Notes

Notes to Preface

1. 1 Alice is referring to the Dene settlement near Lake Claire and Birch River that was taken up by (incorporated into) the expansion of Wood Buffalo National Park in 1926.

2. 2 Another name for Holy Angels Residential School, located in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta.

3. 3 Ester Piché had to relocate to Jackfish near Frezie Lake in the Peace-Athabasca Delta. This is now Chipewyan 201, an ACFN reserve.

Notes to ACFN Elders’ Declaration

1. 1 The Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP) was developed by the Alberta government in 2012 as a regional plan meant to guide “future resource decisions while considering environmental, social and economic impacts.” Many Indigenous communities expressed concerns with the plan when it was first adopted by the government, concerns which, by and large, have yet to be meaningfully addressed. Many (though not all) of ACFN’s concerns with the plan are well documented in ACFN, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Advice to the Government of Alberta Regarding the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan, Provided to the Land Use Secretariat, 22 November 2010, https://landuse.alberta.ca/Forms%20and%20Applications/RFR_ACFN%20Response%20to%20LARP%20Panel%20IR%206%20-%20Advice_2014-11-14_PUBLIC.pdf.

   Additional recommendations can be found in Pat Marcel, Carolyn Whittaker, and Craig Candler, Níh Boghodi: We Are the Stewards of Our Land: An ACFN Stewardship Strategy for Thunzea, et’thén and Dechen Yághe Ejere (Woodland Caribou, Barren-Ground Caribou and Wood Bison), (Fort Chipewyan, AB: Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, 2012), https://landuse.alberta.ca/Forms%20and%20Applications/RFR_ACFN%20Reply%20to%20IR%204%20Nih%20Boghodi_2014-12-01_PUBLIC.pdf.

Notes to introduction

1. 1 Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), “On the 100^th Anniversary of Wood Buffalo National Park, Chief Allan Adam Sets the Record Straight on Park Founder who Starved Indigenous People,” news release, 12 December 2022, https://cpaws.org/on-the-100th-anniversary-of-wood-buffalo-national-park-chief-allan-adam-sets-the-record-straight-on-park-founder-who-starved-indigenous-people.

2. 2 We use two names in this book when referring the people of ACFN and their ancestors: Dënesųłıné and Dene. ACFN oral histories tell us that there are several names that refer to the people and their profound connections to the land, water, and all living and non-living relations in ACFN homelands, including Ethhen eldeli Dene, which refers to the relationship between the people and the caribou, and K’ái Tailé Dene, which translates to the “real people of the blanket willows.” For this project, Elders told us that the preferred name is Dënesųłıné, referring to both the language and the people, and translating roughly to “the real people.” They noted as well that it is common to shorten this to Dene. We typically avoid use of the name Chipewyan, which is a misnomer that government officials, church representatives, and academics have applied for many decades. The exceptions are when we directly quote a document or interview that uses the name or refer to the historical political designation for ACFN—the Chipewyan Band.

3. 3 Andrew Woolford and Jeff Benvenuto, “Canada and colonial genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research 17, no. 4 (2015): 381.

4. 4 See Patrick Wolfe, “Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native,” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (2006): 387–409; Woolford and Benvenuto, “Canada and colonial genocide”; Matthew Wildcat, “Fearing social and cultural death: genocide and elimination in settler colonial Canada—an Indigenous perspective,” Journal of Genocide Research 17, no. 4 (2015): 391–409.

5. 5 Sabina Trimble and Peter Fortna, A History of Wood Buffalo National Park’s Relations with the Dënesųłıné: Final Report, 10 August 2021, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T8ZgZAwW4cHieI0R_EkLf5dVfMFicUhB/view. A discussion of the work of both ACFN and WSSS, and of the relationships, approach, and processes that led to the original report and this book, is included as “Appendix 1: Building a community-directed work of oral history.”

6. 6 Ramsar Sites Information Services, Canada 7: Peace-Athabasca Delta, Alberta. Information Sheet on Ramsar Wetlands, Last updated 2001, https://rsis.ramsar.org/RISapp/files/RISrep/CA241RIS.pdf.

7. 7 Wood Buffalo National Park lists the following First Nation and Métis communities as its Indigenous partners in Alberta: Mikisew Cree First Nation, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Fort Chipewyan Métis, Little Red River Cree First Nation, and Smith Landing First Nation. Northwest Territories partners are: Salt River First Nation, Fort Smith Métis Council, K’atl’odeeche First Nation, Hay River Métis Council, Deninu Kue First Nation, and Fort Resolution Métis Council.

8. 8 Archaeological evidence and oral traditions suggest that the presence of ancestors in the area dates back at least 7,000 years, and there is archaeological evidence of the ways of life and movements specifically of the Taltheilei, whom ACFN considers direct ancestors, that dates back roughly 3,000 years. See ACFN, Footprints on the Land, 20–24. ACFN Elders have shared volumes of oral tradition, history, and knowledge about the territories and Dene ways of life in community histories, TLU studies, and many other forums. See for example Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Footprints on the Land: Tracing the Path of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (Fort Chipewyan: ACFN, 2003); Craig Candler, the Firelight Group Research Cooperative and ACFN, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Integrated Knowledge and Land Use Report and Assessment for Shell Canada’s Proposed Jackpine Mine Expansion and Pierre River Mine (2011), https://ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/documents_staticpost/59540/82080/Appendix_D_-_Part_01.pdf; Patricia McCormack, Research Report: An Ethnohistory of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, 2 September 2012, https://ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/documents_staticpost/59540/82080/Appendix_D_-_Part_03.pdf.

9. 9 McCormack, Research Report, 131; see also ACFN, Footprints on the Land, 32.

10. 10 ACFN, Footprints on the Land, 9.

11. 11 Maxwell Graham to J.B. Harkin, 7 December 1912, LAC RG 85, vol. 665, file 3911, pt. 1.

12. 12 Leaders of the Chipewyan Band (the former name of ACFN) signed Treaty 8 in July 1899. The understanding and intent of the Treaty from Dene perspectives is discussed at greater length in Chapter 2. According to oral histories and archival documents, Dene leaders resolutely negotiated with Crown representatives for several days to ensure their rights, lives, and ways of life would not be impeded by the agreement. Like other Numbered Treaties, one term of Treaty 8 was the Crown’s agreement to pay annuities to those registered as members of the First Nations who had signed. The annuity payment was set at $25 for the Chief, $15 for those the Commissioners called “Headmen” in the records (councillors and other leaders) and $5 for other members. The transfer from the Chipewyan Band annuity list to the Cree Band annuity list referred to here took place in 1944 and is discussed at greater length in Chapter 4.

13. 13 As cited in Claudia Notzke, Aboriginal Peoples and Natural Resources in Canada (Concord, ON: Captus University Press, 1994), 246.

14. 14 See, for example, Megan Youdelis, “ ‘They could Take You out for Coffee and Call it Consultation!’: The Colonial Antipolitics of Indigenous Consultation in Jasper National Park,” Environment and Planning: Economy and Space 48, no. 7 (2016): 1374–92; Megan Youdelis et.al., “ ‘Wilderness’ revisited: Is Canadian park management moving beyond the ‘wilderness’ ethic?” Canadian Geographer (2019): 1–18; Jason W. Johnston and Courtney W. Mason, “The Paths to Realizing Reconciliation: Indigenous Consultation in Jasper National Park,” International Indigenous Policy Journal 11, no. 4 (2020): 1–27.

15. 15 Johnston and Mason, “The Paths to Realizing Reconciliation,” 4.

16. 16 See, for example, Ted Binnema and Melanie Niemi, “ ‘Let the line be drawn now’: Wilderness, Conservation, and the Exclusion of Aboriginal People from Banff National Park in Canada,” Environmental History 11 (October 2006): 724–50; John Clapperton, “Desolate Viewscapes: Sliammon First Nation, Desolation Sound Marine Park and Environmental Narratives,” Environment and History 18, no. 4 (November 2012): 529–559; Tina Loo, States of Nature: Conserving Canada’s Wildlife in the Twentieth Century (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007); I.S. MacLaren, Culturing Wilderness in Jasper National Park: Studies in Two Centuries of Human History in the Upper Athabasca River Watershed (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2007); Courtney Mason, Spirit of the Rockies: Reasserting an Indigenous Presence in Banff National Park (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014); Roberta Nakoochee, “Reconnection with Asi Kéyi: Healing Broken Connections’ Implications for Ecological Integrity in Canadian National Parks,” MA Thesis (Guelph: University of Guelph, 2018); John Sandlos, “Not Wanted at the Boundary: The Expulsion of the Keeseekoowenin Ojibway Band from Riding Mountain National Park,” Canadian Historical Review 89, no. 2 (June 2008): 189–221; John Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin: Native People and Wildlife Conservation in the Northwest Territories (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007); Youdelis, “Take You out for Coffee”; Youdelis et. al., “ ‘Wilderness’ revisited.”

    For global overviews of literature on evictions of Indigenous Peoples for conservation, see Daniel Brockington and James Igoe, “Eviction for Conservation: A Global Overview,” Conservation and Society 4, no. 3 (2006): 424–470; John M. Mackenzie, The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation and British imperialism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988); Robert Poirier and David Ostergren, “Evicting People from Nature: Indigenous Land Rights and National Parks in Australia, Russia, and the United States,” Natural Resources Journal 42, no. 2 (Spring 2002): 331–351.

    For specific examples of these processes across the globe, see: Phillip Burnham, Indian Country, God’s Country: Native Americans and National Parks (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2000); Robert Keller and Michael Turek, American Indians and National Parks (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1998); Mark Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indigenous Removal and the Making of National Parks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Ramachandra Guha, “The Authoritarian Biologist and the Arrogance of Anti-Humanism: Wildlife Conservation in the Third World,” The Ecologist 27, no. 1 (January/February 1997): 14–20; David Himmerflab, “Moving People, Moving Boundaries: The Socio-economic Effects of Protectionist Conservation, Involuntary Resettlement and Tenure Insecurity on the Edge of Mt. Elgon National Park, Uganda,” World Agroforestry (2006), http://apps.worldagroforestry.org/programmes/african-highlands/pdfs/wps/ahiwp_24.pdf; Roderick P. Neumann, Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over Livelihood and Nature Preservation in Africa (Berkeley: UC Press, 1998); Klaus Seeland, “National Park Policy and Wildlife Problems in Nepal and Bhutan,” Population and Environment 22, no. 1 (September 2000): 43–62.

17. 17 Maano Ramutsindela, “National Parks and (Neo) Colonialisms,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology, vol. 1, ed. Katharine Legun, Julie C. Keller, Michael Carolan and Michael M. Bell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 208.

18. 18 Youdelis et. al., “ ‘Wilderness’ Revisited,” 2.

19. 19 Youdelis et. al., “ ‘Wilderness’ Revisited,” 2.

20. 20 Wolfe, “Settler colonialism”; Wildcat, “Fearing social and cultural death.”

21. 21 Woolford and Benvenuto, “Canada and colonial genocide,” 381.

22. 22 Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism,” 388.

23. 23 William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, ed. William Cronon (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1995); Mark Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indigenous Removal and the Making of National Parks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

24. 24 See for example, Loo, States of Nature; Binnema and Niemi, “Let the line be drawn now”; John M. Mackenzie, The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation and British imperialism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988).

25. 25 See, for example, Desiree Valaderes, “Dispossessing the Wilderness: Contesting Canada’s National Park Narrative” in Cultural Contestation: Heritage, Identity and the Role of Government, eds. J. Rodenberg and Pieter Wagenaar (London: Springer International Publications, 2018), 145; I.S. MacLaren, “Introduction” in Culturing Wilderness in Jasper National Park: Studies in Two Centuries of Human History in the Upper Athabasca River Watershed, ed. I.S. MacLaren (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2007); Sandlos, “Not Wanted at the Boundary”; Clapperton, “Desolate Viewscapes.”

26. 26 Binnema and Niemi, “Let the line be drawn now,” 738.

27. 27 In some cases, Parks Canada officials expelled non-Indigenous people from their homes for the creation of national parks. See, for example, Bill Waiser, “ ‘A Case of a Special Privilege and a Fancied Right’: The Shack Tent Controversy in Prince Albert,” in A Century of Parks in Canada, 1911–2011, ed. Claire Elizabeth Campbell (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011), 103–132; Ronald Rudin, Kouchibouguac: Removal, Resistance and Remembrance at a Canadian National Park (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016).

28. 28 Ramutsindela, “National Parks and (Neo)Colonialisms,” 212.

29. 29 Some of the critical scholarship on colonial genocide and elimination in Canada is helpful here. See, for example, Wolfe, “Settler colonialism”; Woolford and Benvenuto, “Canada and colonial genocide”; Wildcat, “Fearing social and cultural death.”

30. 30 Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness.”

31. 31 O.S. Finnie to R.A. Gibson, 9 December 1925, LAC RG85, vol. 1213, file 400-2-3, v. 1.

32. 32 Valaderes, “Dispossessing the Wilderness,” 151.

33. 33 Binnema and Niemi, “Let the line be drawn now,” 725.

34. 34 MacLaren, “Introduction” in Culturing Wilderness, xxvii.

35. 35 Sandlos, “Not wanted at the Boundary,” 211.

36. 36 Sandlos, “Not wanted at the Boundary,” 211.

37. 37 David Neufeld, “Kluane National Park Reserve: 1923–1974: Modernity and Pluralism,” in A Century of Parks in Canada, ed. Claire Elizabeth Campbell (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011), 235–272.

38. 38 Neufeld, “Kluane National Park Reserve,” 254.

39. 39 Binnema and Niemi, “Let the line be drawn now,” 740.

40. 40 Loo, States of Nature, 6.

41. 41 Valaderes, “Dispossessing the Wilderness,” 145.

42. 42 Sandlos, “Not wanted at the boundary,” 215.

43. 43 Sandlos, “Not wanted at the boundary,” 214.

44. 44 MacLaren, Introduction to Culturing Wilderness, xxii.

45. 45 MacLaren, Introduction to Culturing Wilderness, xxiii-xxiv.

46. 46 Binnema and Niemi, “Let the line be drawn now,” 738.

47. 47 Johnston and Mason, “The Paths to Realizing Reconciliation,” 2.

48. 48 Ferguson, Theresa A. “The ‘Jarvis Proof’: Management of Bison, Management of Bison Hunters and the Development of a Literary Tradition,” Proceedings of the Fort Chipewyan / Fort Vermilion Bicentennial Conference (Sept. 23–24, 1988), 299–300. For an important, related discussion about local oral histories and ecological knowledge, see Theresa A. Ferguson and Frank LaViolette, “A Note on Historical Mortality in a Northern Bison Population,” Arctic 45 (March 1992): 47–50.

49. 49 Sandlos, “Not wanted at the boundary,” 207.

50. 50 Nakoochee, “Reconnection with Asi Kéyi,” 116.

51. 51 Patricia McCormack, “The Political Economy of Bison Management in Wood Buffalo National Park,” Arctic 45, no. 4 (December 1992): 379.

52. 52 Patricia McCormack, Fort Chipewyan and the Shaping of Canadian History, 1788–1920s: “We like to be free in this country” (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), 271–72.

53. 53 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 26.

54. 54 Tara Joly, “Urban Buffalo: Métis-Bison Relations and Oil Sands Extraction in Northeastern Alberta,” in Extracting Home in the Oil Sands: Settler Colonialism and Environmental Change in Subarctic Canada, eds. Clinton Westman, Tara Joly and Lena Gross (London and New York, Routledge, 2020), 140.

55. 55 Tara Joly, “Urban Buffalo,” 148–9.

56. 56 See McCormack, Fort Chipewyan; Liza Piper, The Industrial Transformation of Subarctic Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010); Ann Keeling and John Sandlos, eds. Mining and Communities in Northern Canada: History, Politics, and Memory (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2015); Clint Westman, Tara Joly, and Lena Gross, eds., Extracting Home in the Oil Sands: Settler Colonialism and Environmental Change in Subarctic Canada (London and New York: Routledge, 2020).

57. 57 Although we are focused here on McCormack’s 2010 book, we refer to her much larger corpus of work throughout this book.

58. 58 McCormack, Fort Chipewyan, 202.

59. 59 McCormack, Fort Chipewyan, 210.

60. 60 McCormack, Fort Chipewyan, 224.

61. 61 McCormack, Fort Chipewyan, 272.

62. 62 Clint Westman, Tara Joly and Lena Gross, “Introduction” in Extracting Home, 1–22; Allan Greer, “Settler Colonialism and Beyond,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 40, no. 1 (2019): 61–86.

63. 63 Greer, “Settler Colonialism and Beyond.”

64. 64 Westman, Joly and Gross, “Introduction” in Extracting Home, 11.

65. 65 Westman, Joly and Gross, “Introduction” in Extracting Home, 13.

66. 66 Zoe Todd, “Foreword” in Extracting Home, ix.

67. 67 Westman, Joly and Gross, “Introduction” in Extracting Home, 14.

68. 68 Tara Joly, “Growing with Muskeg: Oil Sands Reclamation and Healing in Northern Alberta,” Anthropologica 63, no. 1 (2021): 6–7.

69. 69 Jennifer Huseman and Damien Short, “ ‘A slow industrial genocide’: tar sands and indigenous peoples of northern Alberta,” International Journal of Human Rights 16, no. 1 (2012): 216–237.

70. 70 Hereward Longley, “Uncertain Sovereignty: Treaty 8, Bitumen and Land Claims in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region,” in Extracting Home, 35.

71. 71 Longley, “Uncertain Sovereignty,” in Extracting Home, 23–47.

72. 72 Westman, Joly and Gross, “Introduction” in Extracting Home, 3.

73. 73 See, for example, Candler et. al., Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Report; Pat Marcel, Carolyn Whittaker and Craig Candler, Níh Boghodi: We Are the Stewards of Our Land: An ACFN Stewardship Strategy for Thunzea, et’thén and Dechen Yághe Ejere (Woodland Caribou, Barren-Ground Caribou and Wood Bison, (Fort Chipewyan, AB: Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, 2012); Pat Marcel and Arlene Seegerts, The Rights to Practice our Treaty Rights & The Importance of Co-Management with the Province of Alberta (Fort Chipewyan: ACFN, n.d.); McCormack, Research Report; Adams & Associates, Fort Chipewyan Way of Life Study (Stuart Adams & Associates, 1998).

74. 74 ACFN Elders, “ACFN Elders’ Declaration on Rights to Land Use,” in Marcel et.al., Níh Boghodi (Appendix 1), 12.

75. 75 There are many important Indigenous-authored and community-driven works that honour and centre oral histories. For example, ɬaʔamin Elder Elsie Paul’s life history, which she shared with Harmony Johnson and Paige Raibmon, centres oral history and tells the story of her community and homelands from a ɬaʔamin woman’s perspective. See Elsie Paul, in collaboration with Paige Raibmon and Harmony Johnson, Written as I remember it: Teachings (ʔems taʔaw) From the Life of a Sliammon Elder (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2014). Similarly, Joan Scottie’s history of uranium mining and Inuit resistance, co-written with Warren Bernauer and Jack Hicks, is a collaborative work based on the experiences of an Inuit woman. See Joan Scottie, Warren Bernauer and Jack Hicks, I Will Live for Both of Us: A History of Colonialism, Uranium Mining, and Inuit Resistance (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2022). Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council aimed to “provide an opportunity for the Elders to speak” on their knowledge and history of Treaty 7, which had been extensively documented by lawyers and academics who rarely included the voices of Elders. See Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council, Walter Hildebrandt, Sarah Carter and Dorothy First Rider, The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7 (Montreal/Toronto: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996). Other important examples include Julie Cruikshank in collaboration with Angela Sidney, Kitty Smith and Anny Ned, Life Lived Like a Story: Life Stories of Three Yukon Native Elders (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1991); Harry Robinson and Wendy Wickwire, Write it on your Heart (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1992); Camille Fouillard, Mushuau Innu Band Council, Naskapi Montagnais Innu Association, Gathering Voices: Finding Strength to Help our Children (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1995); Andrea Laforet and Annie York, Spuzzum: Fraser Canyon Histories, 1808–1939 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1998); Kim Anderson, Life Stages and Native Women: Memory, Teachings, and Story Medicine (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2011); Robin Ridington and Jillian Ridington in collaboration with Elders of the Dane-Zaa First Nations, Where Happiness Dwells: A History of the Dane-zaa First Nations (Vanvouver: UBC Press, 2013).

76. 76 Gregory Younging, Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing by and about Indigenous Peoples (Edmonton: Brush Education, 2018).

77. 77 Daniel Heath Justice, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter (Waterloo-Kitchener: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018).

78. 78 McCormack, Fort Chipewyan, 246.

79. 79 Winona Wheeler, “Narrative Wisps of the Ochekiwi Sipi Past: A Journey in Recovering Collective Memories,” in The Canadian Oral History Reader, eds. Kristina R. Llewellyn, Alexander Freund, Nolan Reilly (Montreal/Toronto: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 285.

80. 80 Interpretations of the TARR research can be found in The Spirit of the Alberta Treaties, ed. Richard Price (Edmonton: Pica, Pica Press, 1987). Copies of the original interviews can be found at the Lesser Slave Lake Indian Regional Council TARR Program Archive. For more information please visit https://lslirctarr.ca/archives/.

81. 81 Readers can access the recordings via the QR codes and links provided throughout the book.

82. 82 Ferguson, “The ‘Jarvis’ Proof,” 299.

83. 83 Victorine Mercredi, interview with Lorraine Hoffman, translated by Yvonne Hoffman (Mercredi), 20 January 1998, tape 2, 45 (Fort Chipewyan: ACFN Archives, 1998).

84. 84 ACFN Elder Alec Bruno, written questionnaire, “ACFN Elders on Wood Buffalo National Park” (Fort Chipewyan: ACFN Community Archives, date unknown).

85. 85 Patricia McCormack reaches this conclusion in Patricia McCormack, “Chipewyans Turn Cree: Governmental and Structural Factors in Ethnic Processes,” in For Purposes of Dominion: Essays in Honour of Morris Zaslow, eds. Kenneth S. Coates and William R. Morrison (North York, On.: Captus University Publications, 1989). Sandlos agrees with McCormack’s conclusion in Hunters at the Margin.

86. 86 Alec Bruno, interview, written questionnaire.

87. 87 Wolfe, “Settler colonialism,” 388.

88. 88 Wildcat, “Fear of cultural and social death,” 394.

89. 89 UNESCO World Heritage Convention, World Heritage Nomination: International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Technical Review, 256 Wood Buffalo National Park (April 1983), https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/256/documents/.

90. 90 UNESCO World Heritage Convention, Decision 39 COM 7B.18, Wood Buffalo National Park (Canada) (N256) (2015), https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/6275; UNESCO World Heritage Convention, Decision 44 COM 7B.190, Wood Buffalo National Park (Canada) (N256) (2021), https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/7906.

91. 91 UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 41 COM, and International Union for Conservation of Nature, Mission Report Wood Buffalo National Park (Canada) (N 256) “Reactive Monitoring Mission to Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada” (24 September–4 October 2016), https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/256/documents/.

Notes to Chapter 1

1. 1 The title of this section is drawn from the language used in Treaty 8 to designate the territories of the Dene people of the Peace-Athabasca Delta region (whom Treaty commissioners called “the Chipewyan Indians”) who signed onto Treaty 8 in 1899. We have replaced the term “Chipewyan” with “Dene.”

2. 2 ACFN Elders, “ACFN Elders’ Declaration on Rights to Land Use,” in Marcel et.al., Níh Boghodi (Appendix 1): 12.

3. 3 ACFN, Footprints on the Land, 31-32; McCormack, Research Report.

4. 4 Fort Chipewyan Elder interview with Jimmy Deranger, Fort Chipewyan, 7 February 1974, Alberta. Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research, Indian Association of Alberta, Fort Chipewyan, ACFN Archives, 1974. The Caribou Mountains, so named because they are a favoured habitat for the woodland caribou, are the highest mountain range in northern Alberta and are bounded on their north and east side by the Park. They have always been an important part of Dënesųłıné homelands; access was interrupted and cut off through the establishment of the Park.

5. 5 McCormack, Research Report, 131; see also ACFN, Footprints on the Land, 32.

6. 6 The title of this section is drawn from a comment by ACFN Elder Alice Rigney after she reviewed an early draft of the book. Personal communication with Sabina Trimble, Rose Ross, Lisa Tssessaze, Jay Telegdi, and Edouard Trippe de Roche, 4 April 2022.

7. 7 Laura Peterson, “Exploring the Egg Lake/ ?Eghés tu Landscape and the Lake One Trail: A Collaboration with Knowledge Holders in Wood Buffalo National Park,” (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Alberta, 2018), https://doi.org/10.7939/R3NZ81611.

8. 8 Peterson, “Exploring the Egg Lake,” 73.

9. 9 Marcel and Seegerts, The Rights to Practice, 18.

10. 10 Amy Cardinal-Christianson, Colin Robert Sutherland, Faisal Moola, Noémie Gonzalez Bautista, David Young, and Heather MacDonald, “Centering Indigenous Voices: The Role of Fire in the Boreal Forest of North America,” Current Forestry Reports 8 (2022): 257, 261.

11. 11 Henry T. Lewis, A Time for Burning: Traditional Indian Uses of Fire in the Western Canadian Boreal Forest (Edmonton: Boreal Institute for Northern Studies Occasional Publication, No. 17, 1982), 47. See also Theresa A. Ferguson, “In Search of the Elusive: traditional native prescribed burning in the Northeastern Wood Buffalo Park Area,” (discussion paper presented to the University of New Brunswick Fire Science Centre, 1989).

12. 12 ACFN, Dene Laws, https://www.acfn.com/chief-and-council.

13. 13 Donalee Deck, Archaeological House Lake Project, 2011, prepared for Wood Buffalo National Park (Winnipeg: Cultural Science Branch, Parks Canada, August 2012), 7.

14. 14 Deck, Archaeological House Lake Project, 6.

15. 15 Deck, Archaeological House Lake Project, 14–21.

16. 16 Deck, Archaeological House Lake Project, 22–49.

17. 17 M.J. Dempsey to John A. McDougal, 21 October 1930, LAC RG85-D-1-A, vol. 152, file 420-2.

18. 18 ACFN Elder Fredoline Deranger/ Djeskelni (Fred’s Dene name is Djeskelni), telephone interview with Sabina Trimble and Lisa Tssessaze, 19 March 2021.

19. 19 Lees & Associates Landscape Architects with Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo Urban and Rural Cemeteries Project: Phase II Consultant Report: Inventories and Interviews, Fort Chipewyan: ACFN Community Files, 23 July 2010.

20. 20 Marie Josephine Mercredi, interview with Lorraine Hoffman, translated by Yvonne Hoffman (Mercredi), 20 January 1998, tape 2, 45, Fort Chipewyan: AFCN Archives, 1998.

21. 21 Rene Bruno, “Oral History of Treaty 8,” recorded by Nicole Nicholls, translated by Arsene Bernaille, Fort Chipewyan: AFCN Archives, 8 February 2010.

22. 22 Cardinal-Christianson et. al., “Centering Indigenous Voices,” 271.

23. 23 Alice Rigney, personal communication with Sabina Trimble, Rose Ross, Lisa Tssessaze, Jay Telegdi, and Edouard Trippe de Roche 4 April 2022.

24. 24 ACFN, Footprints on the Land, 29.

25. 25 ACFN Elder Marie Josephine Mercredi, interview with Lorraine Hoffman, translated by Yvonne Hoffman (Mercredi), 22 January 1998, Fort Chipewyan: ACFN Archives, 1998.

26. 26 Rene Bruno, Alec Bruno, Beverly Tourangeau, and Charlie Mercredi, interview with Melissa Daniels, 5 May 2015, Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. Dene Laws interview collection (Fort Chipewyan: ACFN Archives, 2015). Audio recording: https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/AssetLink/ht4qw765nh77x344t5yk5623501coj00.mp3.

27. 27 Rene Bruno, Alec Bruno, Beverly Tourangeau, and Charlie Mercredi, 5 May 2015. Dene Laws interview collection. Audio recording: https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/AssetLink/ht4qw765nh77x344t5yk5623501coj00.mp3.

28. 28 Jim Deranger, phone interview with Peter Fortna, 24 March, 2021. Audio recording: https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/AssetLink/131d7of5rn51bpq1ow06841s670gk648.mp3.

29. 29 Keltie Paul is married to ACFN Elder Edouard Trippe de Roche. Keltie and Ed shared their testimony in a joint interview.

30. 30 Uranium City is a settlement in Saskatchewan, located on the northeast side of Lake Athabasca. It sits in ACFN’s core homelands. It was established in response to the uranium mining boom in the Beaverlodge area in the 1950s. Some Elders shared memories of their families and other Indigenous workers and families from the Athabasca area who travelled to the town for work during the 1950s and 1960s.

Notes to Chapter 2

1. 1 Government of Canada, Treaty No. 8. Made June 21, 1899 and Adhesions, Reports, Etc. [1899], reprinted from file the 1899 edition by Roger Duhamel, FRSC (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer and Controller of Stationary, 1966), https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100028813/1581293624572#chp4.

2. 2 Patricia McCormack compiled a helpful list titled “Promises made by the Treaty Commissioners in 1899 about Lands and Resources,” which indicates numerous occasions at which treaty commissioners promised that rights to treaty lands would remain with Indigenous Peoples. See McCormack, “Studying the Social and Cultural Impacts of ‘Extreme Extraction’ in Northern Alberta,” in Extracting Home, 188.

3. 3 Fort Chipewyan Elder Louis Boucher, interview with Richard Lightning, 6 February 1974, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research, Indian Association of Alberta (Fort Chipewyan: ACFN Office).

4. 4 ACFN Elders, ACFN Elders’ Declaration.

5. 5 Bruno, “Oral History of Treaty 8.”

6. 6 Treaty No. 8.

7. 7 As cited in Fumoleau, As Long as this Land Shall Last, 79–80.

8. 8 Chief Jonas Laviolette to James K. Cornwall, February 1928, RCMAFS, file. Cornwall, as cited in René Fumoleau, As Long as this Land Shall Last: A History of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, 1870–1939 (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2004), 339–340n104.

9. 9 Victorine Mercredi, interview.

10. 10 Rene is referring to the steamship transportation industry that centred on hauling freight by steamship or barge along the Athabasca River and connected river systems. This system was central to the northern fur trade, had a strong influence on migration and settlement patterns around Fort McMurray and Fort Chipewyan, and was an industry in which many First Nations and Métis men worked throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Elders from ACFN like Rene are among those who worked on the barges, including loading and off-loading barges and captaining them.

Notes to Chapter 3

1. 1 Alec Bruno, written questionnaire.

2. 2 Graham to Harkin, 7 December 1912.

3. 3 Harkin’s memorandum is referenced in another 1915 memorandum that recounted some of the earlier conversations and controversy surrounding the proposal to create a sanctuary. See memorandum to J.G. Mitchell, 23 September 1915, LAC RG85 vol. 1390, file 406-13, WBNP General file (Clippings).

4. 4 Memorandum to Mitchell, 23 September 1915.

5. 5 See for example, Maxwell Graham, Canada’s Wild Buffalo: Observations in the Wood Buffalo Park, 1922 (Department of the Interior, Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch. Ottawa: F.A. Acland, 1923), 11. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015006571528&view=1up&seq=1. See also O.S. Finnie to J.W. Martin (Commissioner of Dominion Lands Administration), 14 April 192?, LAC RG85, vol. 792, file 6276. See also O.S. Finnie to J.W. Martin (Commissioner of Dominion Lands Administration), 14 April 192?, LAC RG85, vol. 792, file 6276.

6. 6 Graham to Harkin, 7 December 1912.

7. 7 Graham to Harkin, 7 December 1912.

8. 8 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 39. See also John Sandlos, “Landscaping Desire: Poetics, Politics in the Early Biological Surveys of the Canadian North,” Space and Culture 6, no. 4 (Nov. 2003): 395–414.

9. 9 Valaderes, “Dispossessing the Wilderness,” 151.

10. 10 See for example, Marcel and Seegerts, “The Rights to Practice,” 21.

11. 11 McCormack, “The Political Economy of Bison Management in Wood Buffalo National Park,” Arctic 45, no. 4 (December 1992): 368.

12. 12 For example, Sandlos cites several letters and reports, including Radford to Hooper, 20 June 1911, LAC RG85, vol. 665, file 3911, pt. 2; Henry Bury, “Report on Buffalo Protection,” 25 October 1915, LAC RG85, vol. 665, file 3912, pt. 1; George Mulloy’s patrol report to Robert Campbell, 9 July 1913, LAC RG85, vol. 665, file 3912, pt. 1; Charles Camsell, “The Wood Buffalo Range of Northern Alberta,” 21 November 1916, LAC RG85, vol. 1390, file 406-13, pt. 1. See Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 38.

13. 13 See, for example, comments by Indian Agent Gerald Card to Parks officials and others, including J.B. Harkin and F.H. Kitto, in 1921. “Stenographic report of a portion of the Meeting” (sgd.) H.L. 12 April 1921, LAC RG85 vol. 1390, file 406-13.

14. 14 Wardens frequently reported these kinds of interactions with Indigenous Peoples in their diaries and patrol reports. See LAC RG85-D-1-A, vol. 152, file 420-2. Wardens’ Patrol Reports, Wood Buffalo National Park (Maps), 1928–1936; LAC RG85, vol. 153, file 420-2, Warden Patrol Reports 1936–44; and LAC RG85-C-1-a, vol. 761, file 4878, Pt. 1 (Warden M.J. Dempsey's Journals, 1925–1948).

15. 15 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 53.

16. 16 Ferguson, “The ‘Jarvis Proof,” 299.

17. 17 See Proposed Order in Council for Creation of Wood Bison Habitat Into a National Park, Description of area approved by Surveyor General, 3 July 1916, LAC RG85 vol. 1390, file 406-13, WBNP General file (Clippings) 1914–25. See also Maxwell Graham, “Statement as to the Causes that led up to the Creation of the Wood Buffalo Park” for O.S. Finnie’s information, 4 June 1924, LAC RG85 vol. 1390, file 406-13 WBNP General file (Clippings) 1914–25.

18. 18 Graham, “Statement as to the Causes,” 2.

19. 19 Arthur Meighen, “Address of Welcome,” in National Conference on Conservation of Game, Fur-Bearing Animals and Other Wild Life, 18–19 February 1919, ed. Commission of Conservation of Canada (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1919), 5. https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.82935/16?r=0&s=1.

20. 20 Graham, “Statement as to the Causes,” 3.

21. 21 Graham, “Statement as to the Causes,” 6.

22. 22 F.H. Kitto, Report on the Natural Resources of the Mackenzie District and Their Economic Development, Natural Resources Intelligence Branch, Department of the Interior, 1920, LAC RG10, vol. 4092, file 548-036, 5.

23. 23 Kitto, “Report on the Natural Resources,” 21.

24. 24 Memorandum from F.H. Kitto to J.B. Harkin, with map attachments, 12 January 1921, LAC RG85 vol. 1390, file 406-13, WBNP General file (Clippings) 1914–25.

25. 25 Copy of Resolution [Regarding the setting aside of the wood bison range as a sanctuary], 18 June 1920, Advisory Board on Wild Life Protection, LAC RG85 vol. 1390, file 406-13, WBNP General file (Clippings) 1914–25. The Resolution is also cited in a letter from J.B. Harkin to Duncan Campbell Scott, 23 November 1920, LAC RG10, vol. 4085, file 496, 658-1A Minutes, Advisory Board in Wildlife Protection, 18 June 1920, LAC RG10, vol. 4085, file 496,658-1A.

26. 26 Memorandum from W.W. Cory to F.C.C. Lynch, 8 May 1922, LAC RG85 vol. 1390, file 406-13, WBNP General file (Clippings) 1914–25.

27. 27 Graham, “Statement as to the Causes,” 7.

28. 28 This is evident from a lengthy series of memoranda and telegrams from September to October 1922, mostly between Graham and Finnie, LAC RG85 vol. 1390, file 406-13, WBNP General file (Clippings) 1914–25.

29. 29 Memorandum to J.G. Mitchell, 23 September 1915.

30. 30 Graham to Finnie, 16 January 1923, LAC RG85 vol. 1390, file 406-13, WBNP General file (Clippings) 1914–25.

31. 31 See, for example, Binnema and Niemi, “‘Let the line be drawn now”; MacLaren, Culturing Wilderness; Sandlos, “Not Wanted at the Boundary”; Nakoochee, “Reconnection with Asi Kéyi” and others discussed in the Introduction to this book.

32. 32 Finnie to Graham, 28 December 1925 with memorandum from Finnie, 21 December 1921 attached, LAC RG85-D-1-A, vol. 1391, file 406-13. Wood Buffalo National Park – General file, 1921–27, 1928–36.

33. 33 Graham to Harkin, 7 December 1923, LAC RG85, vol. 665, file 3911, p. 3.

34. 34 Graham to Finnie, 27 September 1923, Archival source unknown. Copies available at ACFN community archives, Fort Chipewyan, Alberta; Graham to Finnie, 17 July 1924, LAC RG85 vol. 1390, file 406-13, WBNP General file (Clippings) 1914–25.

35. 35 R.I. Eklund to R.F. Battle, 4 January 1955 and R.I. Eklund to Regional Supervisor of Indian Agencies, 4 August 1954, LAC RG10 vol. 8409, file 191/20-14-1, pt. 2.

36. 36 Finnie to R.A. Gibson, 9 December 1925, LAC RG85, vol. 1213, file 400-2-3, v. 1.

37. 37 Finnie to Graham, 28 December 1925, LAC RG85-D-1-A, vol. 1391, file 406-1, Wood Buffalo National Park – General file, 1921–27.

38. 38 Finnie to Graham, 28 December 1925.

39. 39 Duncan Campbell Scott, 29 December 1925, cited in memorandum by O.S. Finnie, 8 November 1928, LAC RG85, vol. 792, file 6276, p. 3.

40. 40 J.A. McDougal to O.S. Finnie, 2 March 1926, LAC RG85, vol. 1213, file 400-2-3, pt. 1.

41. 41 W.W. Cory to James Harkin, 26 May 1923, LAC RG85, vol 1390, file 406-13, pt. 1. See also memorandum from Graham to Fyle, 5 January 1923, LAC RG85, vol. 1390, file 406-13.

42. 42 Strong and widespread opposition to the importation scheme (and Graham and Finnie’s continued dismissal of that opposition — even as the main concerns about the scheme eventually came to pass), are extensively documented in LAC RG85, vol. 1391, file 406-13. For example, see W.E. Saunders to Cory, 15 April 1925, RG85-D-1-A, vol. 1391, file 406-13, Wood Buffalo National Park – General file, 1921–27, 1928–36; Saunders to White, 11 April 1925, RG85-D-1-A, vol. 1391, file 406-13. See also Professor J.D. Detwiler to Prime Minister Mackenzie King, 10 June 1925, RG85-D-1-A, vol. 1391, file 406-13. See also Dr. James Ritchie, “The American Bison: A Questionable Experiment.” Article copied from Supplement to Nature, 20 February 1926. Clipped in RG85-D-1-A, vol. 1391, file 406-13.

43. 43 W.F. Lothian, A History of Canada’s National Parks, vol. IV. (Ottawa: Parks Canada, 1981), 33–35. See also Jennifer Brower, Lost Tracks: Buffalo National Park, 1909–1939 (Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, 2008).

44. 44 See for example McDougal to Finnie, 24 July 1925 and memorandum from Finnie to Cory, 13 August 1925, both from LAC RG85-D-1-A, vol. 1391, file 406-13, Wood Buffalo National Park – General file, 1921–27, 1928–36.

45. 45 Telegram from Finnie to McDougal, 1 February 1926 and then from McDougal to Finnie, 2 February 1926. LAC RG85-D-1-A, vol. 1391, file 406-13, Wood Buffalo National Park – General file, 1921–27, 1928–36.

46. 46 Memorandum for file by O.S. Finnie, 16 February 1926, LAC RG-85-D-1-A, vol. 1391, file 406-13.

47. 47 J.A. McDougal to O.S. Finnie, 25 March 1926, LAC RG85, vol. 1213, file 400-2-3, pt. 1.

48. 48 Telegram from McDougal to Finnie, 22 March 1926, LAC RG-85-D-1-A, vol. 1391, file 406-13.

49. 49 Fort Chipewyan Elder Jimmy Deranger, interview 7 February 1974, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research, Indian Association of Alberta (Fort Chipewyan: ACFN Office).

50. 50 O.S. Finnie to ?, 30 June 1926, archival source unknown (likely LAC RG85). Copies of source available at ACFN community archives, Fort Chipewyan, Alberta.

51. 51 Order in Council PC 1444, 18 September 1926, LAC RG85 vol. 1391, file 406-13.

52. 52 See, for example, Finnie to Gibson, 29 March 1926. LAC RG85-D-1-A vol. 1391, file 406-13; Finnie to Cory, 31 March 1926, LAC RG85-D-1-A vol. 1391, file 406-13.

53. 53 Order in Council PC 1444, 24 September 1926, LAC RG 85 vol. 1391, file 406-13.

54. 54 R.A. Gibson to D.J. Allan (Superintendent, Reserves and Trusts, Indian Affairs Branch), 23 September 1938, LAC RG85 v. 1213 file 400-2-3, v.1. This permit system bears a striking resemblance to the Indian Pass System, which was instituted on the prairies between 1877 and 1935. Keith Douglas Smith, Liberalism, Surveillance, and Resistance: Indigenous Communities in Western Canada, 1877–1927 (Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, 2009); F. Laurie Barron, “The Indian Pass System in the Canadian West, 1882–1935,” Prairie Forum, vol. 13, no. 1 (1988).

55. 55 O.S. Finnie to R.A. Gibson, 23 April 1926, LAC RG85, vol. 1213, file 400-2-3, pt. 1.

56. 56 R.A. Gibson to D.J. Allan, 23 September 1938, LAC RG85 v. 1213 file 400-2-3, v. 1.

57. 57 Memorandum from O.S. Finnie to R.A. Gibson, 18 June 1926, archival source unknown. Copy of memorandum available at ACFN community archives, Fort Chipewyan, Alberta.

58. 58 Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, Northern Administration and Lands Branch, Conservation and Management Services, Wood Buffalo Park Game Regulations, Office Consolidation, Ottawa, 1 June 1954, LAC RG10, vol. 8409, file 191/20-14-1, pt. 2.

59. 59 Memorandum from [unknown] to R.A. Gibson, Department of Interior, 29 February 1936, LAC RG85, v. 1213 file 400-2-3, pt. 2A, p. 2.

60. 60 Report from M.J. Dempsey to M. Meikle (Agent and Superintendent), 20 February 1937, LAC RG85, vol. 845, file 7744, pt. 1, as cited in Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 71n107.

61. 61 M.J. Dempsey to J. Milner, 1 March 1933, LAC RG85, v. 852, file 7870.

62. 62 Mason, Spirit of the Rockies, 52.

63. 63 M.J. Dempsey to J. Milner, 1 March 1933.

64. 64 J. Melling, Report of Meeting with Chief and Councillors of Indians Living in ‘B’ and ‘C’ Areas of the Wood Buffalo Park, LAC RG10, vol. 8409, file 191/20-14-1, pt. 1.

65. 65 J.L. Grew to D.J. Allen, 19 March 1943, LAC RG10, vol. 8409, file 191/20-14-1, pt. 1.

66. 66 F.A. McCall, January Wardens’ Reports, 4 February 1948, Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. RG85-D-1-A, vol. 318, file 420-2/199-1, Wardens Reports – Fort Chipewyan (1946–53).

67. 67 M.J. Dempsey to A.L. Cumming, 12 August 1935, LAC RG85, v. 1213, file 400-2-3, pt. 2A.

68. 68 [Unknown] to R.A. Gibson, 29 February 1936.

69. 69 M. Meikle to R.A. Gibson, 15 April 1937, LAC RG85, v. 1213, file 400-2-3, pt. 2A.

70. 70 See, for example, R.A. Gibson to J.W. Burton, 22 December 1949, LAC RG85-C-1-a, vol. 846, file 7744, pt. 4, applications to hunt and trap (1950–54).

71. 71 Meikle to Gibson, 15 April 1937.

72. 72 See Government of Canada, Department of the Interior, “Regulations governing hunting and trapping in Wood Buffalo Park Established under authority of the Order-in-Council of the 14th December, 1933, P.C. 2589,” LAC RG10, vol. 8409, file 191/20-14-1, pt. 1. See also W.G. Brown to G.E.B. Sinclair, 20 July 1951 “Illegal Beaver – Wood Buffalo Park,” LAC RG10 vol. 8409, file 191/20-14-1, pt. 2, p. 1.

73. 73 See, for example, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Reports on Conclusions of Case, Form 264B, 19 March 1942, LAC RG10 vol. 8409, file 191/20-14-1, pt. 1; W.G. Brown to G.E.B. Sinclair, 20 July 1942.

74. 74 Telegram from J.A. McDougal to O.S. Finnie, 4 January 1928, LAC RG85, v. 1213, file 400-2-3, pt. 1A.

75. 75 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 71.

76. 76 Indian Agent John Melling to Secretary of Indian Affairs, 15 October 1942, LAC RG10 vol. 8409, file 191/20-14-1, pt. 1.

77. 77 Fort Chipewyan Elder Felix Gibot, interview with Richard Lightning at Fort Chipewyan, 5 February 1974, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research, Indian Association of Alberta (Fort Chipewyan: ACFN Office).

78. 78 For example, Treaty 7 Elders explained in 1996, and Stoney Nakoda Elders told Courtney Mason two decades later that: “‘At the time [1877] nothing was ever mentioned about the cutting up of the land here and there into recreational areas and parks. The government didn’t tell them it would eventually be doing this. It is because of these special areas that we can’t go hunting’ (Hildebrandt et al., 1996, 90). The government never consulted with or informed Nakoda peoples about the formation of the reserve or the national park.” See Mason, Spirits of the Rockies, 53.

79. 79 Henry Bury to Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs, 13 April 1916, LAC RG85, vol. 664, file 3910, vol. 1.

80. 80 Bury to Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs, 13 April 1916.

81. 81 Alec Bruno, written questionnaire.

82. 82 Richard Lightning was one of the field researchers/interviewers for the Treaty 8 research under the Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research initiative in the 1970s.

83. 83 Lightning might have been referring to the fenced enclosures where bison were rounded up for monitoring or slaughtering, or he may be referring to the harvesting laws and permitting restrictions that kept Dene people out of the Park.

84. 84 Boucher is referring to the plains bison that were imported from 1925 to 1928.

85. 85 Dené is a family name belonging to one of the Dënesųłıné families within the Park that was transferred to the Cree Band.

86. 86 Leonard’s mother, Liza Piche, was among the Piche family members who had to leave the Park after the 1926 expansion.

87. 87 Felix Gibot and other local Indigenous workers were hired by the Park to assist with the distribution of bison meat at the time of the scheduled slaughters. Some Indigenous workers found employment in the Park in other capacities throughout the twentieth century, working as guides and interpreters and at the fisheries and mills.

88. 88 Leslie is referring to Kitaskino Nuwëné Wildland Provincial Park, located on the southeast boundary of WBNP, in the heart of the Ronald Lake bison herd’s range. The 161,880-hectare protected area was established in 2019 following collaborative discussions amongst Indigenous governments (including MCFN and ACFN) and the Government of Alberta. The Park is planned to be cooperatively managed and was created to “support the exercise of Treaty and harvesting rights for First Nations and approved Métis harvesters” as well as to steward “many many natural values important to Indigenous People’s culture and well-being, including the Ronald Lake bison herd — a critical species for many Indigenous Peoples in the region who share a cultural relationship with the herd.” For more information see Alberta Parks, Kitaskino Nuwëné Wildland Provincial Park, “Decision to Establish Kitaskino Nuwëné Wildland Provincial Park,” https://www.albertaparks.ca/albertaparksca/about-parks/public-engagement/archives/kitaskino-nuwenëné-wildland-provincial-park/.

89. 89 Les Wiltzen interview on oral histories about the Park expansion January 21, 2021. Audio recording: https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/AssetLink/21ivrjx1eoi18672587w2d1ri52dvdn1.mp3.

Notes to Chapter 4

1. 1 Frank Marcel, written questionnaire, “ACFN Elders on Wood Buffalo National Park,” (Fort Chipewyan: ACFN Community Archives, date unknown).

2. 2 Indian Agent Jack Stewart, “Daily Journal, 1944,” PAA, Acc 71.11/2d.

3. 3 See Jacques Whitford, Treaty Entitlements Research — Update Report, Tables 1–4 (Fort Chipewyan: ACFN, 2006).

4. 4 Written questionnaires by ACFN members; see also Whitford, Treaty Entitlements Research.

5. 5 McCormack, “Chipewyans Turn Cree,” 132–133.

6. 6 M. Meikle to R.A. Gibson, 27 June 1945, LAC RG85, Vol. 1214, file 400-2-3, pt. 3, as cited in Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, p. 86.

7. 7 McCormack, “Chipewyans Turn Cree.”

8. 8 Helene Piche and her family relocated many times out of necessity, moving to where they could continue to continue to find suitable wage labour and harvesting areas.

9. 9 Garry is referring to Sandra Lovelace v. Canada. Lovelace is a Wolastoqiyik woman who was a member of the Tobique First Nation, until, like Elizabeth Flett, she was stripped of her Indian Status under the Indian Act after marrying a non-Status Indigenous man. She brought forward an application to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1977, arguing that the Act was discriminatory on the basis of sex because the law, which did not apply to men who married non-Indigenous women, stripped Indigenous women of their Status, First Nations’ membership, and access to funds and programming. It also cut women off from traditional hunting and fishing rights and the cultural benefits of living in their community. The UN Committee found that Canada had interfered with Lovelace’s right to enjoy her culture and that stripping her of her Status was a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Canada’s response was to amend the Indian Act via Bill C-31 in 1985. Garry attempted to make his family’s case for access to the Park after this revision.

10. 10 Big John may have been referring to the Simpson family and other Dene families from Fort McKay who relocated to the Delta to trap before the transfer.

Notes to Chapter 5

1. 1 See for example, Mackay Meikle, “WOOD BUFFALO PARK: Notice to native hunters who have permits for the Wood Buffalo Park,” 15 March 1939, LAC RG85, v. 1213, file 400-2-3, p. 1.

2. 2 Loo, States of Nature, 6.

3. 3 Neufeld, “Kluane National Park Reserve,” 254.

4. 4 Ferguson, “Jarvis Proof,” 300.

5. 5 Wolfe, “Settler colonialism,” 388.

6. 6 See “Regulations governing hunting and trapping in Wood Buffalo Park Established under authority of the Order-in-Council of the 14^th December, 1933, P.C. 2589.” LAC RG10, Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1; see also Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, Northern Administration and Lands Branch, Conservation and Management Services, Wood Buffalo Park Game Regulations, Office Consolidation, Ottawa: 1 June 1954, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 2; “Precis for Northwest Territories Council: Representations of single Indians for Wood Buffalo Park beaver permits.” N.d. LAC RG85, v. 1213 file 400-2-3, pt. 2A; unknown author to Hugh Conn, Fur Development, Indian Affairs, 19 July 1950, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1.

7. 7 Government of Canada and Government of United States of America, Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds in the United States and Canada, Ratified 7 December 1916, amended in 1999. https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/corporate/international-affairs/partnerships-countries-regions/north-america/canada-united-states-protecting-migratory-birds.html

8. 8 Privy Council, Order in Council P.C. 1955-940, Amendment to the Wood Buffalo Park Game Regulations, Ottawa: 23 June 1955, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 2.

9. 9 John Melling, “Diary of Treaty Trip,” Athabaska Agency, 4 July 1942, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1; see also R.A. Hoey to R.A. Gibson, 11 May 1946, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1.

10. 10 O.S. Finnie to J.A. McDougal, 6 March 1925, LAC RG85, Vol. 1213, File 400-2-3, v. 1.

11. 11 Cardinal Christianson et. al., “Centring Indigenous Voices”: 270.

12. 12 McCormack, Fort Chipewyan, 234.

13. 13 Act. Sgt. G.T. Makinson’s Report, “Re — Treaty Indians — Resolution, NWT. Refusal to Accept Treaty Payment,” 3 July 1937, LAC RG85 Vol. 1213, File 400 2-3, Vol. 1; See also E.G. Oldham to R.A. Gibson, 15 September 1947, LAC RG85, Vol. 1214, File 400-2-3, vol 3A.

14. 14 E.G. Oldham to R.A. Gibson, 15 September 1947, 3.

15. 15 R.A. Gibson to T.R.L. MacInnes, 4 October 1939, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1.

16. 16 As cited in Notzke, Aboriginal Peoples and Natural Resources, 246.

17. 17 See for example F.C. Dent to J.A. Urquhart, 22 February 1940, LAC RG10, Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1; R.A. Gibson to H.W. McGill, 13 March 1940, LAC RG10, Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1.

18. 18 For example: Game Commissioner to O.S. Finnie, 12 December 1925, LAC RG85, Vol. 1213, File 400-2-3, v. 1; D.J. Allan to R.A. Gibson, 16 September 1938, LAC RG85, v. 1213, file 400-2-3, v.1; R.I. Eklund to Regional Supervisor of Indian Agencies, 4 August1954, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 2.

19. 19 M.J. Dempsey to A.L. Cumming, 12 August 1935, LAC RG85, v. 1213, File 400-2-3, pt. 2A.

20. 20 T.R.L. MacInnes to Deputy Commissioner, NWT, 6 June 1938, LAC RG85, v. 1213, file 400-2-3.

21. 21 See T.R.L. MacInnes to R.A. Gibson, 1 September 1938, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1; R.A. Gibson to T.R.L. MacInnes, 27 September 1938, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1; Mackay Meikle to R.A. Gibson, 25 October 1938, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1; R.A. Gibson to H.W. McGill, Director of Indian Affairs Branch, 9 November 1938, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1; T.R.L. MacInnes to P.G. Head, 8 December 1938, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1; S.C. Knapp to J.P.B Ostrander, Attn: Hugh R. Conn, 9 July 1954, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 2.

22. 22 M.J. Dempsey to A.L. Cumming, 12 August 1935.

23. 23 Park Warden J.A. Routh noted this complaint in 1938. See memorandum by Cumming. “Notes from Wardens’ diaries, Wood Buffalo Park, received with letters of 9^th and 25^th March 1938, from the Fort Smith Office,” 20 April 1938. RG85, Vol. 153, File 420-2, Warden Patrol Reports 1936–44.

24. 24 See Warden F.A. McCall “June 1948 Report,” 9 July 1948, Fort Chipewyan, LAC RG85-D-1-A, Vol. 318, File 420-2/199-1, Wardens Reports — Fort Chipewyan (1946–53); Report of Warden F.A. McCall “February 1947 Report,” LAC RG85-D-1-A, Vol. 318, File 420-2/199-1, Wardens Reports — Fort Chipewyan (1946–53).

25. 25 Unknown author to W.W. Cory, 25 October 1928, LAC RG85, v. 1213 file 400-2-3, pt. 1A.

26. 26 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 101.

27. 27 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 76–77.

28. 28 McCormack, Fort Chipewyan, 224–225.

29. 29 As is apparent from some of the oral histories in this chapter, Dënesųłıné people share kinship and a strong cultural and spiritual connection with wolves and were reluctant to kill them. Parks officials observed this reluctance throughout the twentieth century. When offered pay to cull wolves to reduce wolf predation, few Dene harvesters took up the opportunity. Maxwell Graham wrote of this in his report to O.S. Finnie, “Statement as to the Causes.”

30. 30 A.L. Cumming to R.A. Gibson, 29 November 1940, LAC RG85, v. 1214, file 400-2-3, pt. 3, as cited in McCormack, “How the (North)West was won,” 232.

31. 31 Ferguson, “Jarvis Proof,” 304. Elder Pat Marcel spoke extensively about the standard government response to Indigenous Peoples’ concerns in his oral history, excerpted at length in this chapter. See: Marcel and Seegerts, The Rights to Practice. See also R.I. Eklund to Regional Supervisor of Indian Agencies, 4 August 1954.

32. 32 Chief Jonas Laviolette to Indian Affairs, 20 February 1927, LAC RG10, vol. 6732, file 420-2

33. 33 N.E. Tanner to M. Christian, Gen. Superintendent of Agencies, Indian Affairs Branch, 15 March 1938, LAC RG10, Vol. 6733, File 420-2-1.

34. 34 Bill Russell, Report to the Chipewyan Band of Fort Chipewyan on Treaty Land Entitlement and other Land Matters (Ottawa: Indian Association of Alberta), 27.

35. 35 J.L. Grew to D.J. Allen, Report on Registered Trap Lines in Alberta, (11 March 1943), 6, LAC RG 10, Vol. 6733, File 420-2-2 2.

36. 36 Peter Fortna, Cadotte Lake Métis: A Genealogical Narrative, 1850–2000 (Cochrane, AB: Willow Springs Strategic Solutions, 2021), 31. See also, Dawn Balazs, A Short Analysis of the Transfer of Natural Resources to Alberta in 1930 and a Preliminary Study of the Registered Trapline System (Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research of the Indian Association of Alberta, March 1976), Chapter 3.

37. 37 W.B. Skead, “Report on the Revision of Indian Registered Traplines and Registered Trapping Areas in Alberta,” 20 January 1949, p. 1. LAC RG10, Vol. 6734, File 420-2-2 1.

38. 38 W.B. Skead, Annual Report — Alberta Fur Supervisor, 1 November 1947–1 October 1948, p. 7. LAC RG10 Vol. 6734, File 420-2 1.

39. 39 Skead, Annual Report. See M. Meikle, J.L. Grew, J. Dewey Soper, and M.J. Dempsey, “Recommendations of Committee Appointed to Enquire into Certain Fur Conservation Problems in Wood Buffalo Park,” 16 July 1945, LAC RG10, Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 1.

40. 40 Skead, Annual Report. See also Memorandum Re: Open season for muskrats and registered trap lines, 12 June 1939, LAC RG85, vol. 1213, file 400-2-3.

41. 41 Report of Warden F.A. McCall, January 1947.

42. 42 See Memorandum Re: Open season for muskrats and registered trap lines, 12 June 1939.

43. 43 Indian Agent P.G. Head to unknown, 21 March 1940, LAC RG10, Vol. 6733, File 420-2 5.

44. 44 John Melling to Secretary of Indian Affairs, 12 June 1942, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14/1, pt. 1.

45. 45 See Indian Agent P.G. Head to unknown, 21 March 1940.

46. 46 Russell, “Report to the Chipewyan Band,” 27.

47. 47 J.A. McDougal to O.S. Finnie, 2 March 1926.

48. 48 I.F. Kirkby to E.G. Oldham, 24 June 1947, LAC RG85-4-C-A, Vol. 345, File 5. Admin of WBNP, 1944–1947.

49. 49 McCormack, “How the (North)West was Won,” 203.

50. 50 See for example Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, Northern Administration and Lands Branch, Conservation and Management Services, “Office Consolidation of Regulations governing hunting and trapping in Wood Buffalo Park,” 1933; and a lengthy series of correspondence between E.G. Oldham and Supervising Warden I.F. Kirkby, 1944–1946. RG85-4-C-A, Vol. 345, File 5, Admin of WBNP 1944-47.

51. 51 F.A. McCall, March report, 1 April 1948 and April Report, 5 May 1948. LAC RG85-D-1-A, Vol. 318, File 420-2/199-1, Wardens Reports — Fort Chipewyan (1946–53).

52. 52 Nakoochee, “Reconnection with Asi Kéyi.”

53. 53 Elder Magloire Vermillion, interview with Jim Deranger, 13 February 1974, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research, Indian Association of Alberta (Fort Chipewyan: ACFN Community Archives).

54. 54 E.G. Oldham to R.A. Gibson, 15 September 1947.

55. 55 Neil Walker to C.B. Carignan, 11 May 1953, LAC RG10 Vol. 8409, File 191/20-14-1, pt. 2.

56. 56 See, for example, Wendy Wickwire, “To See Ourselves as the Other’s Other: Nlaka’pamux Contact Narratives,” Canadian Historical Review 75, no. 1 (March 1994): 1–20.

57. 57 Winona Wheeler, “Narrative Wisps of the Ochekiwi Sipi Past: A Journey in Recovering Collective Memories,” in The Canadian Oral History Reader, eds. Kristina R. Llewellyn, Alexander Freund and Nolan Reilly (Montreal/Toronto: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 285.

58. 58 Warden reports also contain frequent references to the help they received from Dene and other Indigenous Peoples, sometimes explicitly writing about friendly relations with harvesters.

59. 59 M.J. Dempsey to J.A. McDougal, 17 February 1931, RG85-D-1-A, Vol. 152, File 420-2. Wardens’ Patrol Reports, Wood Buffalo National Park (with maps), 1928–1936.

60. 60 O.S. Finnie to Christie, 8 June 1925, RG85-D-1-A, Vol. 1391, File 406-13. Wood Buffalo National Park — General File, 1921–1927, 1928–1936.

61. 61 N22 refers to an ACFN-controlled trapping block in northwestern Saskatchewan.

62. 62 Edouard Trippe de Roche and Keltie Paul interview, November 25, 2020. Audio recording: https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/AssetLink/36lsl083a4h1e566y0sj5m472624g307.mp3.

Notes to Chapter 6

1. 1 Chief Laviolette to Indian Affairs, 20 February 1927.

2. 2 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 74.

3. 3 Memorandum from John Wylie, Colin Fraser, James Fraser, ? Marcel, and P. Mercredi to Charles Cross, “Re the setting-apart of a New Buffalo Park or the establishing of an annex to the existing Wood Buffalo Park; which is to be situated in the terrain North of the Quatre Fourches River, and on the West shore of Lake Mamiwi, North of Hay River and Lake Claire,” 16 April 1926, LAC RG85, v. 1213, file 400-2-3, pt. 1A.

4. 4 Memorandum from Wylie et al. 16 April 1926.

5. 5 Chief Laviolette to Indian Affairs, 20 February 1927, 3. For other examples of letters from Indigenous Peoples to Park officials, see St. Cyr to Urquhart, 29 December 1939, LAC RG85, vol. 845, file 7744, pt. 2, as cited in Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 72n106; Boucher to Wood Buffalo Head, 8 January 1937, LAC RG85, vol. 845, file 7744, pt. 2, as cited in Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 72n109; Mrs. Adam Boucher [née Ratfat] to Fort Smith, 27 February 1936, as cited in Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 72n109.

6. 6 A.L. Cumming to J. Lorne Turner, 13 August 1935, LAC RG85, v. 1213, file 400-2-3, pt. 2A.

7. 7 See for example, Melling, “Diary of Treaty Trip.”

8. 8 Act. Sgt. G.T. Makinson’s Report, “Re — Treaty Indians.”

9. 9 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 75.

10. 10 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 67.

11. 11 O.S. Finnie to W.W. Cory, 7 August 1930, RG85-D-1-A, vol. 152, file 420-2. Wardens’ Patrol Reports, Wood Buffalo National Park (with maps), 1928–1936.

12. 12 F.C. Dent to M.J. Dempsey, 16 December 1935. RG85-D-1-A, vol. 152, file 420-2.

13. 13 As stated in a memo from Mackay Meikle to R.A. Gibson, 23 December 1937, LAC RG85, vol.1213 file 400-2-3 pt. 2A.

14. 14 F.A. Bryant to E.G. Oldham, 24 March 1947. RG85-C-4-A, vol. 345, file 5.

15. 15 A.L. Cumming to J. Lorne Turner, 13 August 1935.

16. 16 Mackay Meikle to R.A. Gibson, 23 December 1937.

17. 17 Act. Sgt. G.T. Makinson’s Report, “Re — Treaty Indians.”

18. 18 Chief Jonas Laviolette to Indian Affairs, 20 February 1927.

19. 19 McCormack, “Chipewyans Turn Cree,” 133.

20. 20 Russell, “Report to the Chipewyan Band,” 27.

21. 21 This shift occurred under Orders-in-Council P.C. 1954-817 and P.C. 1954-900.

22. 22 Gerald Card to J.D. McLean, 6 December 1927, LAC RG10, vol. 6732, file 420-2B. (Emphasis added). In the hopes of an increase in the muskrat population, leaders wanted to protect the region from excessive trapping and other human activities that could prevent a resurgence in the muskrat population.

23. 23 Robertson to MacInnes, 11 February 1931, LAC RG10, vol. 6732, file 420-2B.

24. 24 Marcel and Seegerts, “The Rights to Practice our Treaty Rights,” 12.

25. 25 Order-in-Council 298-35, 6 March 1935 and accompanying Report from the Minister of Agriculture, as cited in Marcel and Seegerts, “The Rights to Practice our Treaty Rights,” 24. See also S.H. Clark to M. Christianson, 12 March 1935, LAC RG10, vol. 6733, file 420-2C.

26. 26 Marcel and Seegerts, “The Rights to Practice our Treaty Rights,” 14.

27. 27 See for example, letters between Indian Agent Harry Lewis, M. Christianson, and A.F. MacKenzie during March and April 1936, LAC RG10, vol. 6733, file 420-2C.

28. 28 Marcel and Seegerts, “The Rights to Practice our Treaty Rights,” 14.

29. 29 UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 41 COM, “Reactive Monitoring Mission.”

30. 30 Joanne Stassen, “Indigenous entrepreneur defends right to harvest salt after warning from Parks Canada,” CBC (April 14, 2022), https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/melissa-daniels-won-t-stop-harvesting-salt-from-wood-buffal-1.6420471.

31. 31 Leyland Cecco, “Salt spat highlights Canadian national park’s troubling history,” The Guardian (17 April 2022), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/17/salt-spat-highlights-canadian-national-parks-troubling-history.

32. 32 Cecco, “Salt spat.”

33. 33 Where a speaker discusses harvesting in the Park against regulations, their names, and the people of whom they speak, are kept anonymous to prevent possible repercussions from sharing their stories.

34. 34 In May 2022, Imperial Oil identified a leak from one of its tailings ponds on the northeastern corner of the Kearl Mine Site, about 75 kilometres south of WNBP and five kilometres from the Firebag River. Tailings ponds are massive, engineered reservoirs that oil sands mines use to store tailings — the toxic by-product of oilsands extraction. Tailings ponds hold waters containing petrochemical waste from the extraction process, concentrated organic matter, sand, and silt. The water can be highly toxic due to high levels of organic acids, ammonia, lead, mercury, and benzene. Imperial workers identified pooled surface water outside the boundaries of the tailings pond, which contained a mix of groundwater and tailings material. In August 2022, the company found more discoloured water near a fish-bearing waterbody. Imperial Oil reported the leak to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), but it was never made public, and Indigenous governments were not informed. In late January 2023, there was a massive spill of 5.3 million litres from the tailings area of the same project. It took four days before the company detected the spill. The spill resulted in seepage of toxic industrial wastewaters into the boreal wetlands and nearby tributaries. The 2022 leak was not made public until the 2023 spill occurred, after the AER issued an Environmental Protection Order on 6 February 2023.

    Representatives from ACFN and many of the other First Nations and Métis communities in the area publicly denounced Imperial Oil’s and the AER’s actions and silence on this matter. Among several other Indigenous leaders, Chief Allan Adam testified before the House of Commons in Ottawa in April 2023, calling the AER “a complete joke.” He described the community’s deep frustration with the events and grave concerns about the impacts of the seepage and spill. Federal and provincial investigations proceeded shortly after the hearings. See: Imperial Oil Ltd., “Kearl EPO Update #3,” news release, 1 March 2023, https://www.imperialoil.ca/-/media/imperial/files/operations/kearl/kearl-epo-update-3-mar-1-2023.pdf; Gillian Chow-Fraser and Nicole Doll, “Everything you need to know about the Kearl Mine tailings silent leak and then sudden spill,” Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society – Northern Alberta Chapter, 16 May 2023, https://cpawsnab.org/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-kearl-spill/; APTN National News, “First Nation in northern Alberta reports Kearl mine leak ‘worse’ than expected,” APTN National News, 21 March 2023, https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/first-nation-in-northern-alberta-reports-kearl-mine-leak-worse-than-expected/.

35. 35 Referring to seven of ACFN’s eight reserves, which include Chipewyan 201 and Chipewyan 201A-G.

36. 36 A commercial fishery with operations in the Park in the first half of the twentieth century, which Marcel suggests rarely employed ACFN people.

Notes to Chapter 7

1. 1 Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Footprints on the Land, 9.

2. 2 McCormack, Fort Chipewyan, 269.

3. 3 McCormack, Fort Chipewyan, 270.

4. 4 McCormack, “How the (North)West was Won,” 156.

5. 5 The genocide committed through Canada’s residential school system, and its profound intergenerational impacts, have been extensively discussed in oral histories and survivors’ memoirs, historical research studies, and in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. See for example: Theodore Fontaine, Broken Circle: The Dark Legacy of Indian Residential Schools – A Memoir (Victoria: Heritage House Publishing, 2010); Bev Sellars, They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2013); Joseph Auguste Merasty, with David Carpenter, The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential School Memoir (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2015); Phyllis Webstad, Beyond the Orange Shirt Story: A collection of stories from family and friends of Phyllis Webstad before, during, and after their Residential School experiences (Unceded Sc’ianew, Lekwungen, and T’Sou-ke territory: Medicine Wheel Publishing, 2020); J.R. Miller, Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996); John S. Milloy, A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879-1986 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1990); and Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Honouring Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (Ottawa, 2015), https://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.800288/publication.html.

6. 6 Victor Mercredi, “Diary of Victor Mercredi,” (Fort Chipewyan, 1962), PAA, ACC 71.369 SE PAA, p. 26.

7. 7 J.L. Grew to D.J. Allen, 14 August 1945, “Report on Registered Trap Lines in Alberta and General Trapping Conditions,” p. 11, LAC RG10, vol. 6734, file 420-2-2-3

8. 8 See Dempsey to Gibson, 5 August 1937, LAC RG85, vol. 852, file 7869, pt. 1; Gibson to Urquhart, 13 August 1941, LAC RG85, vol. 852, file 7869, pt. 2; see also memorandum from Gibson to Cumming, 8 March 1940, LAC RG85, vol. 852, file 7869, pt. 2; Gibson to Urquhart, 28 October 1940, LAC RG85, vol. 852, file 7869, pt. 2; Savage to ?, 25 June 1940, LAC RG85, vol. 852, file 7869, pt. 2; W.B. Skead, RCMP Report re: Grant Savage, 17 March 1941, LAC RG85, vol. 852, file 7869, pt. 2.

9. 9 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 25.

10. 10 Joly, “Urban Buffalo,” 140.

11. 11 Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Footprints on the Land, 64.

12. 12 T.R.L. MacInnes to Richards, 7 June 1938, LAC RG85, v. 1213 file 400-2-3, pt. 1.

13. 13 Makinson, “Re –Treaty Indians.”

14. 14 See for example James Daschuk, Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Indigenous Life (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2014); see also Woolford and Benvenuto, “Canada and Colonial Genocide.”

15. 15 See Sandlos, “Not Wanted at the Boundary.” See also, for example, Mason, Spirit of the Rockies for examples of similar processes in Banff National Park.

16. 16 Peterson, “Exploring the Egg Lake,” 140–141.

17. 17 Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Footprints on the Land, 13.

18. 18 Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Footprints on the Land, 89.

19. 19 McCormack, Research Report, 170.

20. 20 Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Footprints on the Land, 13.

21. 21 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 75.

22. 22 Wildcat, “Fear of Social and Cultural Death,” 394 & 398.

23. 23 Marcel and Seegerts, “The Rights to Practice Our Treaty Rights,” 18–19.

24. 24 Mercredi, written questionnaire.

25. 25 Mercredi, written questionnaire.

26. 26 Mason, Spirit of the Rockies, 58.

27. 27 Ernie “Joe” Ratfat, phone interview with Sabina Trimble, 19 March, 2021. Audio recording: https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/AssetLink/e3yeqao80712p243t082262543dnlt4x.mp3.

28. 28 Alice Rigney, phone interview with Sabina Trimble, 16 & 17 March, 2021. Audio recording: https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/AssetLink/rs18km5bigb0jyxuxjt0far4g0u4em34.mp3.

29. 29 Alice Rigney, phone interview with Sabina Trimble, 16 & 17 March, 2021. Audio recording: https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/AssetLink/wd0rvkk748ei0ti4e82gmnge16r05475.mp3.

30. 30 Lori Stevens, Zoom interview with Sabina Trimble, 25 May, 2021. Audio recording: https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/AssetLink/sj81b7fh44qjr15tutr5rpx85m7867l7.mp3.

31. 31 Whose homelands are west of Dënesųłıné homelands, with the Peace River at their centre. The territory crosses the border of what are now Alberta and British Columbia, spanning from the Rocky Mountains to near Fort Vermillion and as far south as the Wapiti River.

Notes to Conclusion

1. 1 Maxwell Graham to J.B. Harkin, 7 December 1912.

2. 2 McCormack, “Political Economy,” 373.

3. 3 Memorandum to Cabinet, Walter Dinsdale, Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, 30 January 1963, LAC RG84-A-2-A, vol. 2227, file WB2, Pt. 2.

4. 4 T. O’Dwyer, Secretary Treasurer, White Hills Mining Corporation to Hon. Walter Dinsdale, 4 December 1963, LAC RG84-A-2-A, vol. 2227, file WB2, Pt. 2.

5. 5 Peterson, “Exploring the Egg Lake,” 6.

6. 6 Wood Buffalo National Park of Canada, “Management Plan” (Fort Smith: Parks Canada, June 2010), 8.

7. 7 As cited in Notzke, Aboriginal Peoples and Natural Resources, 246.

8. 8 Teck Resources, Ltd. is a mining company that proposed to construct a $20 billion oil sands extraction operation 110 kilometres north of Fort McMurray in 2008, called the Teck Frontier Oil Sands Mine. The project would have involved the construction, operation, and reclamation of an oil sands surface mine with production capacity of about 260,000 barrels of bitumen per day and was expected to operate for forty-one years. The project was suspended in 2020.

9. 9 Marcel and Seegerts, “The Rights to Practice our Treaty Rights,” 20–22. In this excerpt, Pat Marcel was referring to the Ronald Lake Bison herd which is located south of Wood Buffalo National Park. It became a major topic of discussion in relation to the proposed Teck Frontier project. ACFN, and Pat Marcel in particular, have made numerous filings with regards to the importance of the Ronald Lake Bison herd which can be found in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act Teck Frontier Mine Oil Sands Mine Project https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/proj/65505 as well as ACFN Submissions to the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan Land Use Secretariate; for example see: Melissa Daniels to LARP Review Panel, 30 November 2014, https://landuse.alberta.ca/Forms%20and%20Applications/RFR_ACFN%20Reply%20to%20IR%204_2014-12-01_PUBLIC.pdf.

10. 10 Marcel and Seegerts, The Rights to Practice our Treaty Rights, 20–22.

11. 11 These include Ts’udé Nilįné Tueyata, a sacred area co-managed by the Dene community of K’asho Got’ı̨nę and the Fort Good Hope Métis Land Corporation #54, near what is now called Fort Good Hope, NWT; the Edéhzhíe Dehcho Protected Area, in Dehcho Dene homelands between Fort Simpson and Fort Providence; and Thaidene Nëné, a protected area in southeastern NWT, co-managed by Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation, Northwest Territory Métis Nation, Deninu Kųę First Nation, and Yellowknives Dene First Nation.

12. 12 Mi’kmaq stewardship and conservation organizations established the Sespite’tmnej Kmit Knu Conservancy in 2021 and are currently working toward the establishment of an IPCA in an area of interest in what is not called Cape Breton, in unceded Mi’kmaq territory.

13. 13 See Conservation Through Reconciliation Partnership, Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, https://conservation-reconciliation.ca/about-ipcas.

14. 14 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 107.

15. 15 Some scholars and Indigenous communities have discussed the challenges related to Parks Canada’s co-management and Indigenous consultation in recent decades across the country. See for example, Youdelis, “Take You out for Coffee”; Youdelis, et al., “Wilderness’ revisited”; Johnston and Mason, “The Paths to Realizing Reconciliation.”

16. 16 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, “Report of the joint WHC/IUCN Reactive Monitoring mission to Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada 25 September–4 October 2016,” Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, World Heritage Committee. Forty-first session. Krakow, Poland: 2–12 July 2017, https://whc.unesco.org/en/documents/156893.

17. 17 Judith Lavoie, “UN says Canada isn’t doing enough to save Wood Buffalo National Park,” The Narwhal, 14 June 2019. Available at: https://thenarwhal.ca/un-says-canada-isnt-doing-enough-to-save-wood-buffalo-national-park/.

18. 18 “UNESCO says industry and poor governance ‘likely’ endanger Wood Buffalo National Park,” Fort McMurray Today, 22 June 2021, https://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/news/unesco-says-industry-poor-governance-likely-endanger-wood-buffalo-national-park.

19. 19 International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, Advisory Body Evaluation World Heritage Nomination: 256 Wood Buffalo National Park (15 April 1993), 2, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/256/documents/

20. 20 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 104.

21. 21 UNESCO, “Report of the joint WHC/IUCN Reactive Monitoring Mission.”

22. 22 See 2017, 2019, and 2021 World Heritage State of Conservation Reports for 256 Wood Buffalo National Park, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/256/documents/.

23. 23 UNESCO World Heritage Convention, Decision 44 COM 7B.190.

24. 24 Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin, 108.

Notes to Appendix 1

1. 1 Leslie Brown and Susan Strega, “Introduction,” in Research as Resistance: Revisiting Critical, Indigenous, and Anti-Oppressive Approaches, 2^nd edition, eds. Leslie Brown and Susan Strega (Toronto: Women’s Press – Canadian Scholars Press, 2015), 7.

2. 2 Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2^nd Edition (London: Zed Books, 2012), xi, xii.

3. 3 Adam Gaudry, “Researching the Resurgence: Insurgent Research and Community-Engaged Methodologies,” in Research as Resistance, 244.

4. 4 Younging, Elements of Indigenous Style.

5. 5 Brown and Strega, “Introduction,” 5. Among many other examples, see Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies; Shawn Wilson, Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2008); Margaret Kovach, Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations and Contexts (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009); Jason Arday, “Dismantling Power and privilege through reflexivity: negotiating normative Whiteness, the Eurocentric curriculum and racial micro-aggressions within the Academy,” Whiteness and Education 3, no. 2 (2018): 141–61; Keith Carlson, John Lutz, David Schaepe, Naxaxalhts’i (Sonny McHalsie), eds., Towards a New Ethnohistory: Community Engaged Scholarship among the People of the River (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2018); Sarah Nickel and Amanda Fehr, eds., In Good Relation: History, Gender, and Kinship in Indigenous Feminisms (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2020); Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Eve Tuck and K.W. Yang, eds., Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education: Mapping the Long View (New York: Routledge, 2019).

6. 6 Gaudry, “Researching the Resurgence,” 249.

7. 7 Madeline Rose Knickerbocker, “Making Matriarchs at Coqualeetza: Stó:lō Women’s Politics and Histories across Generations,” in In Good Relation, 29.

8. 8 Kwagu’ɬ Gixsam Clan and Leslie Robertson, Standing Up with Ga’axsta’las: Jane Constance Cook and the Politics of Memory, Church and Custom (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012), 16.

9. 9 Gaudry, “Researching the Resurgence,” 244.

10. 10 Gaudry, “Researching the Resurgence,” 248.

11. 11 The Northern Affairs Branch of the Department of the Interior administered the Park for the first four decades of its existence until administrative responsibility was transferred to the Parks Branch in 1964.

12. 12 See, for example, Serena Hillman, Azadeh Forghani, Carolyn Pang and Carman Neustaedter, “Conducting Interviews with Remote Participants,” in Studying and Designing Technology for Domestic Life, eds. Tejinder K. Judge and Carman Neustaedter (Waltham, MA: Morgan Kaufman, Elsevier, 2015), 11–32; Jasmine R. Linabery and Stephanie A. Hamel, “Feminist Online Interviewing: Engaging Issues of Power, Resistance and Reflexivity in Practice,” Feminist Review 115, no. 1 (2017): 97–113.

13. 13 Government negotiations are ongoing as of summer 2023.

Notes to Appendix 2

1. 1 Interview transcripts held in the ACFN Wood Buffalo National Park Apology Project interview collection. Fort Chipewyan: ACFN, 2021.