Angus Sanguez, 67 years old, is a whippet-thin. His face has been weathered by years of living in the Dehcho region in Canada’s Northwest Territories, a sub-Arctic wilderness that is on the frontlines of climate change.
Sanguez was raised in the Dene community. Tthets’ek’ehdeli One of six communities in the Dehcho region, also known as Jean Marie River. The Dehcho covers 215,615 square kilometers. It is twice as large as England and is home to only 3,000 people. There are also countless moose bears, bison, and wolves that roam the vast carbon storehouse in permafrost.
Sanguez was visiting the Scotty Creek Research station in Canada’s sub-Arctic when he had a eureka moment gazing upon dying trees that could no longer root themselves in the thawing peat. “So that’s why they call this a ‘drunken forest,’” he said. “I heard that term many times. But I had no idea what it meant. I can see now that the trees that have fallen all over are like drunks coming out from a bar, falling to the ground and leaning against each other. We are seeing a lot of this.”
The Dene people are facing new threats to their lives and livelihoods from climate change. They have been resisting invitations to collaborate with fossil fuel companies for decades. Instead, they are collaborating with scientists and the national government to create and monitor Canada’s first indigenous protected area, in what they hope can be a model for others.
The Dehcho is being transformed by climate change. It is one the fastest warming regions on Earth.
In recent years, Sanquez, the Dene, have suffered catastrophic flooding and massive landslides which have drained and turned brown lakes. Wildfires have also been started, such as those that ravaged 570,000 hectares of southern territory forest in 2014. Those 380 fires released roughly 94.5 megatonnes of carbon, half of the carbon sequestered annually in all of Canada, as well as a potentially toxic form of mercury that has been locked in permafrost.
William Quinton, a Laurier University scientist, monitors the impact of climate changes on permafrost within the Dehcho over 23 years. He runs Scotty Creek Research Station at Fort Simpson, 50 km south. It is located in a remote village 500km west from the capital Yellowknife.
Permafrost acts like a cement, holding together carbon-rich peat, rocks, and mineral-rich soils. Drilling for oil and mining for metals or minerals can accelerate its thaw, as well as warmer temperatures. This can complicate maintenance and cleanup of mines like the abandoned Cantung mine, which is located at one of the Nahanni River’s headwaters.
The seismic lines that were bulldozed in order to find oil and gas sources around Scotty Creek also show the thawing of permafrost. These lines, which are the largest human disturbance in Dehcho, were filled with water that had percolated upwards from the thawing of permafrost.
Permafrost covered 75% of Scotty Creek’s 152 km of drainage area in the 1950s. It’s down to a third of that. It is often covered with a layer of permafrost if there is still some. talikUnfrozen ground that has not been frozen and does not freeze in winter.
A thick, durable snow cover and a quick spring meltdown help spread the thaw outwards. Trees are literally flooded when the ground surface collapses into depressions. The melting snow and rain then fills these depressions with water. Quinton had to move twice his research camp to avoid being flooded.
“What we’re seeing perhaps more clearly than any other place in the world is ecosystem change occurring in fast motion,” said Quinton. “The involvement of the Dene is important to our understanding of what is happening because the elders here have a longer record of what was there in the past and how it is affecting fish and wildlife.”
A small single-engine float aircraft flew us from Fort Simpson across a wilderness that stretched as far as the eye could reach towards the Mackenzie Mountains, where the last icefields on the Northwest Territories mainland are melting as fast as the sea ice.
Quinton at Goose Lake stated that Scotty Creek’s lessons have been very instructive. It was so hot that the normally gregarious ravens were forced to flee to the shore.datsą́) and trickers whisky jacks, (ohk’aa), were lying low. The Mackenzie Valley can be Canada’s hottest in summer and coldest in winter.
“It’s tough to be a tree in this landscape,” Quinton said. “The thawing that we are seeing is turning forests into bogs and other wetlands that may not be able to support the fish and animals that the Dene rely on for food and clothing.”
“The implications for water quality, vegetation changes, biodiversity and for the people living in this part of the world are profound,” he said.
It is easy to visualize what Quinton is referring to by describing what happened 300km to northeast in the Mackenzie bison sanctuary. Warming temperatures and 2014 wildfires caused permafrost to thaw so strongly that groundwater channels flooded the area, driving most of the 700 wood bison from the protected area.
Terry Armstrong, a biologist for the government in the Northwest Territories, said that the exodus was so complete that it was difficult to find animals when he returned to the area to count them the next year.
No one knows for sure if it was the swamping that drove them out. But York University scientist Jennifer Korosi who was there at Scotty Creek says it’s hard not to make the connection considering the amount of water in the sanctuary doubled between 1986 and 2014 and Falaise Lake, the largest in the sanctuary, grew by 824%.
The tree rings and sediment coring Korosi did show that flooding has been a problem in the past, but not on a scale comparable to the past 300 years. According to indigenous elders, it has not happened in their lifetime.
Fort Simpson elders and leaders clearly communicated their message. “Climate change is not going to wait for us to find a way of adapting and mitigating,” said Gladys Norwegian, former chief of Jean Marie River and grand chief of the Dehcho.
“It’s happening now. We must work together with scientists from Scotty Creek to see the future. We also need to get our own act together,” Norwegian said.
The Dene community would like to hear from Canadian scientists how future warming will impact their food, water, and infrastructure which is built on rapidly melting permafrost. They are working together with Scotty Creek scientists as equal partners to better assess resource development and climate impacts on their land.
Quinton believes the “unique fusion of science and indigenous knowledge” provides a model for other indigenous communities in Canada facing climate threats.
“It is a clear departure from how science and land management was conducted in the north in the past,” he said. “Because the livelihoods of the people here are so closely dependent on what is happening on the land, a management approach that puts them in leadership positions is critical.”
Thawing can cause flooding and erosion, as well as dissolve carbon in water. It can also increase microbial activity and transform harmless elemental mercury stored in permafrost to toxic methylmercury. This is how University of Waterloo scientist Heidi Swanson got involved and University of Alberta ecologist Dave Olefeldt.
With Sanguez’s assistance, Swanson is testing fish for mercury and at their request, advising people what fish they can eat. Olefeldt and his crew are monitoring the mercury’s movement through these catchments.
There are no signs yet that contaminated fish are affecting human and animal health. But George Low, who coordinates the aquatic resources and oceans management programme for the Dehcho First Nations, says it’s important to keep track of what’s going on, given how many fish are consumed by indigenous people.
Sanguez and other community members are helping Swanson to remove larger, older fish from lakes. This gives the younger fish more food and allows them to grow quickly without accumulating too much mercury.
Because of prejudices arising from colonialism, the merging of science with indigenous knowledge took a long time to develop. George Simpson, Scottish-born governor of the Hudson Bay Company as it aggressively expanded fur trading in the 1800s, revealed typically racist views in his private letters, describing Dene women he bedded as “bits of brown”.
In the middle of the 1970s, a group of energy companies proposed the construction of a 3,860 km-long natural gas pipeline through Mackenzie Valley. This was a more constructive meeting of minds. The indigenous communities did not know how a large pipeline like that would affect caribou migration or whether it could withstand the freeze. The energy companies did not know the same. Despite many other knowledge gaps the Canadian government enthusiastically supported this project until the public hearings under the supervision of Justice Thomas Berger in Fort Simpson in December 1975.
Jim Antoine, a young leader of Fort Simpson, spoke for all Dene people and told Berger that he would lay down his life to stop the $10 Billion project.
Antoine’s speech made news all across Canada. It was a far cry from what happened in Mexico in 1976 when the Chontales Indians tried blocking access roads to oil and natural gas installations. Officials in the government and resources industry were not used to dealing with indigenous peoples, but threats to shut down a pipeline in northern Canada have rattled them.
Berger was ultimately sympathetic. In a landmark report, Berger recommended a ten-year moratorium for development in the region. This was to ensure that land claims can be resolved and wilderness is protected for Dene benefit.
Antoine became the premier of the Northwest Territories. At the request of the Dene, Nahanni National Park – a United Nations World Heritage site – was expanded to protect the headwaters of many of the rivers that drain into the Mackenzie watershed.
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The Dehcho First Nations and Canada reached a deal to reserve 14,218 km of land in the Horn Plateau and Hay River Lowlands as a national wildlife zone. This was the biggest development. Edéhzhíe became the first indigenous protected area in Canada in 2018 and the government provided a C$10 million grant ($8m) to the Edéhzhíe Trust Fund to support the Dehcho K’éhodi Stewardship and Guardians Program.
The scientists work with the indigenous guardians to monitor climate and environmental changes within the region. They also share scientists’ insights with community members.
William Alger, one the guardians, is positive on the program. “I learn from elders where the fish and animals are and the changes they see that are taking place,” he said.
Quinton sees the guardian programme as a way of “ground truthing” the science that he and his colleagues are doing. Once the Dene learn how to do the science at Scotty Creek they will be in a position to take over the programme.
“Southern researchers like me have to come to terms with the fact that while the current system in which we operate is well-intentioned, it doesn’t necessarily address the needs of the local community,” Quinton said. “Too often, we fly in and fly out with the data without communicating what that data means.”
This is not a new practice for northern Canada’s indigenous peoples, the Dene of the Dehcho. This is a trend that the Yukon’s Gwitchin of Old Crow have been making for some time. The Dene and Metis people in Sahtu region of the Northwest Territories recently signed an agreement to establish an indigenous protected area – Ts’udé Nilįné Tuyeta – which will be just as big as Edéhzhíe.
Despite all the progress, the Dehcho claim of land ownership has not been resolved. Deh Cho villages such as Fort Simpson continue to ship dirty diesel from the south to heat homes, and keep the lights on, even though oil has been flowing out of the territories through another pipeline for over a century.
“It’s crazy,” said James Tsetso, a Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́Scotty Creek First Nation councillor. “And look at all of the wood in the forests around us. Why are we still shipping wood products from the south to rebuild and fix up homes that were destroyed by last year’s floods?”
There is no doubt that the Dene require jobs. It’s why they are more open-minded about resource extraction. However, some are wary of mining companies like the Mackenzie-based Mactung and Cantung. Both companies did not offer meaningful employment for locals before they filed for bankruptcy. There has not been enough work for northerners to help with the $2.2 billion cleanup of these abandoned mines in the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
Gerry Antoine was only 20 years old when he volunteered as a Dene National grandchief to rally the Dene during The Berger Inquiry. His brother’s speech still resonates. He says that anger will not bring any fruit.
Antoine is optimistic that the Dene will adapt to climate changes, just like they have done with many other challenges over thousands of years. He wonders if southerners will fare the same, given their short history and desire to take more than what they need.
“It’s all about balance,” Antoine said, while preparing a moose hide for tanning. “You take only what you need from Mother Earth as we try to do here. That’s really the best way of dealing with climate change.”
Main image: 110 km2 of glacier coverage has been lost in the Northwest Territories’ Ragged Range icefields over the past 35 years. Credit: Edward Struzik. This article is part of a climate justice reporting programme supported by the Climate Justice Resilience Fund.
Source: Climate Change News
