Paul Bickford
Northern News Services

Fort Smith (May 06/01) - A longtime campaigner for Metis rights can finally hunt in Wood Buffalo National Park, legally.

Ken Hudson of Fort Smith received his general hunting permit from the park last week.

Hudson says it was partly the result of his battle with the park, and also because of research by park employees.

During his struggle for Metis hunting rights, his lawyer provided the park with the names of his ancestors.

A park employee recently noticed one of those names -- Casimir Gladu, Hudson's great-grandfather on his father's side -- on an old document.

"In some old records, his name came up in Chip in 1917 and 1922," Hudson says, explaining Hudson Bay Company records showed Gladu had trapped in the area which was to become Wood Buffalo National Park.

That makes Hudson and all other direct descendants of Gladu eligible for a permit.

Hunting and trapping rights were preserved by Fort Chipewyan people who had hunted and trapped in the area that was to become the park before its boundaries were extended south of the Peace River in 1925 and '26.

Hudson says it had been believed his great-grandfather had only come to the Fort Smith area in 1924 from Alberta.

"Nobody knew the history."

Unaware that his great-grandfather had been in the Fort Chipewyan area, Hudson had concentrated his research on the long history of his mother's side of the family in the Fort Smith area.

Ed Coulthard, Wood Buffalo's manager of warden services and ecosystems secretariat, confirms a permit has been given to Hudson.

When the name of Hudson's great-grandfather was noticed over two months ago, Coulthard says, "We felt it was proper to give a permit."

However, he says it is an individual case and doesn't affect the overall issue of Metis hunting in the park, he notes. "That's a larger issue."

Indigenous issue

Hudson, who first applied for a permit in 1998, has long opposed a park policy that only indigenous Metis -- those whose ancestors had hunted or trapped in the area of the park near Fort Chipewyan area, -- are eligible for permits.

Indigenous Metis whose ancestors had used other areas of the park are not eligible. Over the years, he has even hunted in the park on several occasions to try to get his case before a judge.

He was once charged with hunting a moose, but the Crown stayed the charge days before it was to go to court.

On another occasion, he again admitted to shooting a moose, but no charge was laid by the RCMP, which claimed to have insufficient evidence.

Hudson plays down the significance of his permit. "I was hunting before that, anyway," he says. "So it's no big deal." And Hudson, the vice-president of the Fort Smith Metis Council, says he will continue the struggle for indigenous Metis hunting rights.

"The fight still continues because there's a lot of people who have been cheated out of their rights." In fact, Hudson says he even considered not accepting the permit, since it was not obtained by rights he feels he has from his mother's side of the family.