BlogMcIntytreCreek

June 19 2025

People of Chasàn Chùa

Art Exhibition

Written by Yataya van Kampen, Conservation Intern | June 19, 2025

Welcome! I am Yataya van Kampen, from the Crow Clan and a member of Champagne and Aishihik First Nations. This art exhibition was my summer-long project as part of my internship with CPAWS Yukon in 2024. When I started at CPAWS and learned that the organization is collaborating with Kwanlin Dün First Nation and Ta’an Kwäch’än Council in its Chasàn Chùa (McIntyre Creek) campaign, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to highlight people from these First Nations who have deep connections to the area, who have been preserving and caring for Chasàn Chùa for decades. These watercolour portraits are accompanied by a panel about the person or people featured based on interviews I did with them. Square brackets “[ ]” in the panels indicate words added to quotes for clarity.

Humans have been creating art of things that we deem valuable and important (individuals, nature, celebrations, etc) since the beginning. I view art as power—the power to convey significance. My goal from the start of my journey as an artist was to create portraits of First Nations people. There is so little art of First Nations people that accurately represents and celebrates us. A lot of First Nation imagery is created by non-First Nations people who often fabricate a romanticized and inaccurate image that perpetuates racial stereotypes. Through my work, I have always wanted to emphasize that First Nations people are important, and we have the right to be depicted how we truly are.

Environmentalism has predominantly focused on protecting plants and animals, and keeping natural spaces “pristine.” This idea of “pristine” comes from colonization and it excludes people, especially Indigenous people who have been living on their traditional territories for millennia as part of the landscape, equal to the plants and animals. In Kluane National Park, for instance, First Nations were forced off their land to “preserve” the area, unable to legally live or hunt in the park. While this might seem like a thing of the past, there are still many instances where Indigenous knowledge, perspectives, and laws are not valued in environmentalism, especially when they don’t fit the Western scientific model of “truth.” Environmental initiatives such as the Chasàn Chùa campaign must uplift all life, as has been the way of knowing for thousands of years. People are nature too.

See why Chasàn Chùa is an important place to protect for generations to come.

Gary Bailie and Essence Bailie

Wolf Clan, Kwanlin Dün First Nation

Gary Bailie is well known for his volunteer work as founder and head coach of the Kwanlin Koyotes ski program, which is aimed at helping youth and young adults live safe, healthy, and active lifestyles in the McIntyre Subdivision. Passionate about music, Gary also created the Blue Feather Music Festival in 2000 in honour of his late partner, Jolie Angelina McNabb, to uplift young people through music and the arts.

In this portrait, Gary (left) stands before Chasàn Chùa wearing a Blue Feather Music Festival T-shirt. Beside him is his granddaughter, Essence Bailie (aged 9), who is Wolf Clan and a member of Kwanlin Dün First Nation. Gary grew up in the Chasàn Chùa region, although a lot has changed there since he was a boy, he says.

“We spent a lot of time up there [as kids]. We had little trap lines and used to catch mink at the creek. We snared and caught squirrels and rabbits, and ermine. The creek…is quite the little ecosystem. We used to also catch a lot of big fat rainbow trout and grayling. We would make a fire by the creek and cook them right away. It’s a beautiful creek, and it’s very important they protect that waterway [completely] and keep it somewhat wild. Whitehorse prides itself in saying we are the ‘Wilderness City,’ so [we] got to walk the talk now, right?”

“My granddaughter [Essence] said to me last night, ‘Papa, I want to go for a walk somewhere different tomorrow,’” Gary recalled during our conversation. “And I thought about that, and I thought, ‘I am going to take her to McIntyre Creek, because going back there, it is kinda like going home.’”

“I would like my granddaughter to be able to go up there in the future, and take her friends, and say ‘McIntyre Creek, this is a good spot you know? We have to preserve those places,’” he says.

Ruth Massie

Wolf Clan, Ta’an Kwäch’än Council

Ruth Massie was previously Chief of the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council and Grand Chief of the Council of Yukon First Nations. She appears in this portrait in her regalia.

Ruth shares, “[Chasàn Chùa] is in our traditional territory. It was very important when we were growing up, because we used to go down in that area to harvest berries, catch grayling, you know, see wildlife, visit my cousin George Smith, who had a trap line on McIntyre Creek and that whole area.”

While that was true in her youth, things in the creek have changed a lot, she says, and not necessarily for the better.

“It was very, very pristine when we were kids in that area, you know? We could go fishing there. I wouldn’t dare eat a fish in that area now but that’s where the grayling used to come in and go up McIntyre Creek to spawn,” she recalls. “We used to always go with our grandma, or our parents, to hunt small game there: rabbits, gophers, and, of course, the fur always belonged to George (the trapper)…we always saw animals in that area.”

“I really, really think, being so close to the city, [Chasàn Chùa] is even more important today than when we grew up, because the city keeps spreading,” Ruth says. “It’s the home of many, many animals, small and big. I’m glad that we’re trying to preserve that area. I’d like to see it turned into a park, myself, so you have permanent protection.”

“People need to respect the animals,” she says. “They were here first.”

Troy Friday and Elliott Friday

Crow Clan and Wolf Clan, Kwanlin Dün First Nation

Troy Friday (right) is a Youth Outreach & Wilderness Facilitator with Kwanlin Dün First Nation. Here he is with his son, Elliott Friday (aged 5), who is a Kwanlin Dün First Nation citizen. This portrait is based off a photo of Elliott’s first successful moose hunt in 2023.

“When I think of McIntyre Creek, it was the last place I picked berries with my grandma,” shares Troy. “My grandma is June Bruton, a Kwanlin Dün First Nation woman—she is not with us anymore—and I believe McIntyre Creek is important for the Kwanlin Dün First Nation community because of how close it is to town, and how intact the area is. We still use that area for gathering medicine. It’s an area that I use personally, I take youth to it quite a bit. It’s a really easy spot to take an Elder berry picking, [or] a really easy spot to get kids and elders together out on the land, and I really really highlight the importance of that.”

“We can achieve these cultural things within the city limits—being together on the land, coming and learning from each other, without having to travel to Kusawa Lake,” Troy adds. “I grew up in the bush, and I want our son to be a good bush kid, and [to know] how to be just comfortable on the land, right?”

Troy notes Chasàn Chùa is also an important wildlife corridor, allowing larger animals to travel between the Fish Lake area and “not be in someone’s direct backyard” but to be “on the mountain, to travel wherever they wish.” Without development in the area, Troy says, “I believe we might see less moose in Granger, or might see less bears [in the city] if they can just walk through the corridor.”

Pricilla Dawson

Crow Clan, Kwanlin Dün First Nation

Pricilla Dawson is a Native Language teacher at Takhini Elementary School in Whitehorse, and enjoys being out on the land. This portrait shows her out hunting.

“I do a lot of my language teaching on the land,” she says. “A lot of the teaching is based on the land, and that area is important for my students to explore and learn language… So it’s good to have that personal connection to the land [in Chasàn Chùa] for students to explore, and learn language, and feel connected…to do things like harvesting medicine berries, walking, building shelters, hiking, biking, and skiing. Everything I teach can be connected to language and curriculum. When I am teaching on the land, language is everywhere and in everything we do.”

“In the Kwanlin area I feel like we have less and less space now, to practice our traditional ways, such as hunting, fishing, and trapping. That lessens the opportunity for us to teach our future generations our traditional ways of knowing and doing,” Pricilla says.

“It’s good to be out on the land, and to connect to the land, and to feel more grounded when you’re on the land—I do, anyways,” Pricilla adds. “It’s important to keep [Chasàn Chùa] protected, because there’s so much history there with our people, and fishing, and just being on the land doing what we do traditionally.”

George Dawson

Wolf Clan

A well-known community figure, George Dawson had connections with Kwanlin Dün First Nation and Ta’an Kwäch’än Council—he lived and died before the land claims process that would have formally designated him as a member of either. In this portrait, he sits with his traditional regalia, calmly encapsulating who he was: a strong family man, having raised his nine children and many grandchildren while also working on the rivers and land. George passed away in 1989, and although his living family gave their blessing for this portrait to be done, what is written here about him has come from multiple community members, including the artist’s own father and grandmother.

All the people asked to speak about George Dawson strongly identified that he was “a good man.” Within Athabaskan culture, telling someone an individual is a “good person” holds a lot of weight and value. While other cultures, such as Western or Settler cultures, may emphasize things like having a lot of money, success, or good looks, Athabaskan culture places great focus on being kind and generous, and these are the traits people bring to the forefront when they say someone is a “good person.” It is the greatest sign of respect and honour. This focus is especially apparent in Headstone Potlatches, which are the second Potlatch held the year after the death of an individual, when they have fully gone from the Human World to the Spirit World. To prepare for the Potlatch, the deceased person’s Clan saves up money and gifts for a full year; when the Headstone Potlatch occurs, all the money is used to create a big feast and gifts are freely given out. This is only one example out of many where generosity and goodwill are integral to who we are.

“When someone is described in this manner, I always feel it’s worth noting, and this is what I felt with George Dawson,” says Athabaskan artist Yataya van Kampen. “His family knows that he was connected to Chasàn Chùa, so he represents a past generation that not only spent their life on the land, but was truly a part of it.”

More About Yataya

Born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon I grew up surrounded by nature and have many memories of exploring the Yukon’s nature and communities. At the age of 17, I started living in Europe (Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain) during the winters and coming home for the summers. I went to a Classical Realism art school that taught me how to accurately draw, and recently completed a degree in Sociology that regularly focused on Indigenous topics and perspectives. Because of my time living in large European cities, I have grown a new appreciation for the Yukon’s nature.

The People of Chasàn Chùa art exhibit was co-hosted by CPAWS Yukon and the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre, running from August 30 to late October, 2024. A big thank you to everyone who helped with the creation of the exhibit – the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre team, Kate Dawson at Kwanlin Dün First Nation, and all the participants for allowing me to interview and create a portrait of them.

: Opening night of the art exhibit. Photo by Adil Darvesh.

: Yataya shares her gratitude and motivation behind her project. Photo by Adil Darvesh.

: The art spoke to community members, fans of Chasàn Chùa, art enthusiasts, and family members of those featured. Photo by Adil Darvesh.

October 16 2024

Celebrating people and nature with Yataya

CPAWS Yukon Blog, BlogMcIntytreCreek

Written by Paula Gomez Villalba, Communications Coordinator | October 16, 2024

Yataya stepped into her role as our Conservation Intern with a unique background having grown up in Whitehorse and living in Europe for many years, at one point even studying art there. During the summer, Yataya spent months drawing and interviewing people from Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council for her project. Today, you can see her exhibit, People of Chasàn Chùa, at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre. This art exhibit is free to view in the foyer of the KDCC, and will be on until late October.

Having Yataya as part of our team was such a pleasure. We’ve been really grateful for how interns have infused our organization with creativity and art—from Ainslie’s colouring book in 2022 to Aiden’s wood carving project in 2023, and now Yataya’s project! At the tail end of her internship, I had the opportunity to chat with Yataya about her process and journey.

Yataya at the CPAWS Yukon booth at the Fireweed Market, a great place for chats about conservation and community. Photo by Anne Mease.

From the beginning, our work to highlight and protect Chasàn Chùa (McIntyre Creek) stood out to Yataya, in particular the focus on collaboration with local First Nations. However, her connection with the actual area was a bit mixed!

“Even if you’re born and raised in Whitehorse… you don’t know which areas are McIntyre Creek because it’s so spread out. Geographically I didn’t know what was the whole area of McIntyre Creek. Especially within the city, to go from one place to another, it’s quite a lot of driving. It can be confusing,” she shared, highlighting the complexities of navigating the area.

Yet, this confusion underscores the Chasàn Chùa’s importance as a wildlife corridor. The creek is accessible from the McIntyre Subdivision, Whistlebend, and near Yukon University, connecting forests and water for local species and creating nearby spaces for people to connect with the land.

Yataya embraced this while participating in events like our Life of the Boreal guided walk and the collaborative Care for the Creek Community Cleanup we organized this year. In chatting with Yataya, the importance of people in conservation came up again and again. “First Nations people have been here for thousands of years, they know this area and have stories about it. Their knowledge can also be appreciated, just like scientific knowledge,” she shared. For Chasàn Chùa, it’s not just the government that’s making this into a park, there’s a lot of people pushing for those protections.

Care for the Creek community events were hosted by CPAWS Yukon and the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board, in partnership with Ta’an Kwäch’än Council and Kwanlin Dün First Nation, to connect with nature and restore Dàmäwtän (The Point). Photo by Adil Darvesh.

To celebrate these people, Yataya created watercolour portraits. She was first introduced to this type of painting in a high school course, and continued to develop her skills through self-learning. “Watercolour is a simpler medium that you can experiment with,” she explained, appreciating the flexibility it offers compared to drawing with pencil and graphite.

“I find landscapes and animals boring,” Yataya admitted with a bit of hesitation. “My school focused on learning a lot about human anatomy to draw people. You can mess up pretty bad, and it can still look like a mountain. There’s too much flexibility there. People know people. They can catch on much faster when a portrait isn’t quite right, or an eye is just a bit higher than it should be.”

Her approach to creating the portraits involved a careful process of measurement and adjustment. “First, it’s about finding a clear photo. Once I find a clear photo, I do measurements. I measure the area that I want the portrait in, and then measure where half is, where a quarter is,” she explained. What comes next is an unexpected tool: a knitting needle! “You can use it to find angles – like if someone’s ear is at the angle of their shoulder in a specific way – you can step back, hold the needle firmly, and go back and forth to see if it’s the right angle.”

Final sketching stage for Troy Friday and his son, Elliott Friday’s portrait (cropped). Photo by Yataya van Kampen.

Between measuring and sketching, Yataya emphasized the importance of taking breaks to step back and assess the work as a whole. “If it doesn’t look right, I just take the time to redraw,” she said, showing her commitment to honouring the individuals she painted. For instance, after hearing the stories of Troy Friday and Gary Bailie, she felt compelled to capture their likenesses next to family members. “It only felt right to do a portrait of both of them after hearing their stories of being connected to the land with their family.”

After days of sketching, Yataya shared that she adds colour working around the portrait in a circular pattern, working in layers and often leaving the background for last. “For larger portraits with one person, I really like doing flowers all around. They’re based on beading designs, some simple ones that I have used myself, but also some beading designs I have seen in the past. It’s a mix.”

Close-ups of flowers features in the portraits. Art by Yataya van Kampen.

Beading has been a part of Yataya’s life since she was 16, and it remains an important activity for her, especially while living abroad. “Beading reminds me of home because I’ve been gone so long. The only thing I can really do is what I can take with me. When I’m gone, I don’t see one single First Nations person for months on end. I’m really disconnected from where I’m from, and so that’s the one thing that keeps me connected.”

Community beading project at our booth at the Fireweed Market this year. Photo by Yataya van Kampen.

Reflecting on the different types of connections, Yataya’s project grew as the summer went on, beyond the art itself. To highlight community, Yataya interviewed subjects and reached out to the KDCC to share the stories with others. Like any project, there was a lot of learning involved as she learned about consent forms, the importance of wording, writing for the public, and more. Yataya had previously worked with Yukon’s Victims Services on an accessibility project conducting informal interviews, and later, transcribing conversations in a research role focused on immigrants in Canada. Both of these experiences helped inform her work. Through the interviews with those she painted, Yataya found comfort in familial ties and shared histories. “I had connections through family with many of them. Either I found out I was cousins with them or they know my family line,” she noted.

By blending her artistic background with culture, Yataya not only created art, but also bridged communities, shared stories, and honoured the land and its people. We highly recommend everyone check out the art exhibit!

People of Chasàn Chùa art exhibit at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre. Photo by Adil Darvesh.

So what’s next for Yataya? Yataya’s been working on more portraits after being commissioned by Yukon University. She hopes to continue to focus her art on people. This winter she’ll be going to a mystery country in keeping with the rhythms of her life.

April 30 2024

What’s The Point? Dàmäwtän and the need for remediation

CPAWS Yukon Blog, BlogMcIntytreCreek

Written by Laurence Fox, Conservation Coordinator | April 30, 2024

Dàmäwtän is Southern Tutchone for “High Bank” and known by modern settlers as “The Point.” It’s located on the lower reaches of Chasàn Chùa (McIntyre Creek) where it empties into the Yukon River. Traditionally, Dàmäwtän served as an important lookout for local First Nations, as well as a staging ground for hunting and fishing, and a meeting place.

In 1942, the U.S. military promptly set up shop in Whitehorse to begin construction on the Alaska Highway. They quickly started using Dàmäwtän as a landfill for both the Canadian and U.S. military, displacing the First Nations people who camped and harvested in the region. After World War II ended in 1945, the U.S. military left and the dump briefly closed until the City of Whitehorse began using it for municipal purposes in the 1950s.

Abandoned tires at Dàmäwtän (The Point). Photo by Laurence Fox.

Largely unregulated, the dump site appears to have faced little environmental oversight or monitoring for the majority of its operational life. In some places along the bank, garbage deposits were as thick as 45 meters—so deep that if you had dug down to the bottom of all this trash, you could set three city buses vertically, hood to bumper, one on top of the other, in the hole you made.

When the dump was officially decommissioned in 1975, “clean up” was rudimentary at best, consisting primarily of pushing dirt up over the berm to cover the mess, and even that appears to have been rather slapdash. Dirt was simply pushed in over the dump, leaving bits of metal, tires, household waste, and other debris poking up through the thin covering.

What’s The Point? Dàmäwtän and the need for remediation

Satellite photo of Dàmäwtän (The Point). Photo from Google Earth.

Concerns have been growing for decades around the damage—environmental, aesthetic, cultural, or otherwise—dumping has done to Dàmäwtän. Care for the Creek builds on the many other clean-up efforts led by concerned citizens, the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board, and extensive clean-up work undertaken by Ta’an Kwäch’än Council (TKC), stewardship groups, and various other government agencies. For example, TKC removed 16 tonnes of scrap metal and 16 dump truck loads of abandoned tires, then resodded and reseeded the areas with native plants to encourage healthy revegetation between 2005 and 2012.

Today, waste such as tires, metal, car parts, and plastics continues to affect the landscape, waterways, and wildlife, creating physical hazards and potentially releasing hazardous chemicals. During a clean-up in 2023 led by the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board, volunteers found dried fish eggs and bird eggs that didn’t have a chance to hatch, and tracks on shore from many mammals who likely rely on the creek for water.

In a few weeks, CPAWS Yukon and the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board, in collaboration with KDFN and TKC, are hosting a Care for the Creek Community Event, dedicated to caring for, celebrating, and remediating Chasàn Chùa and the Dàmäwtän area. Join us Saturday, June 1st for a free BBQ, guided walks, and guest lectures!

Care for the Creek!

February 21 2024

Roots at Risk: A walk through Chasàn Chùa

CPAWS Yukon Blog, BlogMcIntytreCreek

Written by Paula Gomez Villalba, Communications Coordinator | February 21, 2024

On a sunny day nestled in a week of July rain, we came together in Chasàn Chùa/McIntyre Creek to join Plants of the Boreal, a walk and talk series that connects people, place, and plants. CPAWS Yukon has been partnering with like-minded non-profits over the past two years to feature special guests for guided walks on the traditional territories of Kwanlin Dün First Nation and Ta’an Kwäch’än Council in Whitehorse. The forests and wetlands in Chasàn Chùa are home to an array of diverse plants, each with their own unique stories, traits, and roles in the boreal ecosystem.

At the time, Laurence Fox was the outreach manager for the Yukon Invasive Species Council (YISC), although they’re now a part of the team here at CPAWS Yukon! They welcomed us in the gravel parking lot with a pocket field guide to invasive plants of the Yukon in one hand and a friendly pup tethered to the other. I could see a set of pruners poking out from Laurence’s back pocket, and immediately knew we were in for a fun afternoon.

Right in the parking lot, pink and purple fireweed (nàkhela in Southern Tutchone) and white yarrow (ts’agyu) flowers bloomed. Down the trail we saw patches of kinnikinnick (zhǜr nlan), locoweed, and goldenrod. Each plant was different, thriving and reproducing in their own way.

Goldenrod, yarrow, and locoweed. Photos by Paula Gomez Villalba.

As we walked down to the creek through the forest, we learned that many of Yukon’s native plants know the history of the short spring and summer seasons in the territory, having evolved to flower early in the season and form fruits and seeds by late summer. I could see signs of this all around us: prickly wild roses had dropped their petals and started forming bright rosehips (khǘr zhǜr), and clusters of glossy black crowberries (zhǜr tthē) already dotted the forest floor.

Prickly wild rose, crowberries, and even some fireweed plants start producing seeds (inside fruits or capsules) throughout July. Photos by Paula Gomez Villalba.

Unfortunately, these mosaics of colours, textures, and life are at risk…

While adapting to the short growing season traditionally gave Yukon plants an edge, climate change is rapidly changing the North. Warmer temperatures, changes in precipitation, and human disturbance are creating conditions that favour invasive species—introduced, non-native species that cause harm. Some choke out local species, while others change the soil or overgrow, crowding out other plants.

There are eight species of horsetail in the Yukon, and four have been observed in Chasàn Chùa. Photos by Paula Gomez Villalba.

Along the creek where the soils became sandy and exposed, horsetail covered the ground, creating a delicate green mat of thin and intricate branches. Laurence explained that horsetail is one of the oldest plants on the planet, having been around during the Jurassic period and surviving multiple mass extinctions! Yet even these ancient plants are vulnerable to invasive species. Laurence snipped a stalk of white sweetclover growing just a few feet away. They explained how this plant, introduced accidentally through farming, fixes nitrogen in its pithy white roots, making the soil where it grows less hospitable to horsetail and other native species.

White sweetclover is invasive, and it is now well-established here in the Yukon. Photo by Paula Gomez Villalba.

Many invasive species first establish and spread easily near disturbed areas. White sweetclover loves gravelly soils, like those found along rivers, construction sites, and roadsides. At roadsides especially, sweetclover pushes out fireweed, producing a whopping 300,000 seeds and hitching rides on the soles of people’s shoes or the tires of their bikes and cars. These seeds can lie dormant in soil or water for up to 30 years before popping back up to sprout when conditions are right, which means restoration work requires returning to the same place and removing sweetclover again and again until the seedbank is depleted. It’s a slow process that’s made even more difficult due to the lack of resources dedicated to managing invasive species in the Yukon.

No one is really responsible for evaluating and combating invasive species in the Yukon. The territory’s Wildlife Act defines wildlife only as vertebrate animals, rather than all living organisms like plants. There is no noxious or invasive plant act. As we walked through the forest, Laurence highlighted the importance of writing to your local representatives. The territory needs comprehensive legislation to protect native species and species at risk. Stable, long-term funding is essential for increased awareness and on-the-ground restoration efforts that prevent the further introduction and spread of invasive species.

Ultimately, the future of the northern boreal depends on the actions we take today. White sweetclover is just one of many invasive species whose presence puts much of what makes the Yukon special at risk. Invasive species aren’t inherently better or more suited to the north, they just have a strong competitive edge because human-caused climate change continues to create favourable conditions for them, while simultaneously stressing native species.

Bumblebees and many other animals rely on native Yukon plants to survive. Photo by Paula Gomez Villalba.

Beyond providing space for us to connect with nature, boreal forests and wetlands are biodiversity hotspots that filter water, provide homes for wildlife, and help build resiliency to climate change. Disrupting them triggers significant changes across ecosystems that have taken millenia to evolve. That’s why we need resources to engage and connect people with plants and restore areas that are changing. Find out about future Plants of the Boreal walks and similar events by signing up for our newsletter.

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Southern Tutchone translations from the Yukon Native Language Centre’s Southern Tutchone Noun Dictionary and Champagne and Aishihik First Nation’s Dákwänjé Dictionary.

August 1 2023

StoryMap: Coexistence & Caution

CPAWS Yukon Blog, BlogMcIntytreCreek

June 1 2022

Many species tolerate the existing roads in McIntyre Creek. Why is CPAWS Yukon opposing a new road?

CPAWS Yukon Blog, BlogMcIntytreCreek

Written by Malkolm Boothroyd, Campaigns Coordinator

Whitehorse’s Official Community Plan will help to determine the future of McIntyre Creek/Chasàn Chùa. Your input can shape this plan! Email your thoughts to ocp@whitehorse.ca or fill out the City’s survey.

Coyote pups tumbling about in a clearing. A calf moose trotting behind its mother’s towering legs. A pine marten standing up its hind legs and looking straight into the camera. These are a few of the thousands of images captured by the trail cameras we set up throughout McIntyre Creek last summer, and have been sharing on social media. But there was more to this project than documenting the adorable wildlife of McIntyre Creek.

We set out on our wildlife study because we wanted to understand how developments like roads and subdivisions impact the wildlife that depend on the creek. Last week the City of Whitehorse released its draft Official Community Plan—promising to work towards a park in McIntyre Creek—but also leaving the door open to a major road through the lower section of the creek. The Official Community Plan will help determine the future of McIntyre Creek, which means it’s a good time to take stock of our wildlife study.

We’re part way through analyzing our data. It surprised me, but in most cases roads didn’t have a statistically significant impact on wildlife distributions. One exception was moose, which avoided areas with lots of roads, while deer were more likely to be found in heavily roaded areas. Deer have a higher tolerance of people than other ungulates, and may favour places with higher human densities in part because their predators avoid these areas. Species like lynx, coyotes and snowshoe hares seemed largely unaffected by roads.

Our trail cameras only recorded a few grizzly bears and one single wolf, all in parts of McIntyre Creek with few roads. It’s possible that roads are negatively impacting these large predators, but our sample size was much too small to draw any statistical conclusions. These are preliminary results, and we haven’t finished analyzing all of the data we collected. These findings are definitely not what I expected, but they’re good news. It means that there’s still a lot of really good wildlife habitat throughout McIntyre Creek, and that most species can tolerate the existing amount of roads in the area.

There are lots of things this study doesn’t tell us. Our study can’t predict the impacts of building a new road through McIntyre Creek, or expanding the Alaska Highway and Mountainview Drive to accommodate more traffic. Building a third major road would be a big change for McIntyre Creek, and one that there’s no going back from. We’re fortunate to live in a city that is so rich in wildlife and wild spaces, but that could change if we take it for granted.

There are other reasons to be skeptical of a new road through McIntyre Creek. How will building a road from the roundabout on Mountainview Drive to the Alaska Highway near Kopper King alleviate traffic congestion? Anybody driving from Whistlebend into Whitehorse would be adding an extra kilometer onto their commute along with two left hand turns across busy roads, only to end up at the top of Two Mile Hill. There are values-based considerations too, like cutting a major road through an area full of walking and biking trails. And of course there’s the climate emergency. Building a new road strikes me as a 20th century solution to traffic problems— when the future of sustainable urban development depends on mass public transit and active transport.

The City will have to think about the road from a lot of angles—how wildlife use the creek, the connections that people hold to this place, and what the future of transportation looks like in Whitehorse. The results of our wildlife study may not lend themselves to making simple, decisive statements about the impacts of the proposed road on the wildlife of McIntyre Creek, but that’s fine. The prospect of a road through McIntyre Creek has always been a complicated question, and one that will reflect Whitehorse’s priorities as a City.

What’s your vision for the future of McIntyre Creek? A busy new road could change what we love about McIntyre Creek. We have a week to tell the City we don’t want it. Send an email to ocp@whitehorse.ca, or fill out the City’s survey by June 12th.

McIntyreCreek_Snow_AmeliaFord_pcMaeganElliott

March 29 2022

Corridor Conservation: My story as a youth inspired by McIntyre Creek

CPAWS Yukon Blog, BlogMcIntytreCreek

Corridor Conservation: My story as a youth inspired by McIntyre Creek

Written by Amelia Ford, McIntyre Creek Project Volunteer

As a grade 12 student at F.H. Collins Secondary School, I was given a project to complete within the final months of high school that explored a hobby, interest, or possible future career path. Essentially, the project could be anything under the sun, as long as it showed my focus and enthusiasm. Initially I was overwhelmed, as there was a huge variety of possible interests I could explore, but I ultimately settled with volunteering for an organization of my choice, CPAWS Yukon. Given my strong interest in the environment and conservation, working with such an organization was a pretty big deal. From December to March I joined Maegan Elliott, the lead behind the McIntyre Creek/Chasàn Chùa project, and helped both in the field and from my computer.

McIntyre Creek is the center of the wildlife corridor which passes through the city. It is both a recreational area as well as an abundantly biodiverse region that is home to a lot of Yukon wildlife, holding a lot of our territory’s historical, social and environmental values. Photo by Amelia Ford.

Originally, I was not very aware of the importance of McIntyre Creek or the significant threat it faces with our growing population. The City of Whitehorse has proposed developmental options to meet the needs of a growing city, including the expansion of Porter Creek, which would cut into the heart of the McIntyre Creek area. On top of that, the future expansion of the Alaska highway and increased traffic levels also pose a danger to wildlife in the area.

Though the expansion of development in these areas may be convenient in solving the problem of housing, the resources and home of many species living at McIntyre Creek would be in trouble. The Yukon is known for its vast lands and diversity of plants, animals, and ecosystems. McIntyre Creek subsequently plays an important role in connecting our wildlife to these different lands, which is what CPAWS and other organizations are trying to show through snow track surveys, collecting data, discussions, and advocacy.

I completed a snow track survey in McIntyre Creek, and even within a small section of the area Maegan and I counted the tracks of many unique and different species. The survey involved traversing a 1.5 km long triangle, identifying and recording all of the tracks that cross the transect route, which in my case involved trudging through knee-deep snow and an unexpected spring crossing. I was shocked by the range of species that pass through or live in the wildlife corridor (it’s not just squirrels and the occasional bear). On just one transect we counted the tracks of lynx, deer, martens, hares, you name it! I further realized the variety of species when I entered data from multiple different surveys across McIntyre Creek into the main spreadsheet, which is full of a diverse range of animals. There’s evidently a large volume of wildlife that uses the corridor – however, it is also used by humans just as frequently.

Completing the snow track survey for transect B6. Photo by Maegan Elliott.

This area plays a role in the mental well-being of our communities, especially during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a decrease in indoor gatherings, many took to the outdoors to find solace from the stress caused by the virus. Whether it be skiing, hiking, snowshoeing or walking, the McIntyre Creek area has visible evidence of use by our city’s population. And not just for recreational purposes – this area is also frequented by Yukon schools for educational purposes and for learning about our territory’s biodiversity.

From initially knowing next to nothing about this issue, I am super grateful to have been given the opportunity to work with CPAWS and learn about the significance of the land I use every day. Working on this project also showed me just how important actively making a difference can be. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the constant onslaught of environmental threats our world faces, paired with the devastating impacts of our changing climate, but it is also important to remember the power and change we can create by advocating for these issues (especially as youth). For this reason, I encourage you to research and speak up about these types of issues, and to communicate with others and your community so we can conserve this land we are so fortunate to call our backyard.

Learn more about McIntyre Creek/Chasàn Chùa

October 1 2021

A Summer Spent at CPAWS

CPAWS Yukon Blog, BlogMcIntytreCreek

Written by Preet Dhillon, Conservation Intern

The COVID 19 pandemic proved a challenging year for many universities, as classes shifted from an in-person learning experience to online classes offered remotely. I found myself, along with other students, in a unique and new situation. Instead of attending classes and engaging with teachers and peers on campus, ‘campus’ became the desk in my room while classes were held on the screen of my computer. Come the month of May the remote school year had come to an end; it was time to go back home to the Yukon. After a year of learning online I was looking forward to spending a summer at CPAWS Yukon.

As I reflect on what I have gotten up to in these past few months, I am grateful for the opportunity to have had the position of conservation intern over the summer. Here you will find out how I spent my summer at CPAWS and what I was able to do.

I started out my summer helping Conservation Coordinator, Maegan Elliott, with fieldwork aimed to monitor the biodiversity of McIntyre Creek. I was able to learn about the methods used to capture the biodiversity such as motion trapping cameras, bat detectors and Autonomic Recording Units (ARUs). While setting up these systems we explored a variety of different areas such as soggy wetlands, tall pine and spruce tree forests, aspen groves and more! McIntyre Creek is an incredible area, filled with a variety of plant life and wildlife.

I enjoyed hiking through the McIntyre Creek area and exploring the diversity it has to offer, while learning of how the different methods work, how to set them up and the value that they hold in assessing biodiversity.

Setting up cameras in McIntyre Creek, by Maegan Elliott

I enjoyed exploring McIntyre Creek throughout the summer, and I would encourage many others to do the same. I discovered McIntyre Creek to be a very diverse area, filled a with a variety of plant life, wildlife, and different natural landscapes. I was able to collaborate with the Yukon Conservation Society’s summer intern, as we worked on a booklet called “A Walk-Through McIntyre Creek”. This booklet features directions for a 2km hiking trail and information about the First Nations, natural history, plants, wildlife of McIntyre Creek and more!

Furthermore, with an interest on Yukon bumblebees, I was also able to monitor bumblebee diversity in McIntyre Creek. Blue vane traps were placed at a variety of sites in the McIntyre Creek area, for a few weeks. Each bumblebee was then identified by local biologist Syd Cannings. At one of the sites, I was able to encounter the Western Bumblebee listed as a special concern on species at risk. This allowed me to discover the importance species at risk have on larger scale.

Additionally, after a year away from the farmers market due to the pandemic, we were excited to make a reappearance as we greeted familiar faces and introduced ourselves to some new ones. I was able to spend each Thursday at the market along with other members of the CPAWS team, where we would provide information and updates to the public on CPAWS work. I enjoyed interacting and engaging people on their interests surrounding Yukon wilderness and the CPAWS organization. Despite the windy days that proved challenging when trying to keep displays put together, the farmers market was a delightful experience and would like to thank everyone that dropped by!

CPAWS Yukon at the Fireweed Market, by Preet Dhillon

I find summers to take a very long time to arrive as we wait for them through the cold months. Interestingly, summers seem to end way sooner than you expect. I find my summer spent at CPAWS, to be similar. Although it was short and sweet, I am fortunate to walk away plenty of knowledge and am thankful for the CPAWS family who made it so great and helped me so much.

May 21 2021

A Guide to Yukon Bats for Endangered Species Day

CPAWS Yukon Blog, BlogMcIntytreCreek

A Guide to Yukon Bats for Endangered Species Day

Written by Maegan McCaw, Conservation Coordinator
Header Image by Maegan McCaw

Friday, May 21^st has been designated as Endangered Species Day. This is an important day to acknowledge the thousands of species around the world whose populations are in decline, and the efforts of those working to conserve and protect these species.

For this year’s Endangered Species Day, I’m going to take you on a deep dive into the world of bats.

Basking bats at Miles Canyon. Photo by Brian Slough.

Maegan McCaw setting up a bat detector along McIntyre Creek. Photo by Julie Thomas.

A bat detector at the McIntyre Creek Pumphouse Pond in 2020. Photo by Maegan McCaw

Eight bat species have been recorded in the Yukon, including the Little Brown Myotis and the Northern Myotis, both live captured, and the Long-eared Myotis, Yuma Myotis, Long-legged Myotis, Silver-haired Bat, Eastern Red Bat and Hoary Bat, confidently identified from echolocation calls. All of these species, aside from the Little Brown Myotis, have been found only in southern Yukon and may be restricted to local areas in this region. To read more about Yukon bats, check out this pamphlet by Yukon Wildlife Viewing.

I’ve been fortunate to learn about bats through my work at McIntyre Creek and the opportunity to collaborate with local researchers. Last summer I used bat detectors to record the echolocation calls of bats at McIntyre Creek. These surveys only lasted for a few nights at a handful of sites, and to my amazement, they resulted in thousands of recordings of bat calls each night. I learned this means there is likely a maternal colony in the area. Julie Thomas, a Yukon Government biologist, and Brian Slough, an independent researcher, helped analyze the files and determined many of the calls were feeding calls, and the Little Brown Myotis and potentially the Long-legged Myotis were recorded. The only other acoustic recordings of Long-legged Myotis in the Yukon were at Wolf Creek, just south of Whitehorse, Carmacks, Teslin and Destruction Bay.

Canada has 622 species listed under the Species at Risk Act (SARA). Species listed here are nationally recognized to be locally extinct, endangered, threatened or of special concern. Of these 622, 91 are found in the Yukon. CPAWS and others have been advocating for the establishment of Territory-specific legislation to properly protect and manage species at risk for years to fill in the gaps that SARA leaves.

Across Canada, the Little Brown Myotis and the Northern Myotis are both listed as endangered due to white nose syndrome. This fungal disease has devastated bat populations in eastern Canada, leading to a 94% overall decline in hibernating populations in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec. It continues to advance northward and westward without containment. Local bat researchers are bracing themselves for the day that white nose syndrome is discovered in a Yukon bat.

Other issues threaten bats across Canada. Bats are sensitive to human disturbance during hibernation; each instance of disturbance is energetically costly to a hibernating bat, as their metabolic rate goes up and they are left to determine if there is an immediate threat or not. Enough disturbances can lead to starvation. Wind turbines can also be deadly to bats, especially to species that undergo long distance migrations. Loss of habitat or change to forest structure is another threat, as well as chemical contamination. Bat’s diet of insects makes them vulnerable to the effects of pesticides, though the impacts and extent of negative effects from pesticides are unknown.

Industrial projects, such as quarrying for the Site C dam in B.C., pose serious threats. The chosen quarry site at Portage Mountain for the Site C project encroaches on priceless bat hibernation sites and summer habitat for eight different species of bats. Bats require warm, humid areas to hibernate in the winter – a rare find in northern landscapes. Such sites usually have a long history of use by bats, and there might not be other suitable habitats available across the landscape. Important hibernation sites paired with summer roosting and feeding areas, such as wetlands (one of which was backfilled for the Site C quarrying project), are even more rare. In the case of this quarrying project, B.C. Hydro prioritized industrial interests and the convenience of the Portage Mountain site over its value as a critical habitat feature.

“So, what?”, you might think. How important are bats, really? The answer is, bats bring a number of benefits to our lives, but beyond that, they have their own intrinsic value that must be appreciated. It should also come as no surprise that the health of all living things and the land are connected in some way – also known as One Health – so the health of bats and their habitats have an effect on our health as well.

Bats provide an important ecosystem service by helping to manage insect populations, including agricultural and forestry insect pests, and some bat species are important pollinators. They are also a sign of ecosystem health. Multiple cases of One Health issues have arisen from humans interrupting the natural system and causing wildlife, such as bats, to relocate, sometimes leading to the transmission of disease. Sadly, myths and exaggerated messages of bats carrying disease have led to a fear of bats, and in some cases people have even exterminated entire colonies.

Bats are intelligent, social, long-lived creatures. The little brown myotis can live into their 30s! They also have a slow birth rate, and females raise one pup every one to two years. We still have a lot to learn about bats, especially populations in the Yukon, but they – and their habitats – are clearly worth working to conserve.

There is no doubt that more research needs to be done on Yukon bats to fill broad knowledge gaps. Canada’s bat populations are faced with serious threats, and time is of the essence. Thankfully, a handful of biologists, researchers, and bat enthusiasts including: Yukon Government biologists Tom Jung, Piia Kukka, and Julie Thomas; independent researcher Brian Slough; Wildlife Conservation Society Scientist Cori Lausen, and; University of Calgary Professor Robert Barclay, among others, actively continue to contribute to the body of knowledge about Yukon bats. Their work is immensely important, especially as white nose syndrome makes its way closer to the territory. Filling knowledge gaps about Yukon bats will allow us to identify critical habitat, monitor species and populations, and address threats.

This summer CPAWS is partnering with several researchers and biologists to study bats at McIntyre Creek and Wolf Creek. We hope to learn how bats use specific features and characteristics along these two urban creeks near Whitehorse. This work may also give more insight into which species of bats are present along these urban creek systems.

If you want to participate in projects like this or are interested in learning more about other local species, come join us out at McIntyre Creek this summer. You can also contribute to bat conservation efforts in other ways. Reporting potential maternal roosts to Yukon Government – indicated by large quantities of guano at the base of a roost, or seeing a group of bats entering/leaving a roost site at night – is an important step. You can also install a bat house, providing a place for bats to roost on your property (and enjoy the added benefit of fewer mosquitos around your yard). Contact Yukon Wildlife Viewing for more information on their bat house program. Finally, you can teach your friends and family about the importance of bats, and dispel outdated myths that may cause them to unnecessarily fear bats. Just like other things in nature, a little respect for their life history and important habitats goes a long way, and in the long run, this can lead to mutual benefits. Let’s keep bats around for the long haul.

December 2 2020

What McIntyre Creek Taught Me

CPAWS Yukon Blog, BlogMcIntytreCreek, Publications

A coyote strolling through McIntyre Creek

A lynx using McIntyre Creek as a corridor within its home range

Mergansers swimming through McIntyre Creek

What are you? A porcupine? A beaver? A ghost?

A curious chickadee inspecting our camera trap

Written by Maegan McCaw, Conservation Coordinator

McIntyre Creek is the heart of a wildlife corridor that passes through Whitehorse, Yukon; home of over 90% of the Territory’s human population. It has a long and colorful history, beginning as a glacial meltwater channel and ending as a highly valued recreational and wilderness area that passes through the most developed region of the Yukon. Today, the creek and its surrounding ecosystem hold many social, cultural and ecological values, including considerable biodiversity. However, a rapidly growing human population forces City of Whitehorse planners to consider future subdivision and road developments, some of which could compromise McIntyre Creeks’ ecological roles. Protection of McIntyre Creek continues to be a topic of discussion, which provides an opportunity for collaborative local conservation planning with a long-term vision.

Documenting the story of McIntyre Creek involved a thorough literature review to understand its history and ecosystems. I pooled data and information from a variety of sources to create biodiversity maps showing different plant and animal groups, otherwise referred to as ‘taxa’. These sources of data included observations made by members of the community (“community science” data), long-term biological monitoring programs (conducted by government and other scientists and local consulting firms), conversations with experts, and my own targeted data collection using remote cameras and bat detectors. The final product of this work is The Story of McIntyre Creek (Chasàn Chùa) report, which details the history of the area, its social and ecological values, and what the future of McIntyre Creek could look like.

Sparrow’s-egg Lady’s slipper. A vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List, Maegan McCaw

As I gathered data from the area, it became overwhelmingly clear that McIntyre Creek continues to support immense ecological and biological diversity which would be difficult to summarize concisely. In 2000, Applied Ecosystem Management Ltd. classified McIntyre Creek as a Significant Wildlife Area, meaning it contains zones that are sensitive to human disturbance and provide high value wildlife habitat. The creek itself is surrounded by a variety of riparian and upland habitats, including:

• willow thickets,
• steep-walled canyons,
• grassy south-facing slopes,
• open lodgepole pine forests,
• mixed-wood forests, and
• spruce-Labrador tea forests on cool north-facing slopes

The area also has large and diverse wetlands that provide critical ecosystem services. The diverse landscapes and vegetation provide habitat for a variety of wildlife species with different life histories, including multiple rare and federally listed at-risk species. Invertebrates, although often overlooked as wildlife, are an important component of ecosystem function at McIntyre Creek and an indicator of ecosystem health. The creek is also home to multiple species of fish and one species of amphibian. McIntyre Creek has become a popular birding destination among locals because of the immense diversity of bird life that the wetlands, thickets and forests attract. Some bird species use the area as a stopover on their migration route, while others use the creek seasonally for important life stages like reproduction. Others still can be found at McIntyre Creek year-round. The area plays a similar role for mammals. Many small to medium sized mammals are permanent residents. For large mammals, McIntyre Creek is either part of a species’ home range or serves as a movement corridor.

Ducks cruising through the creek, Maegan McCaw

Wildlife corridors are strips of habitat that link two larger habitat patches. McIntyre Creek is the only corridor facilitating wildlife movement through the Whitehorse area, making it important for maintaining a travel route to the large wilderness areas to the east and west of Whitehorse. The corridor’s importance for maintaining genetic connectivity and the resilience of our wildlife populations will likely be amplified in the future as climate change progresses and development in southern Yukon expands to support a growing human population.

I also took a look into McIntyre Creek’s past. I learned that there are many archeological sites along McIntyre Creek where artifacts have been recovered, which confirm the area had been used by First Nations for thousands of years. Following the most recent glacial period, wildlife ranges expanded south from the ice-free region of Beringia, and people followed and soon had established travel routes and campsites. McIntyre Creek was an important travel route for First Nations Peoples and became part of the Traditional Territories of the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council and the Kwanlin Dün First Nation. The creek was originally named Chasàn Chùa, meaning Copper Creek in Southern Tutchone, due to the area’s abundance of copper nuggets. Today, McIntyre Creek continues to hold cultural significance for both the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council and the Kwanlin Dün First Nation.

Seep Monkeyflower – an indicator of a freshwater spring below, Maegan McCaw

Industrial activity at McIntyre Creek began in the early 1900s. This included underground and open pit mines, remains of which are present to this day. The mines targeted copper and other metals often found with copper. It was at this point that the creek was re-named McIntyre Creek after Jack McIntyre, the first prospector to stake a claim in the area. A U.S. army dumpsite near the confluence of the creek and the Yukon River wreaked havoc on the environment, and displaced local First Nations from their established campsites that they had used for millennia. More changes to the system occurred when a hydro electric project diverted water into McIntyre Creek and altered the flow volume.

Overlooking McIntyre Creek, Maegan McCaw

The City of Whitehorse has proposed several regional parks, which would be managed by the City. One of these proposed parks is McIntyre Creek. At the same time, to meet the demands of a growing population, the City has explored several subdivision expansion options – one of which extends into the McIntyre Creek corridor and has been strongly opposed by several groups. These groups have lobbied for formal protection of McIntyre Creek, including the area proposed for development, citing concerns over negative impacts to wildlife that use McIntyre Creek for year-round habitat and as a travel route to access wilderness areas on either side of Whitehorse. McIntyre Creek is also an important recreational area and a highly accessible place where people can connect with nature, a feature that has become increasing important with the travel and social gathering restrictions of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The question of whether McIntyre Creek will receive protection remains unanswered, but the creek presents several potential opportunities for the future. While expanding development into the McIntyre Creek Corridor is convenient in the short term, it is important to consider the long-term implications of encroaching into the only wildlife corridor that passes through the City of Whitehorse. There are also many interested parties and implications of protection to consider. Different groups could contribute to management of the area in distinct ways, such as an environmental monitoring program that could be spearheaded by Yukon University. Through careful planning, formal protection is likely to achieve overall positive results – for example, a protected area could result in positive economic benefits driven by financial returns (e.g., tourism opportunities) and non-financial returns (i.e., the provision of ecosystem services). Whatever decisions are made about the future of the area, both the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and Ta’an Kwäch’än Council must be at the centre of planning to ensure their visions for the area are upheld. This may mean staving off development within the corridor until the First Nations can enter into their land use planning processes and make overarching decisions regarding the future of their traditional territories. With this larger landscape scale in mind, McIntyre Creek provides an opportunity to practice conservation proactively, benefitting not only the local environment, but also conservation planning for southern Yukon. This corridor through Whitehorse could be used to connect to other wilderness areas, including existing protected areas and key wildlife areas, promoting healthy human-wildlife interactions and ensuring the resilience of species’ and ecosystems into the future.

Read the Report