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A journey of carving and dance for caribou
Written by Aiden Duncan, Conservation Intern
July 31, 2023
Tansi! As a Cree/Metis 2spirit man originally from Manitoba my culture is very important to me, so I have always had a passion for protecting the environment. My grandmother attended Indian day school so my family suffered a loss of culture, but as I have gotten older I have started learning about my peoples traditional views on conservation and how that ties into modern day science, and my love for the environment. Over the years I have done everything I can to reconnect with my culture. Whether it be through art, ceremony, teachings, nature or other evolving practices.
This summer I want to gather people from all different walks of life and cultures, and to celebrate our individuality, spirit, and passion for what unites us. There are so many different interests, hobbies, and beliefs that can all be connected to conservation and protecting the environment. For me that is my culture, art, and the land that we share with all the other beings that walk among us.
As part of my internship with CPAWS Yukon, I will be carving a traditional Indigenous transformation mask and sharing my journey with you. For centuries Indigenous people have shared knowledge in a way that today can sometimes get lost. Teachings were not kept on paper, but passed on through music, dance, and art.
Draft mask design by Aiden Duncan.
It is a common misconception that Indigenous people want to return to living completely off the land in teepees. That kind of lifestyle isn’t a reality anymore due to climate change, environmental issues, and how society runs today. We want to keep our culture alive and remind people that it’s important to look at traditional ways of living when talking about conservation in today’s world. Sometimes “conservation” can be difficult to grasp, but approaching big daunting ideas through traditional teachings and community is key to understanding.
The mask will be accompanied by a series of powwow dances that tell the story of the Porcupine caribou and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, located just across the Yukon-Alaska border. Often referred to as “America’s Serengeti,” the Arctic Refuge is an essential space for over 200 different species from the mighty Ice bear to the smallest baby loon. The area is home to many animals, and a sacred and safe space for many who may just need a temporary home, like the Porcupine caribou.
Photo by Peter Mather.
The refuge provides protection and stability for the Porcupine caribou. It is an important stop along their journey of 2400 kilometers, the longest land migration in the world, through Alaska, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. Here they give birth to their calves, and the amazing wild space provides nutrients for the calves and moms to stay strong and grow.
Not only does the Arctic Refuge keep the caribou alive, it is also a lifeline for Indigenous people like the Gwich’in who depend on them. These animals nourish communities in need and help them keep their culture alive. The Porcupine caribou herd is one of the healthiest in the world thanks to the Gwich’in peoples efforts to protect these beautiful animals and their wild spaces, all while treating them with respect and honour.
Back home in Manitoba, boreal caribou are listed as a threatened species provincially and federally. Their population is decreasing, and the caribou aren’t traveling as far south as they used to because of urban development. When I visit museums and see beautiful historical creations using caribou hide, I feel disconnected from my ancestors. One of the most important reasons to protect these animals is to preserve the traditional teachings in northern communities. It can be hard to grasp just how much that could affect a person, but I know. I live in a place where those teachings have been lost over time, although many people are trying to revitalize and preserve them.
The population of Porcupine caribou is increasing by 3.7% per year, so sometimes it is easy for us to push loss out of our minds. Unfortunately, that can change quickly and drastically. As barren-ground caribou, their species is considered threatened across Canada. While there isn’t any active drilling in the Arctic Refuge right now, oil and gas development has long threatened the refuge. The herd is very vulnerable.
My project will share the story of the Porcupine caribou. I hope it draws people in and peaks their curiosity. The mask will represent the circle of life, and the dances will share the migration, strength, and beauty of the caribou, along with the struggles they face. I believe when people learn a meaningful story or even make a small change to live a more eco-friendly life, it can deepen other connections to the land and the wildlife that live among us. Nature is something that connects all of us together, and it isn’t too late to protect the Arctic Refuge. We need to take steps towards a better tomorrow for ourselves and for our future generations.
Photo by Malkolm Boothroyd.
Embracing intuition and connection at COP15
Written by Joti Overduin, Outreach Manager
June 29, 2023
I feel so grateful for the opportunity to witness, fully listen, and learn at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) in the unceded territory of the Kanien’keha:ka, Montréal. I witnessed so many inspiring people generously share their stories. All of them working so hard for what they believe in – for many things that align with my beliefs and that I want to support.
My first morning at COP15 I walked in disoriented and ungrounded from the jet-lag, exhausted from the unrelenting months prior, and with a heart broken from the tragic and unfair death of a beautiful First Nation woman that I care about very much.
I need to start with this because I’ve learned that it’s important to situate oneself, on multiple levels. How I came into those rooms in Montréal matters. How each of us enter into all spaces matters.
Everything we hear and work to understand is filtered through our life experiences. Throughout COP15 I was trying to understand the role of CPAWS Yukon, and my role personally in our collective work addressing the twin crises of our time, climate change and biodiversity loss (aka massive losses of life across the globe). My mind and heart were also working to process and make sense of the loss of a dear friend, and trying to find some healing from the sufferingthat her death highlighted. She is one of too many beautiful young people that have been lost here in the North, and the pain and grief is reverberating throughout so many families and communities. I don’t see these crises as separate to this.
This is why I am so grateful for what I encountered on my first day after stumbling my way into COP15 and navigating through police-armed entrances with airport-style security screening. In the brightly lit and spacious Nature Positive Pavilion, I was relieved to find an empty seat beside friend and colleague Katie Morrison (one of those strong, talented and very quiet, humble leaders), from the CPAWS Southern Alberta Chapter.
Soon after sitting down, Patti Saulis, member of the Maliseet tribe of Indigenous people, was introduced to open the event. Patti wore a long skirt with a very large and beautiful salmon sewn onto the front. She later explained that this was very much intentional, as she and her people are working very hard to bring their salmon back from the brink of extinction, and having that salmon with her gives her strength.
Patti first explained to everyone that what she was doing with us was more accurately described as an invocation. An invocation goes beyond an opening ceremony and accesses our intuition. We were all about to have important stories, perspectives, and experiences shared with us, she said, something that requires and deserves us to listen with more than our ears. This immediately brought me back to my first week in the Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas Program with Iisaak Olam and Victoria Island University where we were welcomed into Tla-O-Qui-Aht Lands by Gisele Martin, Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks Guardian and educator, outdoor guide, public speaker, land vision coordinator, and artist. Gisele welcomed us in her Nuu-chah-nulth language, and explained that part of what she said was a request for us to listen, not just with our ears but with our whole body, mind, spirit, heart, and intuition. This is what allows for real understanding.
Speakers at the CPAWS Panel included Patti Saulis, Matthew Munson, Stephanie Thorassie, and Wanli Ou.
Patti’s invocation was a song, she referred to it as the River Song, one that connects us to our own waters, and brings our grandmothers and grandfathers here with us and all of their wisdom as we talk about the future. As Patti so generously sang and shared this invocation with us, I was brought out of my head and back into my soul. I felt grounded into my whole being, allowing me to fully listen and see and understand what was about to be shared with me over the course of my next five days at the conference. I felt the presence of my ancestors, none who had roots in Canada but nonetheless rooted to waters in other parts of the globe, and my own deep connection to water throughout my life. I thought about people who lived, traveled, and have such deep knowledge and connection to the clear, beautiful and powerful mountain rivers throughout the North. Tears flowed down my cheeks silently and steadily, not unlike a river. The first of multiple times throughout the conference.
This was not what I had expected coming into a UN Convention. But why not? Why shouldn’t we all expect this – to open in a good way? To invoke all of our intuitions collectively so that we can be fully present as we work together on some of the most important issues of our time?
It was clear from the first moment of my first day that the world has an opportunity to learn a great deal from Indigenous neighbours and friends. I felt, and continue to feel, hopeful after witnessing this inside of such a large and seemingly impenetrable and political conference.
Many things that seem separate or have separate titles, policies, working groups, and government departments are so much more clearly interconnected. Reconciliation, inclusion, respect, solving the crises of our time, and healing ourselves – these are not separate things. There is no small number of people impacted by these things, and no small number who care. Finding more ways to work together and support each other has already proven how much can be done, and I am excited to find more ways of doing this in my own life.
Op-Ed: Poor water management, not Mother Nature, to blame for Minto mine’s water woes
Written by Randi Newton | May 31, 2023
Photo from Google Earth, Minto Mine and Yukon River.
Sources for this letter are either hyperlinked or available on the Yukon Water Board’s website Waterline. Click on the links or hover over any other green text for the title of the source and other information. You can find steps to access these sources from Waterline at the bottom of the page.
Read the full editorial as published in the Yukon News on May 31st, 2023.
—
Poor water management, not Mother Nature, to blame for Minto mine’s water woes
The departure of Minto Metals has saddled the Yukon with another abandoned mine. Employees were abruptly let go, royalties and many businesses left unpaid, and the Yukon government has been burdened with huge pits of contaminated water.
The government is now rightly focused on managing the site to ensure snowmelt doesn’t overwhelm the tailings pits. Otherwise, contaminated water could flow into Minto Creek, and ultimately the Yukon River. Later it will be time to unravel what went wrong, identify weaknesses in the territory’s regulatory regime, and hopefully put meaningful changes in place.
To figure out the right solutions, we need an accurate picture of the factors that led to the surplus of contaminated water and the mine’s eventual downfall. However, some of the current narratives about the mine’s water woes place too much accountability on Mother Nature, instead of poor water management. A good example is Minto Metals’ press release from April 20th. It paints a picture of the company being overwhelmed by a monstrous snowmelt, despite undertaking Herculean water treatment efforts. The release notes that Minto had faced a snowpack of 417% above normal, but still managed to discharge over 1.4 million cubic metres of water in 2022, “more than double what was cumulatively discharged over the prior 7 years.”
However, this leaves out key pieces of the story. For much of those prior seven years, Minto mine did not have a functioning water treatment plant and, year after year, was treating and discharging very little water.
Minto’s annual records show that the water treatment plant started to struggle in 2017 , when the mine was still owned by Capstone Mining. Challenged by low copper prices, Capstone put the mine into care and maintenance in 2018 and did not operate the plant that year. Pembridge Resources purchased the mine in June of 2019. The company restarted milling ore by October, but didn’t treat or move any water offsite that year.
While milling allowed Pembridge Resources to start making revenue, milling also contaminates a lot of water which then needs treatment before it can be safely discharged. If not treated, this water has to be stored, but tailings pits can only hold so much water.
Minto mine has faced water challenges in the past. Capstone relied on emergency discharges in 2009, so it’s puzzling why the new operators waited so long to try restarting the plant. It wasn’t until the spring of 2022, nearly three years after purchasing the mine, that the water treatment plant was finally brought back online by Minto Metals (who had by then taken over from parent company Pembridge Resources). But these efforts came too late.
Minto Metals had already notified the Yukon government in December 2021 that the mine’s water storage capacity had dropped below 1,000,000 cubic metres. That’s a safeguard required by the mine’s water licence, meant to reduce the risk of spring snowmelt overwhelming the mine’s tailings ponds.
In a follow-up memo, Minto Metals further explained that water had been allowed to accumulate at the mine since 2017 and that the setup of the existing water treatment plant “was insufficient to consistently remove water from site.” The company noted that their efforts to treat water in spring and summer of 2021 were not successful, leading them to hire a firm in the fall to improve the water treatment plant.
The Yukon government recognized the mine’s climbing liabilities, and in early 2022 increased Minto Metal’s financial security by $21 million. When the company missed the payment deadline, the government put the mine on restricted operating conditions. This allowed the mine to operate but not reduce its water storage capacity (meaning that if tailings were placed in the pits, at least as much water needed to be treated and discharged).
Minto Metals did not meet the conditions, failing to treat enough water to offset the tailings it continued to place in the pits. This April, a government mining inspector noted that the mine had lost over 200,000 cubic metres of storage. This was the result of continuing to deposit tailings and contaminated water, in a year the mine was meant to be gaining water storage capacity.
By the time Minto Metals abandoned the mine this May, storage capacity had plummeted to 318,000 cubic metres, less than a third of their water licence requirement. The Yukon government now sits ready to pump spring flood water into a previously mined pit. While this effort will likely keep contaminated water from spilling into the Yukon River, it also means that the site’s water liabilities will continue to climb for some time. Fortunately it appears that the Yukon government kept a much more watchful eye on Minto than the Wolverine mine, and was able to quickly jump into action.
This water management saga at Minto is akin to filling a bathtub with water, only to pull the plug and realize the drain was clogged. To make matters worse, the nature of mining meant that the tap kept flowing. While spring snowmelt added to the tub each year, so did water from the mill and from dewatering the underground mine. Save for a break of a few weeks, Minto continued to process ore, which added large amounts of contaminated water to the tailings pits year after year.
So while it is true that Minto Metals eventually managed to start treating and discharging water, and did face challenging years of snow, the full picture is that the efforts to treat water came too late, and the high snow years simply exposed the mine’s failure to manage risk.
While running the water treatment at the outset and shutting down the mill for a longer stretch would have obviously bought more time to focus on water treatment, it also would have gouged Minto Metals’ revenue. Companies are built to generate profits but managing environmental risks, like contaminated water, can be expensive. I say this not to excuse what happened, but to point out how important it is for the regulatory system to drive companies to act responsibly and avoid reaching a point where few good options exist.
Minto mine is certainly not the first mine in the Yukon to manage water poorly, and this letter isn’t intended to point fingers at specific individuals. The mine has had a number of changes in senior leadership since it was purchased in 2019, making it difficult to trace accountability. But Mother Nature and years of high snowpack aren’t the culprit – instead, they’re conditions the mine should have been managing for.
Fortunately, development of the new minerals legislation provides the Yukon with a chance to act on lessons learned and work towards transformational change. I hope we can now all agree that mining companies can’t be counted on to always make responsible decisions, and it would be a shame not to develop a regulatory regime that can better shield the territory from negligence.
Some of the sources in this letter are only available on the Yukon Water Board’s website Waterline and don’t have direct hyperlinks. You can hover over any green text for the title of the source and other information. Follow these steps if you’d like to access them:
- Use this link and then hit the “Guest” button.
- Copy and paste QZ14-031-2 into the search bar, then click on the link below to access Minto Metal’s documents.
- Most documents cited are available under the “Reports” tab on the left. One document noted as an “Exhibit” is available under the “Exhibit List” tab.
Corridors & Community Engaged Art
Written by Nicole Shafenacker and Paula Gomez Villalba.
Photos by Nicole Shafenacker.
May 24, 2023
As the snow continues to melt and the weather warms, there are changes to be felt in the water, air, and soils of the boreal forest. From hearing new birdsong to seeing the intricate patterns of new shoots coming out from the ground, new beginnings are just around the corner.
Yukoners are no strangers to connecting with nature. Hiking steep trails, hunting, and paddling through winding rivers are all common pastimes. But what we’ve come to learn is that connecting with nature doesn’t always have to be a big adventure.
We can connect with nature through a creative lens by asking, how can art help us relate to our surroundings differently? What role does emotion play in social change? How can small creative acts and daily rituals deepen our relationship to place?
This is what community-engaged art is all about. Art can be a way to foster relationships and nurture our individual capacities for growth, change, and connection.
“One of my favourite daily rituals that brings me closer to the natural spaces around me is taking a walk down to Marsh Lake (where I live) with my dog and notice how the water changes throughout the year.” – Nicole Shafenacker
Beyond affecting us as individuals, beauty and aesthetics can also play a big role in fostering social change, with natural sciences and creative arts working together towards this end.
“We’re living through the world’s sixth great extinction, one caused by us. The landscapes around us grow emptier and quieter each passing year. We need hard science to establish the rate and scale of these declines, to work out why it is occurring and what mitigation strategies can be brought into play. But we need literature, too; we need to communicate what the losses mean.
I think of the wood warbler, a small citrus–coloured bird fast disappearing from British forests. It is one thing to show the statistical facts about this species’ decline. It is another thing to communicate to people what wood warblers are, and what that loss means, when your experience of a wood that is made of light and leaves and song becomes something less complex, less magical, just less, once the warblers have gone.
Literature can teach us the qualitative texture of the world. And we need it to. We need to communicate the value of things, so that more of us might fight to save them.” – Helen McDonald, Vesper Flights
Through art and aesthetics we can expand our way of seeing the world and our capacity to value the exquisitely complex life forms around us. We can connect to place in different ways, learning to share these experiences, memories, and feelings with others.
What are some of your favourite sensory memories of springtime? What are sounds, smells, or textures that let you know spring is on the way?
“I love watching smooth, fresh leaves unfurl on branches that have been bare all winter long.” – Nicole Shafenacker
When out in nature, we can explore the way our senses take in the life happening all around us. For example, the way a flower smells or how a leaf feels can help us identify the plant and give it a name. It can also call back fond memories of foraging with friends or bring about a sense of gratitude and peace. These sensory connections can also serve as rich source material for making art. They can spark creativity and self-reflection.
“The way light falls throughout the day can be mesmerizing. Often time moves differently when you’re outside, with shadow and light expressing the ephemeral qualities of the wilderness. What can be there at one minute can be transformed the next.” – Nicole Shafenacker
Whether it’s through the light, animals, trails, or history, the values of our wild spaces are far reaching. One area of the forest can provide nutrients to microbes in the soil while another can settle a restless human after a long day at work.
Across the Yukon there are many thriving wild spaces where we can connect with nature; the territory is blanketed in forests. In Whitehorse, Chasàn Chùa/McIntyre Creek is home to boreal forests, wetlands, and many animals that use it as a wildlife corridor. The web of connections here are rooted in ecology and culture, but also in our physical and emotional wellbeing.
We’ve worked hard, alongside other people and organizations, to highlight why this creek matters. And thanks to our efforts and your support, Chasàn Chùa will be protected as a park in the future. We encourage you to spend some time learning about Chasàn Chùa, making sure to respect the land and wildlife whose home we are sharing. Nurture your senses, get creative, and share your stories with others.
This blog post is a social media roundup based on posts shared Spring 2022 as part of Corridors: A Community Engaged Art Series of events in Chasàn Chùa/McIntyre Creek, led by Nicole Shafenacker.
Mining 101: Digging into the terms
Written by Paula Gomez Villalba, Communications Coordinator. Photos by Makolm Boothroyd.
April 6, 2023
Across much of the Yukon, boreal forests and wetlands stretch as far as the eye can see, crisscrossed by ancestral rivers that provide for the land, people, and wildlife. Threatening these rich wild spaces is the legacy of the Klondike Gold Rush, which lives on in the territory’s mining laws. These laws date back to the 1900s and prioritize short-term gains, reflecting the extractive history of colonialism on Indigenous land.
Now the Yukon government is creating a new minerals legislation, in collaboration with Yukon and Transboundary First Nations. The new mining legislation will cover the entire life of placer and quartz/hardrock mines, from prospecting to production to closure.
This is a once in a generation opportunity, so we want to make it as accessible as possible for you to share your vision for mining in the Yukon. Even if you’re not a mining expert, you’re an expert on your hopes and vision for the territory’s future. Mining has shaped and will continue to shape the Yukon, and this legislation needs to prioritize the territory’s long-term health and prosperity.
There are lots of terms, synonyms, and potential approaches related to mineral development. Here we’ll define some common mining terms you might come across. Once you’re ready to take action, check out our guide to completing the official survey. Responses will be used by the Yukon government as they continue developing the legislation.
Placer Mining: Placer mining is a way of extracting minerals (usually gold) that has settled in the bottom of water courses like rivers, creeks, and wetlands.
These minerals often lie beneath frozen layers of soil and gravel requiring miners to use excavators, bulldozers, and pressurized water to strip away vegetation, soil, and let the permafrost thaw.
Quartz/Hardrock Mining: Hardrock mining is where mining companies extract minerals from bedrock veins using large open pit or underground mines.
Extracting minerals from the rock often involves the use of chemicals that can be harmful if released.
Images from Google Earth. Graphic by Malkolm Boothroyd.
Prospect of profit, or automatic land rights?
Free Entry System: Free entry grants any individual or company the right to stake a mining claim without the need for a permit or other authorization.
Mineral rights are automatically approved without consultation or consent from First Nations. These mining claims then hold tremendous leverage over land use planning decisions.
Acquisition: Rules about who can stake a claim and how.
Currently any adult can do so by pounding a few stakes into the ground and paying a $10 fee. Part of the free entry system.
Disposition: Rules for where mineral staking can happen and what mineral rights are granted.
Prospectors can stake a claim anywhere, unless the area has been withdrawn from staking (like designated protected areas). Part of the free entry system.
Mineral Tenure/Mining Claim: When an individual or company has tenure or a claim, they hold the rights to explore and develop minerals below the claim.
These are acquired through the free entry system and have to be maintained in good standing.
Exploration: Evaluating the mining potential of an area where a company has mining claims.
Exploration can involve building roads and cutting trails, disturbing wildlife with daily flights, building camps, and moving tens of thousands of tonnes of rock. Claim holders automatically have the right to explore, but specific exploration projects are subject to approval.
Mining roads cover Arch Mountain in the Kluane Wildlife Sanctuary.
Accounting for harm and public benefits
Financial Security: Hardrock (and a few placer) mining companies provide financial security to cover the costs of reclaiming and closing their mine site in case they abandon it.
This security amount is paid before production begins and reassessed every 2 years. The Yukon has a long track record of underestimating security needed, leading to expensive taxpayer funded cleanups and environmental harm left unsecured.
Royalties: Royalties are payments made to governments by mining companies, recognizing that the public and First Nations own the rights to minerals and should benefit from their extraction.
Placer miners currently pay just 37.5¢ per ounce of gold (the same rate as the early 1900s) and quartz miners are only required to make payments once they start making a profit.
Tailings: Tailings are waste materials left over after mining and can include harmful chemicals and metals.
Hardrock tailings are left in large ponds or are sometimes dried and stacked. Reclaiming tailings is a challenging task and some tailings will require treatment indefinitely.
Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB): YESAB is responsible for reviewing proposed mining projects, and recommending mitigations and whether or not a project should go ahead to the Yukon government.
The YESAB process is separate from the new mining legislation but links very closely to it.
Abandoned Wellgreen quartz mine, clean-up costs are an estimated $15 million.
A changed landscape
Reclamation: Reclamation involves transitioning land to a different state after exploration and mining ends.
It’s usually impossible to fully restore the original ecosystem – simply too much has changed. The result is a different landscape where original values have been restored, replaced, or lost to different extents. Reclamation can involve filling in pits, recontouring the landscape, and planting vegetation. It’s expensive and hard to enforce, sometimes resulting in mines being abandoned.
Peat: Peat is a carbon-rich soil found in some wetlands that takes thousands of years to form.
Peatlands are vulnerable to placer mining because gold settles at the bottom or rivers and wetlands. When excavated, the peat decays and releases massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Peatlands cannot be restored.
Permafrost: Permafrost is frozen soil that holds huge stores of greenhouse gasses like methane and carbon dioxide.
Typically we would say that permafrost is soil that is frozen year-round, but climate change and developments like mining are causing permafrost thaw.
Closure: The goal of mine closure is to return the site to a stable, non-polluting state and to meet reclamation goals.
This process takes many years. In the Yukon, a hardrock mine is considered closed when a Closure Certificate has been issued. Despite the number of mines that have operated in the territory, none have received this certificate.
Abandonment: When a mining company leaves a site without meeting the proper reclamation or closure measures.
Abandoned mines can pose significant risks to people and the environment, as contaminants and equipment are left unchecked. Reclamation and closure is then handled by the Yukon government with public funds.
The stages of placer mining show how in spite of the best reclamation efforts, natural peatlands can’t be restored.
2022: Our Year in Review
Written by Adil Darvesh
What a year 2022 shaped up to be!
We achieved some major milestones for conservation across the Yukon, many of which were thanks to your support. From filling up City Hall to oppose a busy road through McIntyre Creek, to writing letters on plans and policies, your help makes our work possible. Throughout the year our team hosted 13 events and had over 200 submissions from people who care about the Yukon’s wild spaces. We feel incredibly grateful for everything we accomplished.
Winter
Last winter we saw record breaking amounts of snowfall, and our team was right in the middle of it! Maegan and Candace recorded snow tracks throughout McIntyre Creek/Chasàn Chùa as staff, volunteers, and dogs ventured out to see how animals use the creek. Amelia Ford, a Grade 12 student at F.H. Collins joined us on a few treks, and wrote about her experience.
Photo by Maegan Elliott.
We also saw the first proposed development in the Peel Watershed. The Michelle Creek mining exploration project would overlap two Wilderness Areas, and in our eyes, it was the first test of the protections that the Peel Watershed Regional Land Use Plan put in place. This December, the Yukon Environment and Socio-Economic Board (YESAB) recommended that the project not go forward due to impacts on wildlife and First Nation wellness. This is incredibly good news, as it sets a high precedent for project approval in the Peel Watershed.
The Special Management Areas (set aside for protection) in the Peel Watershed were added to the Canadian Protected and Conserved Areas Database and now officially count towards Canada’s conservation targets. As a result the Yukon jumped to second place in Canada for conserved areas at 19.1%, just behind British Columbia. This is a big step for us to achieve 25% protection by 2025 and 30% protection by 2030. At the time, these were only federal targets, but with the Canada-Yukon Nature Agreement signed in early December, the Yukon Government has also committed to 25% by 2025. Polling conducted by Nanos Research confirms that Yukoners are supportive of bold conservation targets, so this is a step in the right direction.
Perhaps one of the biggest changes for our team happened in the winter. We moved into a new office! While the old office had lots of history and character, our growing team needed a little bit more room for staff. Over the past year we’ve held a few events welcoming you to our new space and it’s something that we hope to continue in 2023.
Spring
As the weather warmed up, so did our campaign for McIntyre Creek. Nicole Schafenaker joined us as our first ever artist in residence, supported by the International Centre of Art for Social Change FUTURES/forward program. Wanting to explore the wildlife corridor and its species through a creative lens, she hosted a series of events called Corridors: A Community Engaged Art Series in early May.
Photo by Maegan Elliott.
This came at the perfect time, as the City of Whitehorse released their draft Official Community Plan (OCP). This OCP will guide the direction of the city over the next decade and the draft version committed to working with First Nations, Government of Yukon, and Yukon University to designate McIntyre Creek as a park. This was a huge moment for those who were calling for protection of McIntyre Creek for many years. The draft plan, however, included language that would keep the door open for a “transportation corridor,” a busy road cutting through this wildlife corridor. Over the spring we called on you to submit comments welcoming the idea of a park, but asking to remove any language that would include a road.
In late November, the City of Whitehorse removed that language from the proposed OCP, after so many of you came out to City Hall meetings, submitted comments, and shared your love for McIntyre Creek!
Summer
This summer Ainslie Spence joined the team as our Conservation and Events Intern. She managed our booth at the local Fireweed Market and spoke with many of you about our campaigns and recommendations.
Ainslie identified that a lot of our materials were geared towards environmentally minded people, but we didn’t have very much for a younger audience. In response, she created a phenomenal resource for parents and youth titled Hutch’s Yukon Adventure. This colouring and puzzle book follows Hutch, the CPAWS Yukon husky, through his adventures around the Yukon in our key campaign areas. You can pick up a copy of the book at our office!
One of the areas in Hutch’s Yukon Adventure is the Beaver River Watershed, where our team has helped organize youth river trips in the past. This summer we traveled to Mayo to premiere films from the 2020 and 2021 Beaver River Watershed canoe trips. It was so awesome to show the community these movies, and promote the upcoming trip from Mayo to Moosehide.
Malkolm and I joined this summer’s canoe trip and had such a great experience connecting with youth and the land. We paddled along the Stewart and the Yukon rivers, taking time to stop at important historical sites, like the Old Village. Trips like these are important ways to continue sharing knowledge and foster a connection with people and place.
Our connection to place was also highlighted in our Plants of the Boreal walks. So many of you joined us on guided walks with plant experts to learn about what grows in our backyard. We took what we learned in these walks and at the end of the summer, Candace hosted a Winter Medicine Making Workshop to collect plants and share some of their different uses. It was a big success and something we hope to continue in 2023!
Photo by Paula Gomez Villalba.
Fall
As fall rolled in, so too did Environment Ministers across Canada. Many of you joined our calls for the Yukon Government to adopt similar targets to the Federal Government’s for 25% and 30% protection. At the time, the Yukon didn’t commit to any, but it’s possible they were laying the groundwork for the Canada-Yukon Nature Agreement signed in December by Minister Steven Guilbeault and Minister Nils Clarke. It sets aside funding for land use planning and protecting areas across the territory!
Nature conservation will be crucial for helping us manage the effects of climate change. We released a new report, written by Malkolm and Randi, about a significant blind spot in the Yukon’s climate strategy. Peat is an organic material rich in carbon, and disturbing it could release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Our report, The Yukon’s Climate Blind Spot addresses some of the concerns behind development in peatlands, and provides recommendations to manage them better. You can read a summary of the report here.
Photo by Malkolm Boothroyd.
The release of the Dawson Region Recommended Plan in the late fall kicked off a multi-month campaign to help you submit comments. We held a webinar and a few in-person events sharing our recommendations for a strong plan and sharing tools for you to make your own submission. Thank you to everyone who sent comments, we’ll eagerly await the Final Recommended Plan in spring 2023!
Winter
As the snow arrived and the holiday season began, we hosted our open house for the first time in a few years, and it was so great to be back! Our Pop-Up Shop and Holiday Open House highlighted some of our work and collaborated with some of our favourite artists and craft makers. We joined forces with the Yukon Conservation Society, our new neighbours, inviting you to a day out at “Conservation Corner.” Thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hello, learn about our work, and buy some goodies for the holidays.
Lastly, right after the open house our Outreach Manager, Joti, joined the CPAWS team in Montreal at the COP15 biodiversity conference. Joti shared some of her thoughts on our social media pages as she met with leaders across the country and shared ideas around protecting and conserving biodiversity through Indigenous-led conservation. Stay tuned for a summary from COP15 soon!
Phew! A lot happened this year. We’re so thankful to you for your support and for continuing to show up for nature. I had to skip over some other things that took place last year, but our Communications Coordinator, Paula, does a great job sharing our work on social media. Follow us to keep up to date!
Finally, I want to thank our previous Executive Director, Chris Rider. Over the past 4.5 years that I’ve been at CPAWS Yukon, Chris was a constant source of support, advice, and perfectly timed dad jokes. We’re all really happy that he is now taking lessons learned from our chapter onto the CPAWS National chapter in Ottawa and continuing to advocate for wild spaces across the country.
From the CPAWS Yukon team, thank you again for your support. We’re excited for 2023!
Peat beneath our feet
Written by Paula Gomez Villalba, Communications Coordinator
There is peat beneath our feet in wetlands that are thousands of years old. Soil so rich in carbon and history that it’s home to a plethora of plants, animals, and values. Peat forms when a shortage of oxygen in wet soils slows down the breakdown of mosses and other plants. Over thousands of years, layers of organic material build on top of each other, forming peat. We call places with these special soils peatlands.
Photo by Malkolm Boothroyd
Wetlands with peat come in many forms, like fens, bogs, and swamps.
The organic material that peatlands store is rich in carbon. Around the world, peatlands hold more carbon than all the carbon humans have burned since the Industrial Revolution.
Beyond carbon, these ecosystems also hold important ecological and cultural values. They are home to moose, beavers and waterfowl, and a breadbasket for many First Nations citizens. Many people visit wetlands to hunt, fish and feel connected with the natural world.
Will we defeat the peat?
Peatlands are vulnerable to disturbances driven by climate change and industrial development. When disturbed, the carbon they store gets transformed and released as CO2, adding more fuel to the climate crisis.
In the Yukon, placer mining is one form of development that threatens peatlands because gold settles at the bottom of water courses in rivers, creeks and wetlands. When peatlands are excavated, they are all but impossible to restore and never have the same carbon storing potential as intact peatlands.
Industrial development is steadily consuming wetlands, like placer mining in the Indian River watershed. Base satellite image: Apple Maps. Inset photos: Malkolm Boothroyd.
How much peat is at risk? The short answer is, we don’t fully know. National peatland maps don’t provide a fine scale picture of peatlands in the Yukon, and local mapping of peat has only happened in a few pockets of the territory. Without this information, we don’t know how much of the carbon held by peatlands is vulnerable to all kinds of development.
This makes emissions from peatland disturbance invisible – they don’t appear on the ledgers we use to track carbon emissions and aren’t part of our carbon cutting plans.
Wanting to shed light on these emissions, our team at CPAWS Yukon set out to understand the magnitude of carbon release from industrial development in the territory. Our investigation took us to the Indian River watershed, one of the few places in the Yukon with detailed wetland maps for this type of analysis.
The case of the Indian River watershed
The Indian River watershed lies within the territories of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and the First Nation of Na-cho Nyäk Dun, about fifty kilometres south of Dawson City. The Indian River meanders through a wide valley dominated by fens and swamps.
Peat began forming in the watershed around six thousand years ago—at a time when woolly mammoths still roamed on Siberian islands, and fish had only recently returned to the lakes and rivers around Whitehorse following millennia of glaciation.
We estimate these peatlands store 1,837 kilotonnes of soil carbon—equivalent to over 6,700 kilotonnes of CO2.
The future of the Indian River watershed and its peatlands will be shaped by the outcomes of the Dawson Regional Land Use Plan. The good news is that the Recommended Plan prevents development in bog peatlands, but bogs only make up around 3% of all the peatlands found in the Indian River watershed.
Even with other modest limits on wetland and surface disturbance, the Recommended Plan would allow for significant amounts of new development in most of the Indian River watershed. These disturbances could release 575 kilotonnes of carbon over the next century—about as much carbon as flying a fully loaded jet the circumference of the earth 400 times.
Map of Nän Dhòhdäl/Upper Indian River Wetlands LMU. The bottoms of valleys are where peatlands (left) and disturbances (right) are clustered. Graphic by Malkolm Boothroyd.
A lot is lost when peatlands are developed. Carbon is released into the atmosphere, habitats are destroyed, and harvesting grounds used for millennia disappear.
While many of the Indian River’s wetlands have been lost forever, it’s not too late to protect those that remain. Join us in speaking up for these ancient wetlands. Public engagement on the Recommended Plan is open until Tuesday December 20.
What this means for the climate
The hundreds of kilotons we estimated could get released from peatlands in the Indian River watershed are from a single industry, in a watershed that makes up only 0.3% of the Yukon.
Peatlands covering three times the area of those in the Indian River overlap with placer claims in other parts of the Dawson Region. Peat is also found patchily across the Yukon: from the Old Crow and the coastal plain in the north, to MacMillan Pass in the east, to the Kluane Plateau and the Southern Lakes. There is a lot of carbon at risk.
But the Yukon’s climate change targets don’t account for carbon emissions from peatland disturbance, even though they are a major source of greenhouse gasses. This problem is not unique to the Yukon, and few countries currently report these kinds of emissions. In the recently released Global Peatland Assessment, the UN Environment Programme called on peat rich countries like Canada to report carbon from peatland disturbance and take urgent action to protect remaining peatlands.
“If we’re serious about acting on climate change, we must get serious about the protection, restoration, and sustainable management of peatlands. Wherever peatlands are allowed to be damaged or drained, harmful emissions will continue to be released for decades,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.
It’s time for the Yukon to take action to protect peatland ecosystems and the carbon they hold. Protecting these wetlands is critical to climate action.
This blog post is a summary of our CPAWS Yukon peatland report – The Yukon’s Climate Blind Spot. You can find the full report at cpawsyukon.org/publications
Infographic by Malkolm Boothroyd
On the water with land guardians
Written by Candace Dow
The Ross River Land Guardian canoe training was a long-awaited trip for all of us. Like so many plans from the last year, it was halted and redirected to 2022 to keep everyone safe during the pandemic.
Over 70 communities across Canada have Land Guardian programs. Guardians are the “moccasins and mukluks” on the ground in their communities. They manage protected areas, restore wildlife and plant populations, carry out water quality control, and monitor development sites. What they do is key to responsible land stewardship and brings jurisdictional authority back to Indigenous Nations.
Photo by Adil Darvesh.
The Ross River Dena Council in southeast Yukon is working to expand the role of Land Guardians. They have completed planning and are en route to establishing an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA). Current Guardians steward their land and water, ensuring what happens on the land aligns with their values and practices.
We partnered with Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y) to bring canoe training to Ross River (Tū Łī́dlini in Kaska). Y2Y works to promote healthy landscapes from Yellowstone to Yukon, including healthy communities, connectivity, and knowledge sharing.
This summer the training was met with a few challenges, but any good adventure usually is! We had such a huge snowpack last winter, bringing high water well into the summer months. And since this was also the first summer without Covid restrictions, both the instructors and participants had many things on the go!
Between the Guardians and some brave youth, 7 participants went out on Whiskers Lake for the first day of training. It is always nice to see so many youths interested and taking part in connecting back to the land and gaining some water safety skills.
Photo by Adil Darvesh.
We are hopeful for a final training day this fall. The goal for the final day will be to experience the river just as the Guardians would on an actual patrol. Navigating rivers can be a challenge, but with real-time training, Guardians can learn about exact locations they need to be aware of when out on patrol and safely steward their lands and waters. We are grateful to everyone that made this happen.
To the Land Guardians, thank you for doing such important work! Happy Paddlin’