing out that without the springtime flush of water through the delta, water can become stagnant.

“Mercury has also been found in high levels in fish and bird eggs, so consumption limits were set by the government, further limiting access to food sources and further eroding confidence in local food sources,” the report states.

The assessment uses existing research to project potential changes to the delta due to climate change and, unsurprisingly, it’s bad news.

Parks Canada spokesman Tim Gauthier said in an emailed response to The Narwhal that warming over the next 30 years is likely to affect ice quality, ice jam flooding events and water flow into the delta.

“Anticipated increases in air temperature may also produce mid-winter thaws, which could cause winter flows to increase from current levels and have a negative impact on ice quality, both in terms of safe travel across (the ice) and in the structural quality of the ice,”  according to the assessment.

Bruce Maclean of Maclean Environmental Monitoring, who has worked with Mikisew Cree since 2007, is disappointed the assessment does not look at cumulative impacts, especially with Site C and the massive Teck Frontier oilsands proposal on the horizon.

“The situation is bad to the point we are compromising the entire Peace-Athabasca Delta. New projects coming on board are going to further exacerbate that problem. We may want to stray away from them until we rectify the problems we have already created,” he said.

The delta is silting up, there is glacial uplift and climate change impacts — which are all natural elements, Maclean said.

But the unnatural aspects are regulation of water from dams on the Peace River, meaning more water in the winter and less water in the summer, plus increasing withdrawals from the Athabasca River by the oil and gas industry.

What is now needed to help the delta is a commitment to manage flows on the Peace and Athabasca rivers to bring water back to the delta, he said.

Changes documented through the monitoring program include large declines in muskrat and waterfowl populations, changes in water quality and flow, changes to ice and changes in the timing of flooding, Maclean said.

One of the projects now underway is a study of muskrat declines and it is is not only the demise of the trapping industry that makes it important to study muskrat populations, Maclean said.

“Muskrats are a sentinel species. If you have good floods you have a lot of habitat and great muskrat populations. If you have healthy muskrats you have a healthy delta,” he said.

Ice is life

For Fort Chipewyan residents, a major concern is the state of the ice because, as soon as the ice is thick enough, the winter road opens across the lake, allowing goods, from groceries to fuel, to be driven to the community.

Once the ice road is closed all goods come by air, meaning sky-high prices.

In The Northern, the only grocery store, a two litre carton of orange juice sells for $11.29, butter for $8.19 and a litre of Coke for $5.25.

A new grocery store, run by Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, is due to open shortly and there are hopes of bargains, but the ice road will continue to be an essential supply link.

“You stock up on dry goods. Sugar, lard and things like potatoes, so you don’t have to buy anything except veggies,” said Mikisew Cree elder Basil Tourangeau.

But fluctuating water levels through the winter, combined with climate change, means the ice does not freeze in the same way as previously and is being eroded from underneath, Maclean said.

“You’re getting worse quality ice. Not strong blue ice,” he said.

Changes to the rivers around Wood Buffalo National Park are becoming more noticeable each year, said Ernie Tourangeau, as he spent a leisurely Sunday afternoon fishing with his family from a sandy beach beside the Salt River, a tributary of the Slave.

Whether it is climate change, pollution or dropping water levels, the fish are not the same as they used to be, Tourangeau said.

“Some of the fish you just wouldn’t bother with. The white fish are just scaleless and pink because of what is coming down the river,” he said.

It is a view supported by scientific studies.

A 2014 peer-reviewed study by the University of Manitoba linked oilsands pollution to elevated cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan and researcher Stephane McLachlan said the health effects on communities downstream of oil and gas development is clear.

The study found that fish and animals consumed as part of a traditional diet contained unusually high concentrations of contaminants, such as heavy metals, released during the extraction of bitumen and that health problems such as diabetes were then exacerbated as residents switched from a traditional diet to processed foods.

“The results of this study, as they relate to human health and, especially, the increasing cancer rates, are alarming and should function as a dramatic wake up call to industry, government and communities alike,” McLachlan said in a news release.

Journalist Judith Lavoie interviews Mikisew Cree member Robert Grandjambe. Fort Chip, AB.

Robert Grandjambe pulling a lake trout from his nets in Lake Athabasca near Fort Chip.

George Sloan Whiteknife, Mikisew Cree elder, in Fort Chip, AB.

Leaves at sunset near Pine Lake in Wood Buffalo National Park.

Those who catch their own fish are warned to eat only two portions a week because of mercury contamination and elders are told to limit the amount of moose organ meat they eat, Courtereille said.

Those are vast changes for a community that, until three decades ago, relied on the land and water for food and for earning a living.

For some, with Site C and Teck looming, hopes are dim that even recommendations from the World Heritage Committee can restore what is being lost.

Becky Kostka, land and resources manager at Smith’s Landing First Nation and project director of the Slave River Coalition, a Tides Canada initiative to protect and restore the Slave River, worries about the future.

“We just feel Site C will be the final nail in the coffin of the Peace Athabasca Delta,” Kostka said, swatting at the ever-present mosquitoes as she stood on the smooth rocks watching the river.

“Last summer, the water dropped so low there were visible rocks no one had ever seen before. There was a new set of rapids.”

Add in climate change, with warmer winters and, for a few short months of the year, hotter, drier summers and the possibility of disaster mounts.

“There are some words in the Dene language that are not used anymore because the ice doesn’t make the same noise,” Kostka said.

Industry should come and look at what they have done, said Athabasca Chipewyan elder and land-user Alice Rigney.

“You don’t deal with Mother Nature like this. She knows what she is doing and I can hear her crying.”

This is the first part of a three-part series. Read the second story here and the third story here.

The Narwhal’s reporter Judith Lavoie travelled with Sierra Club BC campaigner Galen Armstrong and Sierra Club BC photographer Louis Bockner to Wood Buffalo National Park in early June. Lavoie’s travel expenses were paid by The Narwhal, with the exception of a flyover of a section of Wood Buffalo National Park, for which she snagged an empty seat in the plane.

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.

The Alberta government made history this week when it announced the creation of new protected areas in the boreal forest, known as the “northern lungs of the world.”

The new protections represent the single largest addition to the Alberta parks system since its creation. They also make Alberta the jurisdiction with the largest contiguous protected boreal forest in the world, conserving an area more than twice the size of Vancouver island and larger than B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest.

Carpeted by spruce and dotted with wetlands such as bogs and fens, Canada’s boreal forest is a globally significant bird nursery and home to species vulnerable to extinction, including wood bison, woodland caribou and the peregrine falcon.

It’s also a huge carbon sink at a time when concern about global warming is mounting and Canadian communities confront increased flooding and fires due to climate change.

“The ecological value of this region cannot be overstated,” John Lounds, president and CEO of the Nature Conservancy of Canada, said in a statement. “This is a conservation achievement of global significance.”

According to Tuesday’s announcement, five wildland provincial parks in northeast Alberta will be created or expanded, adding 1.36 million hectares to the province’s protected areas network.

Four of the areas border on Wood Buffalo National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was cast into the global spotlight when Alberta’s Mikisew Cree petitioned the committee, saying the park was threatened by rampant industrial development on its borders and the Site C dam on B.C.’s Peace River, which flows into the Peace-Athabasca Delta in the park.

The World Heritage Committee is contemplating a “World Heritage Site in Danger” designation for Wood Buffalo park — an ignominious label often reserved for imperilled heritage sites in war zones — if Canada does not implement an action plan and report back by the end of the year.

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) described the area with the new protections as “one of Canada’s busiest industrial landscapes” and said the designations position Alberta as a leader in the conservation of caribou habitat and the world’s boreal forest.

Noting that four woodland caribou ranges are included in the new protections, CPAWS Northern Alberta program director Tara Russell said the announcement helps fulfill Alberta’s obligations to recover woodland caribou, a species vulnerable to extinction.

“If there are protected area solutions in this busy landscape, then we can find them in all caribou ranges and in other sensitive ecosystems that are not sufficiently protected,” Russell pointed out.

The new protections were made possible through a partnership among Indigenous communities, the Alberta government, industry and the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

Between 2012 and 2016, the Alberta government dished out $45 million to buy back oil sands and metallic mineral leases in the new conservation areas.

The areas will now be off-limits to industrial development, including logging and oil sands development.

In March, the Tallcree First Nation voluntarily relinquished a timber quota, meaning that commercial forestry will no longer take place in the new Birch River Wildland Park on Wood Buffalo’s southern border.

According to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, the Birch River Wildland Park is a “haven” for 68 species of conservation concern, including wood bison and woodland caribou. It encompasses 13 per cent of core habitat in the Red Earth caribou range.

The Tallcree license was purchased by the Nature Conservancy of Canada for $2.8 million, with oil sands giant Syncrude Canada providing the majority of the funding.

Tallcree First Nation chief Rupert Meneen said the new protections align with the Tallcree Tribal Government’s values regarding the preservation of the boreal forest.

“The boreal forest holds greater value to the First Nation for exercising our traditional way of life and the quiet enjoyment of our treaty rights,” Meneen said in a news release.

The new wildland provincial parks will involve the Indigenous community through proposed development of Indigenous co-management processes and Indigenous guardian programs, according to the Alberta government.

Under the guardian program, First Nations and Metis peoples will be hired to monitor the areas, help maintain the lands and provide education and outreach to park visitors.

McMurray Metis CEO Bill Loutitt said the Alberta government’s commitment to work collaboratively with Indigenous communities to develop cooperative management plans provides an “historic opportunity” to have Indigenous knowledge and values influence land-use planning.

“The new wildland provincial parks ensure Indigenous peoples have places to hunt and fish with their families for generations to come,” Loutitt said.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada said the new protected areas will contribute to Canada’s promise to conserve 17 per cent of the country’s land and inland waters by 2020.

“Conservation at this scale also reinforces a region’s ability to adapt to climate change,” the nature conservancy noted.

The new protected areas are the following:

• Kazan Wildland Park on Wood Buffalo’s northeast flank (570,822 hectares of new land for a total of 659,397 hectares).
• Richardson Wildland Park on Wood Buffalo’s southeast side (264,727 hectares of new land for total of 312,068 hectares)
• Dillon River Wildland Park, which is southeast of Wood Buffalo and not connected to the park (191,545 hectares)
• Birch River Wildland Park (331,832 hectares), and
• the expansion of the existing Birch Mountains Wildland Park (by an additional 1,563 hectares).

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Yukon-based mining company Gabriel Resources Ltd. sent an ultimatum this week to one of the poorest countries in Europe to either approve its Rosia Montana gold mine project or face a $4-billion lawsuit.  

If approved, the project will create the largest open-pit mine in Europe in an area many have argued should be a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its natural beauty and unique history. The Romans mined gold at Rosia Montana over two thousand years ago.

Thousands took to the streets across Romania last week to protest Gabriel Resources’ project in what is being called the “Romanian Autumn." Earlier this week the Romanian Prime Minister – a supporter of the project – conceded Parliament would most likely reject the Rosia Montana project because of its unpopularity.

Last Wednesday, Gabriel’s CEO Jonathan Henry struck back in a manner that is becoming typical of Canadian mining companies operating overseas – approve the project or else.

“The Rosia Montana project is really a bad news project,” says Jamie Kneen, communications and outreach coordinator for MiningWatch Canada.

“In fifteen years of trying to make this project a reality Gabriel Resources has failed to redesign the project to accommodate people’s concerns or address the issues associated with the project,” Kneen told DeSmog. MiningWatch Canada is an Ottawa-based organization promoting mining policies and practices that are in the public interest.

Canadian mining companies already have one of the worst reputations in the world.  Companies such as Gabriel are not helping Canada’s case.

“If the lower house [of parliament] does reject the project, we will go ahead with formal notification to commence litigation for multiple breaches of international investment treaties for up to $4-billion,” Henry said in a phone interview with the Globe and Mail.

It is unclear which “international investment treaties” Henry is referring to because Gabriel has yet to name which ones Romania is breaching. His words did send Gabriel’s stocks up 15 per cent though.

Gabriel’s stocks took a 50 per cent nose-dive earlier this week when Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta expressed his doubt the draft law for mining Rosia Montana would receive parliamentary approval.

“There is a majority opposed to the bill,” Ponta had to admit last Monday.

Henry vowed to make Gabriel’s case against Romania “very public” to the extent that “Romania’s effort to attract foreign investment will suffer greatly.”

If approved, the Rosia Montana project would level four mountains, wipe three villages off the map and displace hundreds of rural Romanians. Despite this some villagers want the mine to get the go-ahead because of the jobs Gabriel has promised them.

"We want to mine! We want to work!" shouted a group of miners demonstrating at Rosia Montana’s town hall on September 9th.

One of the largest concerns opponents of the Rosia Montana project have is the use of cyanide to process gold.

“Rosia Montana involves mining large volumes of low grade ore,” says Kneen of MiningWatch.

“To separate the gold from the ore it’ll be crushed up and sprayed with cyanide out in the open. This is a practice that has been banned in places such as the state of Montana because of dangers it poses to the environment and communities,” Kneen told DeSmog.

It is estimated the Rosia Montana project will produce 250 million tons of toxic tailings laced with cyanide. Gabriel plans on storing these tailings in a huge dam. In 2000, cyanide laced tailings from a gold mining project in northwestern Romania leached into two rivers and contaminated the drinking water of 2.5 million people.

Gabriel has a lot riding on Rosia Montana. The company has never operated a mine before and all its projects (the company only has two) revolve around Rosia Montana. Gabriel claims to have spent over $500 million on the project over the fifteen years the company has been seeking approval and they have very little to show for it.

“Investors in Rosia Montana should really be questioning what their money has actually gone to,” Kneen told DeSmog.

Romanian Parliament is currently debating whether to approve or reject the draft law for mining Rosia Montana. In the meantime, protests against Gabriel’s gold mining project are expected to continue throughout the week culminating with a global day of action on September 15th.

Image Credit: Hanuta Flickr, Past Horizons

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A world heritage site in Newfoundland is under extreme threat from fracking, according to a recent report by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS). The report, entitled “One Step Forward / Two Steps Back” says Gros Morne Park, along with several other nationally and provincially protected areas, is in danger from “inappropriate development.”

Recently, a proposal by Shoal Point Energy Limited and several other companies to search for oil in the rock layers just metres from the park's border captured the attention of The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). During its June meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia UNESCO delegates drafted a resolution to ask for further environmental review from the Canadian government.

UNESCO declared Gros Morne Park a world heritage site in 1987 because it offers a unique glimpse into the tectonic processes that formed the east coast through continental drift. The coveted designation marks the park for protection alongside the world’s most important natural and cultural landmarks.

Robert Cadigan, president and CEO of the Newfoundland and Labrador Oil and Gas Industries Association, tried to quell fears in an interview with MacLean’s Magazine by pointing to the industry’s safety record. “There have been tens of thousands of wells fracked in Western Canada, just as an example — successfully — with no environmental damage.”

But the CPAWS report points out that development would greatly increase traffic on the park’s one road as well as lead to possible ground water contamination. It may also endanger the area’s well-developed tourism industry.

“For 30 years people have worked really hard to build a sustainable tourism industry around Gros Morne, based on Gros Morne. And this proposal would put that existing economy at risk,” pointed out CPAWS representative Alison Woodley.

Other dangers to the Canadian park system mentioned in the CPAWS report include the Yukon territorial government’s scrapping of its Peel Watershed Planning commission.

A major sub-basin of the Mackenzie River, the Peel Watershed is a largely pristine wilderness with massive biodiversity. There is currently a moratorium on development while consultations with First Nations groups continue, but there are already 8431 active mineral claims in the area, 6773 of which were staked after the planning process began.

After seven years of study, First Nations groups and the territorial government recommended 80% of the watershed be protected. Shortly thereafter, the plan was scrapped entirely. In February, Green Party leader Elizabeth May wrote an open letter to the Yukon government urging them to take the commission’s advice.

Ontario too backed away from its 2010 commitment to increase the protected area in Algonquin Park from 22% to 49%.

On the federal scale, budget cutbacks of $30 million per year have lead to a 30% reduction in ecosystem scientist positions and put some major ecological restoration programs on hold.

The report from CPAWS also called out Manitoba for continuing to allow mining and logging in protected areas. Although Manitoba agreed to ban peat mining in February of this year, the province is still in the process of approving a copper mine in Grass River Provincial Park.

The Hudbay copper mine will be situated by Reed Lake, a crucial travel corridor for endangered woodland caribou.

In terms of future recommendations, the report suggests strengthening regulations against oil and gas exploration in Nova Scotia’s Sable Island National Park. The area was designated a national park in June.

"Yesterday, oil and gas companies could drill on Sable Island and today with royal assent they won’t be able to," said Halifax MP and NDP environment critic Megan Leslie.

The Green Party objected to the designation, saying stronger protections are needed to stop oil and gas exploration in the area.

The CPAWS report points out that southern Alberta’s Castle wilderness area, which has been endangered by logging, oil and gas exploration, may become a Wildland and Provincial Park.

The region features spectacular rock formations and supplies drinking and agricultural water for 70 communities. Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development will have a land use report on the area available in August.

Canada’s national and provincial parks provide not only spectacular views for tourists but also preserve wildlife diversity and assure a clean water supply for much of the country. CPAWS collaborates with indigenous people, local communities, governments and industry to ensure that this continues to be true. Their goal is to protect half of Canada’s public land and water. 

Image Credit: VisitGrosMorne via Flickr Image Credit: peelwatershed via Flickr Image Credit: Charles Truscott via CPAWS

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