To Wood Buffalo National Park, with love: Reflections from the authors
By Chloe Dragon Smith and Robert Grandjambe
October 28, 2020
This blog by Chloe Dragon Smith and Robert Grandjambe reminds us that, despite all the positive developments in repairing the relationship between colonial conservation organizations and Indigenous peoples, there remains much work to be done. Here they highlight ongoing conflict in their traditional territory which contains Wood Buffalo National Park.
My partner Robert and I recently wrote an article about Wood Buffalo National Park published in The Briarpatch Magazine. We wrote it as a first communique set in the future and in the format of a story. You can find it here.
We wrote our story because we have been feeling the frustrations of our experiences in the Park, where we have been based since the Covid19 pandemic hit hard in March. I have had the privilege of being involved in the Pathway to Canada Target 1 as a member of the National Advisory Panel, a federal initiative to support the creation of more and different protected areas in Canada. Although it wasn’t a flawless experience, I contributed and left feeling hopeful about the future Parks and the realization of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) in Canada.
However, since returning to my traditional territory, I was faced with the reality that although conversations are evolving nationally, there are still major obstacles and problems occurring locally. I have been shocked at the brokenness of relationships between Parks Canada and Indigenous peoples on the Land in Wood Buffalo National Park. Now, through first-hand experience, I can see some of the roots of the issues more clearly.
As background, I grew up in Yellowknife, but my mother is from Fort Smith (on the northern border of the park). When I asked her recently if the proximity of the Park to Fort Smith had affected her, she said that it had not. I then asked her if she spent any time within the Park boundaries in her youth, and she replied that she did not. We both let that admission hang there for a minute, the heaviness of the realization hitting us.
All that could have been rushed into my head and heart; opportunities missed on my homelands. A life where tanning moose hide could have been taught to me over time by my mother, and not a task I had to relearn at 30 years old. A life where I didn’t step off the river bank and sink deep into delta mud, because I hadn’t experienced it before. A life where I could speak my family’s language and more clearly understand the worldviews of my maternal ancestors. A life where I could have felt wholly confident with my birthright for a place-based identity.
“The Park DID affect my family. It affected us so much that our lives were altered, and within one generation, we couldn’t even remember what we had lost. ”
Living and participating on the Lands of our ancestors had been taken away as an option. This is the injustice. It can be so tricky not to get bogged down in individual events, policies, and pieces of history. We can argue fault or cause, and we can dissect detail, but what it comes down to is that there are no longer Indigenous peoples on the Land in Wood Buffalo National Park. No one really lives here anymore and there are only a few who know the Land at all. The proof of injustice is in our absence.
Photo credit: Chloe Dragon Smith
Robert’s experience – as someone who has managed to continue a relationship with the Land within the Park – has also been telling. From my perspective, the fact that he is here today is nothing short of miraculous. Robert, at 36 years of age, has dealt directly with suppression from Parks Canada and lateral violence from our own Nations and peoples. Both his father and his father’s father have had cabins denied within the Park. His grandfather on his mother’s side had a cabin burnt in the Park, and that side of the family never returned, their relationship permanently severed. Robert, himself, had a cabin at Pine Lake dismantled and burned by Parks Canada in 2015. This was only 5 years ago. After the apology. After reconciliation.
It is confounding to me that when I share his story, the first thing I get back is often some form of suspicion, or questioning of his approach. Did he build outside his delineated boundary? Did he follow the necessary steps? Did he abide by the rules? Did he step on too many toes?
Photo credit: Chloe Dragon Smith
This is where the point has been lost. Here is a young, passionate Indigenous trapper on the Land in a Park. He wants to live here with his family and share what he knows. He is taking care of the Land daily through the systems and worldviews of his ancestors - creating abundance and reciprocity with intimate and dynamic knowledge of everything around him. He does all this without recognition, pay, or support. How is there anything he could possibly do ‘wrong’ to deserve such dismissive treatment? How was there no other way to move forward?
It seems to me that an incident (like the burning of his cabin) was inevitable. The Park structure is presumed to be legitimate, and so Robert is the transgressor. In this structure, fundamentally, he does not belong. We must remember that this is a system predicated on the removal of Indigenous peoples and systems from Land, and that has shaped its evolution and our present situation. From my perspective, the details are unimportant once we understand this. From the conception of Wood Buffalo National Park, governance and management of Lands and peoples has grown to be an unhealthy mess with many players; a spiral that is convoluted, divided, and seemingly impossible to untangle. It doesn’t seem so mysterious to me anymore, though.
You may expect that all people on the Land are discouraged in general; however, that is not the case either. There are actually many cabins nearby at what is now called Pine Lake, frequented by people have raised their families on the shores of a “recreational” lake with secure leases, who are encouraged and sanctioned to make changes as they desire, with the full support of the Park staff; including fire abatement, regular meetings and communication, bear warnings and control. They are even given gravel for personal driveways. They are understood to ‘belong’ and are treated as such. In contrast, the road we travel on (from where those cabins turn off) is largely unmaintained. We have never been asked how we could be supported, or what we need.
The summer cabins at Pine Lake are inhabited mainly by folks who have no traditional familial ties here, yet the Indigenous peoples whose homelands extend inside the Park have limited rights, sparse communication, and even fewer supports or services.
“And it’s true… we do not want a “recreational cabin”. We do not want a “harvesting cabin” or a “trapping cabin” either. We want a place where we can exist and be ourselves, without colonial labels and limits. We want to be home. ”
Photo credit: Chloe Dragon Smith
And it’s true… we do not want a “recreational cabin”. We do not want a “harvesting cabin” or a “trapping cabin” either. We want a place where we can exist and be ourselves, without colonial labels and limits. We want to be home.
In our Indigenous worldviews, Land needs people. We are part of Land - our ongoing and dynamic relationships are integral to sustaining abundance, for everyone. Us being here, participating and living, is the ultimate conservation. This does not mean coming to Pine Lake in the summer months for recreation, and living a full life elsewhere. This would mean living our lives in interdependent relationships with the Land and all that involves. Hunting, trapping, gathering, monitoring, learning, playing, loving, hurting, understanding, negotiating, building economies, education, health, and governance. Taking care of the Land as our ancestors did is a holistic, all-encompassing, and multi-generational endeavor. It is a responsibility to be present and human in the web that sustains us, and everything.
I accept the responsibility we have been given. With our passion and privilege, Robert and I feel compelled to give back and speak out, while we spend time on this beautiful and abundant Land. We acknowledge those before us who were removed - many who are no longer living and were never given an opportunity to return. We are committed to gaining full participation and asserting our opportunity to be here and all that comes with it: acknowledging the mess, the uncomfortable mess.
This is why we choose to share our story, why we want to open the conversation, and why we want to untangle together with the help and inclusion of all parties, including Wood Buffalo National Park, Parks Canada, and the Government of Canada. Our need is to be involved in positive change for the future, with cooperation, respect, and dignity. After all, this Land is who we are. If it is lost, we are lost, too.