Take part in Youth Arctic Coalition conference by teleconference

Shawn Giilck
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, February 6, 2014

INUVIK
The potential development of the Peel River watershed and climate change dominated a roundtable discussion Feb. 1 as a dozen youth representatives took part in the Youth Arctic Coalition conference.

While the main conference was taking place in Ottawa, the panel of youth from the Mackenzie Delta region took in the discussion via teleconference at the Inuvik Youth Centre and the Aurora Research Institute for two days Feb. 1 and 2.

On the afternoon of Feb. 1, they listened as elders like Freddie Jerome spoke to them about climate change and the need to protect relatively undisturbed eco-systems such as the Peel River watershed.

Some of the youth present had taken part in protest marches Jan. 29 and 30 against the Yukon government's decision to open up most of the watershed to resource development, contrary to the recommendations of a commission recommending 80 per cent of it be preserved.

Many of the youth were still researching and discovering the details of the proposal and learning more about the watershed itself, which straddles the Yukon-NWT boundary. It's part of traditional Gwich'in lands.

Jordan Peterson, the inter-governmental officer at the Gwich'in Tribal Council, who helped organize the local conference, said "a lot of the youth don't know what Protect the Peel means."

That's why it's important to pass on the knowledge of experienced elders such as Jerome, he added.

That didn't stop the youth from being very clearly against what they had heard of the Yukon proposal to allow resource development of the Peel River.

No one supported the concept of allowing most of the watershed to be used for resource-based industries, particularly mining.

Many of them stressed the need to preserve the area for their children and grandchildren, as it had been preserved for them by elders.

"Yes, it needs to be protected because it's our ancestral land and we need to preserve it for our younger people," Ashley Kay said.

There was a unanimous recommendation that youth representatives be granted an official place in the Peel River discussions. That could possibly be as members of a board dealing with the watershed, Peterson suggested.

Jerome said there were clear signs of climate change happening in the Mackenzie Delta, without any development in the Peel, which is said to be one of the last great undisturbed ecosystems in the North. He pointed to the changing seasons and warming temperatures as obvious examples, but also noted more subtle signs, such as the behaviour of wildlife which are having trouble adjusting.

At one time the migrations of the great caribou herds were predictable, and elders such as himself could tell you where the herds would be found based on the time of year, Jerome said. That knowledge was passed on generation by generation.

Now, there is little predictability in where the caribou might be found at any given time, Jerome said. Likewise, other species such as moose are becoming "confused" by the alteration in seasons and conditions.

"The animals are becoming confused by the seasons," he said.

Transportation along the ice roads has also become trickier, Jerome noted. The Mackenzie River isn't freezing as well as it once did, nor as early.

That discussion clearly engaged the youth representatives, who chipped in with observations of their own. The region isn't as cold as it once was, they said, and is receiving more snow and thunderstorms, they noted.

Erica Hille, a water-science specialist with the research institute, also participated in the session. She helped lead a brainstorming session with the youth and pointed to obvious signs of climate change, including melting permafrost, leading to landslides and "slumping" around some of the delta's lakes.

That leaves large pits that are particularly obvious from the air, she said, and some lakes are draining away entirely in the slides, leading to increased flow in the river itself.

It is all contributing to changes in the waterways and traditional routes, she said, making navigation more difficult.