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One hundred and eighty metres.
That’s how far hunter Willie Bertacco was from the elk, balancing in a boat on Babine Lake, when he steadied his rifle and felled it with a single shot. B.C. reporter Steph Kwetásel’wet Wood, who joined Bertacco and his fellow hunter Mateen Hessami on the hunt last September, was astounded by the precision it took to fell the animal.
“They let the elk pass in peace, waiting to approach so it wouldn’t panic, and then laid down tobacco in thanks for providing them with food,” Steph told me. “It was a moment that showed how deep the cultural relationships are between the land and the people.”
They weren’t looking for elk, however; they were looking for moose. That day, moose were nowhere to be seen.
Moose have sustained members of Lake Babine Nation for at least 200 years — when they were first introduced onto the territory partly by human activity. Though moose in many parts of British Columbia are thriving, that’s not the case in Lake Babine’s territory or Interior B.C. Like many First Nations, the decline in traditional foods contributes to food insecurity for their people, part of the ongoing legacy of colonialism and resource extraction on their homelands. For Bertacco and other members of the nation, protecting moose is also about protecting their relationship to the species, which includes hunting.
“People might think that First Nations should stop relying on meat if they want to address biodiversity loss,” Steph explained. “But that just shows how anti-Indigenous racism goes hand-in-hand with the impacts of colonialism on the natural world.”
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