Area set aside in 2010

Kassina Ryder
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, March 13, 2014

INUVIK
The manager of the territory’s only reindeer herds says he doesn’t believe opening the Mackenzie Delta region to development will drastically impact his animals.

Lloyd Binder is the general manager of Kunnek Resource Development Corporation, which owns the reindeer herd that lives between Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik. The federal government has been discussing opening the area up to new development. Binder said he believes he and industry can work together to limit impact on the reindeer.

"We are able to move and as long as industry doesn’t pull any quickies on us and we know what they’re going to do, we can avoid their travel and their development and usually we know and so we can avoid them," he said. "I must say thus far, industry has been fairly good about that, just about any kind of industry."

Grazing reserve set aside

The area was set aside as a reindeer grazing reserve in 2010, according to documents from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.

The reserve includes lands noted in both the Inuvialuit Final Agreement and the Gwich’in Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement.

The herd was part of a federal government initiative to introduce reindeer to the Northwest Territories in 1932, according to the IRC. A site called Reindeer Station was set up about 50 km from Inuvik as a place where herders and their families could take care of the 3,442 reindeer that had been brought to the area from Alaska. The goal was to help supplement the diet available to the Inuvialuit in the area.

Reindeer Station was deserted in 1969 and Binder now manages the herd.

Binder said while he doesn’t believe there will be a large short-term impact on the animals, more industrial activity in the area could affect the area in the long term.

He said as a current example, lichen eaten by the reindeer usually grows in gravelly areas. Gravel is also needed to construct the Inuvik-to-Tuktoyaktuk highway and roads to development projects.

"Once you scrape areas clear, it takes a while for lichens and growth to re-establish," he said. "I guess the other thing you could say is that with reindeer lichen, thus far, it seems that everywhere industry wants to go for gravel that seems to be those areas that are kind of sweet spots for lichen for reindeer."

Binder said while he isn’t against the highway or other development, he said he recognizes both the pros and cons.

"I’m not saying they’re taking a huge quantity, but the chipping away idea of a little bit less and a little bit less," he said. "That’s just the Inuvik-to-Tuk highway, so if there is further development of roads and well sites and they need more gravel, well if it’s within the area we like to keep the reindeer, well then I suppose we’ll have to move again."