Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 24/02) - It is an image you will not be seeing on any tourism brochures -- caribou skins and sawed-off legs rotting on the lake ice a few metres from the parking area at Tibbitt Lake.

It is an image (and a stench) people who use the area cope with each spring of the years when caribou winter in the Yellowknife area.

Hunters shoot the animals off the winter ice road leading to Lupin mine, gut them in the parking area then leave the remains behind on the ice.

"Do you think this would be allowed to take place at Prelude?" asks Rick Seeley, a Tibbitt Lake cottage owner, who refers to one of the more popular territorial camping and cottage areas.

The problem does not end when the ice melts, pointed out one of Seeley's neighbours.

"The heads and feet and hides float around the edge of the lake all bloody summer," said the woman, who did not want her name used.

"It really is gross and there is really no excuse for it," she added.

Hunters confronted

The woman said whenever she sees hunters gutting caribou in the parking lot she reminds them that it is against the law to leave the remains behind on the ice. She conspicuously writes down the licence plates of their vehicles as added encouragement.

Seeley has been trying to get the government to do something about the carnage since 1990.

In a response to one of the letters he wrote complaining of the problem, the Department of Renewable Resources confirmed that the leaving carcasses in a public place is a violation of the NWT Public Health Act.

The official who responded told Seeley the department planned to put up signs along the road and at parking locations reminding people of this.

That was in 1990. There are no such signs at Tibbitt Lake or along the Ingraham Trail.

The regional manager of wildlife and the environment, Ernie Campbell, said Thursday the department is considering putting up those signs this summer.

Campbell said he received an e-mail complaint about the gut piles on Wednesday. An RWED crew was sent to the site yesterday morning to clean them up.

Not a wildlife act violation

But Campbell added leaving gut piles in that area is not a violation of the Wildlife Act.

"It's similar to gut piles left along the winter road. There's not much we can do about it," he said.

Seeley also took his complaint to the then Mackenzie Regional Health Service. It informed him and Renewable Resources that it had neither the time nor the staff to police hunters.

The health service also raised the issue of whether the area near the shore of Tibbitt Lake was a public place or wilderness. If it is considered wilderness, leaving remains there would not be a violation of the Health Act.

The health service swept away Seeley's concerns about the carcasses contaminating the lake's water by advising him that all lake water should be boiled or disinfected before drinking.

Seeley sees the caribou carnage as part -- a big part -- of a larger problem. The territorial government seems to have abandoned the day-use area at the end of the Ingraham Trail. The road ends at a loop with a parking lot and rudimentary boat launch on one side.

There is no evidence that Tibbitt Lake is part of the territorial parks system -- no signs, garbage cans or outhouses.

Seeley pointed to the concrete bases that once supported signs that showed canoe routes for the area.

The area contrasts sharply with the campgrounds, day use areas and boat launches along the Ingraham Trail which include signs, garbage cans and, in most cases, outhouses.

Parks and Tourism director Gerry LePrieur said the area is part of the parks system. He referred questions about the area to regional parks manager Gary Tees.

Tees said the area is not part of the parks system.

"I would say it's up to the people who use that area to keep it clean," Tees said. "We're only responsible and funded for territorial parks."