Public tapped for Tombstone Park thoughts

More than 12,000 people visited the Yukon’s Tombstone Territorial Park interpretative centre in 2012.

Many more passed through the park, bisected by the Dempster Highway.

Straddling the continental divide, part of the park is in the Yukon River watershed and the other part is in the Peel.  The upper Blackstone River – both  the east and west branch – as well as the Blackstone uplands and part of the Hart River winter trail lie within the park’s boundaries. (Click here for map)

Since the 2,200-sq.km. park north of Dawson City was established by the Yukon and Tr’ondek Hwech’in governments in the late 1990s,  its popularity has gone nowhere but up.

And that’s not expected to change.

Managing that growth is part of the challenge faced by the park’s joint management committee.

It’s currently reviewing the three-year-old management plan and its 91 “action items” to see how things are panning out.

Only about six items have been completed to date.

The intrepretative centre is a big draw.

One of the first and largest was the building of a new interpretative centre. The multimillion-dollar facility opened for business in 2011 and staff housing at the site has also now been completed, says a draft progress report by the committee.

Workers have also developed interpretative programs, improved signage, streamlined permitting and experimented with online registration for some backcountry users.

But much remains to be done.

Among the top priorities is developing plans to deal with visitor service activity and to manage heritage sites and resources.

The report says other priorities should include identifying the financial and human resources required to make other items in the management plan a reality, as well as developing necessary regulations.

The two governments have worked well together so far, and need to continue to co-operate, the report says.

“Effective collaboration between Parks Branch and Tr’ondek Hwech’in has been a key factor in the successful implementation of the park management plan and the parties remain committed to working together to implement the plan,” it says.

Before preparing its final progress report, the committee wants to know what the public thinks about the park’s plans and priorities.

It’s holding public meetings/open houses in Whitehorse and Dawson City.

It’s also put up a website dedicated to the management plan’s review. The site, www.tombstonepark.ca, has links to the 2009 management plan, its 91 action items, the 2013 draft progress report as well as an online survey and contact information.

The Whitehorse meeting is March 6 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Yukon Inn.

There are two meetings in Dawson City – both are at the Danoja Zho Cultural Centre. One for the general public is on March 12 from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. and another for Tr’ondek Hwech’in citizens is on March 13 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. with dinner at 5:30 p.m.

The public has until April 7 to submit comments.

A dozen +1 Peel dispatches

When the Yukon government swings the door shut on Peel land use plan consultations Feb. 25, it'll complete yet another chapter in what seems to be the never-ending saga of the watershed's future.

Since late November it's held open houses/public meetings in communities around the Yukon and the Northwest Territories with a stake in the region.

Here's a collection of stories written from the consultation's frontlines during the past few months.

They came, they saw, they puzzled

WHITEHORSE - “What the hell is a RUWA?”

That’s what one clearly irritated wag wanted to know after wandering into the Yukon government’s five-day open house on the Peel watershed land use plan, from the next door Gold Pan Saloon, and leafing through the public comment questionnaire.

Sure enough, the first of its four questions reads: “The RUWA designation’s purpose is to actively manage all land uses while protecting the values of the area. Do you have any suggestions on how the RUWA designation can achieve this goal?”

He had a point.

Even when told it stood for Restricted Use Wilderness Area, the guy remained perplexed because, of course, that didn’t mean anything to him either. Click here to read full story.

Consultations don't cut it: Peel chair
WHITEHORSE - Dave Loeks had hoped this round of consultations on the Yukon's Peel watershed land use plan would be the last.

Now he doesn’t think so.

“I frankly don’t recognize what’s going on next door,” Loeks told a packed house at the Gold Rush Inn on Nov. 28, referring to the Yukon government’s Peel open house on the other side of the wall.

“It does not conform to the requirements of the Umbrella Final Agreement so I don’t think it counts,” he said.

“We’re going to have to do this again if they’re actually going to fulfill the UFA, so we’ll see each other again.”

As chair of the Peel planning commission, Loeks spent six years studying the vast region, considering the options for its future and consulting with all stakeholders and the public on numerous occasions. Click here to read full story.

Say no to Paz's Peel plans: youth group
WHITEHORSE - Malcolm Boothroyd is spreading a simple message.

Reject what he calls the “Pasloski plans.”

Better yet, rip them up. Literally. To illustrate the point.

That’s what the young Yukoner did in front of several hundred people who had braved minus 30 temperatures to pack a public meeting on the Peel in Whitehorse on Nov. 28.

Boothroyd, a founder of the Peel Youth Alliance, doesn’t want the Yukon to miss the opportunity to create a great wilderness legacy by protecting an entire watershed.

He reminded the audience that in many other parts of the continent all that’s left to protect is a single creek or a pond.

Click here to read full story.

Former chief: 'Are we working together?'
MAYO –  It’s been almost 20 years since Robert Hager signed the Na-Cho Nyak Dun’s land claim agreement.

But things sure haven’t panned out as promised.

That’s what the former chief told about 70 people who attended a public meeting on the Peel watershed land use plan at the community hall Dec. 3. 

“When I signed that final agreement, about 400 people, they said sign it because the government was going to work with us and we were all going to work together. Are we working together?” he said.

Hager, now 72, spent years hammering out that deal – a deal which included an agreement to jointly plan the Peel’s future land use.

“Now you people are telling us you disagree with the commission’s plan. Why don’t you join us and work with us and make this thing happen,” he said. The alternative is a long and costly court battle. Click here to read full story.

'Go back to where it was good'
DAWSON CITY - Chris Clarke is mad. Really mad.

“Basically I’m disgusted,” she told Yukon government officials at its Dawson open house on the Peel land use plan on Dec. 4.

“I find that what’s happening is despicable.  It’s disrespectful. I’ve never actually been so angry in my life at what’s going on here.”

The government’s hijacked the planning process and tossed out promises to work with First Nations, she said.

But she doesn’t think the public is going to let it off the hook this time.

“People are going to fight,” said Clarke.

“That’s unfortunate for the government. I think the message that you’re getting is: ‘Go back to where it was good, where people didn’t hate you because what you’re doing is creating enemies and you’re dividing society and it’s not the right thing to do.'" Click here to read full story.

Dawson blasts government's Peel plans 
DAWSON CITY – Just hours after Yukon government workers had packed up their Peel maps and heaved a huge sigh of relief that they’d survived seven days of public grilling, a 5.1 magntitude earthquake rattled the mountains in the heart of the watershed.

The second shaker to strike the region since consultations began in late October, it seemed like a fitting end to the government’s frenetic first phase of gathering public feedback on a final land use plan.

An exclamation mark of sorts - punctuating the mix of anger, frustration and, in some cases, sheer bewilderment,  expressed by people who attended the open houses in Dawson, Mayo and Whitehorse during the past week and a half. Click here to read full story.

'An open house is not consultation'
OLD CROW – Vuntut Gwitchin elder and Yukon dogmushing legend Stephen Frost is a straight shooter.

The 81-year-old admits he doesn’t know much about the far away Peel River watershed, but he’s certainly no stranger to the land that lies in between.

So instead of giving his two bits about the Peel to the six-member Yukon government contingent at their open-house-turned-public-meeting on Monday, Frost said he wanted to tell a story.

It was 1954. He was with Charlie Abel, who later became chief of the First Nation.

They were travelling by dogteam between Johnson Creek and the Whitestone River when they ran into the first seismic crew clawing its way through the Eagle Plain region by bulldozer.

The newcomers were friendly enough. They even showed the young mushers how to drive to a Cat and work the blade.

But the chance encounter marked the start of a new era that doesn’t hold many other fond memories. 

Click here to read full story.

Stick with final Peel plan, says Old Crow

OLD CROW – The Peel watershed may be miles away from this remote village on the Porcupine River, but support for the final recommended land use plan seems to be as strong as anywhere else.

In part because the Peel is part of the Vuntut Gwitchin’s traditional territory and in part because it includes some of the Porcupine caribou herd’s winter range.

Despite howling winds and blowing snow, several dozen people turned up at the Yukon government’s open house, held at the community hall Jan. 14.

But they weren’t interested in visiting the “stations” set up to provide information on what one bureaucrat referred to as the two plans – the commission’s and the government’s.

Nor were they prepared to simply converse with one of the six officials on an individual basis.

They wanted a public presentation so the people could understand why the government had come to the community of 250 and what it wanted. Click here to read full story.

Gwich'in urge Yukon to accept Peel plan

TSIIGEHTCHIC, N.W.T.  – Gwich’in Tribal Council vice-president Norman Snowshoe was in no mood for government bafflegab when he turned up at the Yukon’s open house on the Peel land plan.

After politely sharing a lunch of caribou stew and cupcakes with Yukon officials and community residents in the school gym Jan. 22, Snowshoe and other local leaders simply rearranged the seating, called the meeting to order and proceeded to say what they’d come to say.

The Gwich’in of the Northwest Territories support the final recommended Peel land use plan.

They’re not prepared to settle for anything less.

“We recommend to the Yukon government that they finalize the commission’s plan as agreed to in the framework, as agreed to in the planning process, and as agreed to in all the meetings we’ve had over the years to develop this,” said Snowshoe.

As for the government’s recent unilateral “rewrite” of that plan , he made it clear the four Gwich’in First Nations his council represents, including the Gwichya Gwich’in of Tsiigehtchic, most definitely do not support that. Click here to read full story.

Gwich'in support Peel plan

INUVIK, N.W.T. – Tetlit Gwich’in elder Robert Alexie Sr. stands scanning one of the Peel River watershed land use planning maps that’s taped to the wall of the Mackenzie Hotel boardroom.

He’s made the 175-kilometre drive from Fort McPherson to attend the Peel open house on Jan. 24. That’s because the Yukon government cancelled the one it was supposed to hold in his community the day before, saying it was too cold for its workers to travel from Inuvik.

But the frigid temperatures last Thursday didn’t faze Alexie Sr. who has never missed an opportunity to tell stories about his traditional territory and why he wants it protected.

Finding the spot on the map he’d been searching for, he summons his nephew, Robert Alexie Jr., over to have a look. Pointing to a place along the upper Peel, between the Hart and Blackstone Rivers, the senior shows the junior where one of their family members is buried.

The Alexie family and the Tetlit Gwich’in - people of the headwaters – have a long, long history in the region. Click here to read full story.

'Do the right thing: withdraw your plan'
INUVIK, N.W.T. – It doesn’t seem to matter where the Yukon government sets up its Peel consultation shop, the message it receives is pretty much the same.

Protect the watershed. Accept the final recommended land use plan. Take the “concepts”off  the table.

It was no different here.  

Once the people got to speak that is.

As in Mayo and Dawson, Old Crow and Tsiigehtchic, the First Nations had to do a little arm twisting, so to speak, before the government agreed to turn its open house into an impromptu public meeting. But each time it seems to be put up less of a fight.

All it took was a request from the Inuvik-based Gwich’in Tribal Council and the bureaucrats lined up two rows of chairs and patiently waited for president Robert Alexie Jr. and his delegation to arrive. Click here to read full story.

'Please, please listen to our people'

FORT MCPHERSON, N.W.T. – In a community where you’ll find Protect the Peel stickers on everything from playground equipment to coffee mugs and ball caps to garbage can stands, it seemed perfectly natural that a meeting on the watershed’s future would attract a standing-room-only crowd.

The town of 850 – mostly Tetlit Gwich’in who are originally from the headwaters – is, afterall, the only settlement in the entire transboundary region.

Perched on the banks of the lower Peel, fish camps still dot the shoreline at the Dempster ferry crossing and the river still serves as a highway – summer and winter – for hunters and others who want to get out on the land.

So when six Yukon government officials arrived by charter plane from Whitehorse Feb. 12, they shouldn’t have been surprised to find the community hall walls already plastered with student artwork on the Peel, leaving little room for their land use planning maps.

Nor was there any debate about whether the four-hour event would be an open house or a public meeting. Click here to read full story.

Fort McPherson rallies for Peel protection
FORT MCPHERSON, N.W.T. - Fort McPherson residents turned out in force for a Yukon government meeting Tuesday on the Peel River watershed land use plan.

More than 200 people crammed into the Johnny D. Charlie community hall – from school children to elderly grannies – to discuss the river that flows past their front door.

Even though most of the watershed lies in the Yukon, McPherson’s Tetlit Gwich’in have strong historical ties to the entire region.

They still rely on caribou from that land and the fish from the river. And they know that whatever happens upstream could eventually come down the river to haunt them.

“We are the first community that will be affected by any sort of development,” Tetlit Gwich’in official Diane Koe told the six-member Yukon contingent who flew in from Whitehorse for the four-hour meeting.

“The world is changing drastically and it’s because of development and it’s because of industries that ruin land and water all over this world,” she said.

“As Gwich’in people, we want to keep the Peel watershed free from development.” Click here to read full story.

'Please, please listen to our people'

FORT MCPHERSON, N.W.T. – In a community where you’ll find Protect the Peel stickers on everything from playground equipment to coffee mugs and ball caps to garbage can stands, it seemed perfectly natural that a meeting on the watershed’s future would attract a standing-room-only crowd.

The town of 850 – mostly Tetlit Gwich’in who are originally from the headwaters – is, afterall, the only settlement in the entire transboundary region.

Perched on the banks of the lower Peel, fish camps still dot the shoreline at the Dempster ferry crossing and the river still serves as a highway – summer and winter – for hunters and others who want to get out on the land.

So when six Yukon government officials arrived here by charter plane from Whitehorse Tuesday, they shouldn’t have been surprised to find the community hall walls already plastered with student artwork on the Peel, leaving little room for their land use planning maps.

Nor was there any debate about whether the four-hour event would be an open house or a public meeting.

Rows of chairs had already been set out and by the time the bureaucrats established their “information stations” and enjoyed the community lunch, more than 200 people had filed into the hall and taken a seat.

With Tetlit Gwich’in First Nation official Diane Koe serving as MC, they listened as speaker after speaker stepped up to the microphone - young and old alike – to talk about the Peel and their relationship to it.

Seventy-two-year-old Bertha Francis had walked several blocks, with the help of her cane, for the chance to tell the Yukon government what the watershed means to her.

Born at Royal Mountain in the Wind River valley and raised further north, in the Road River area, she’s seen the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

The mess left behind by Shell Oil at Caribou River and the government’s initial reluctance to help the community clean it up remains burned in her memory.

That should never be allowed to happen again, she said.

“We’re asking, we’re pleading to you, to talk for us, so that nothing happens in the Peel River. We depend on it,” Francis said.

“Please, please, listen to our people…I really believe that if we keep that area good and clean our people are going to live good…I’m saying this from my heart – hear me please.”

Her sister, Mary Teya, is the town’s Anglican minister and head of the elders’ council.

Through her travels, she’s met people who live with the toxic legacy of northern Alberta’s tarsands.

“They told me the companies have the money and once they start development there’s no stopping it,” she said.

The Yukon government needs to work with First Nations to ensure that doesn’t happen in the Peel.

“We want a working relationship with everyone,” she said. “In time, we will have to work together.”

To Kyla Ross, a young woman with deep family roots in the Yukon portion of the Peel, preserving the region and all it represents to the Gwich’in is worth more than all the money in the world.

Although she recognizes there’s a need for industry, she knows there’s also a need for clean water and air and healthy plants, animals and people.

“I support the plan made by the Peel watershed planning commission. I support 80 per cent protection,” she said.

“I don’t support fracking. I don’t support hydro-electric dams or development of any kind. I don’t support road access in the Peel River watershed. And I don’t support this new plan made by the Yukon government.”

Ross also read a statement from the Tetlit Gwich’in Renewable Resource Council, of which she is a member.

It’s disappointed and alarmed the Yukon government has pushed aside the Peel commission’s plan after years of work, including from its members.

The government’s new proposals “do not reflect any feedback that was given all those years,” it said.

The only plan it’s prepared to discuss or accept “is the one we helped create – the Peel planning commission’s final plan.”

Accepting that plan would be a feather in the Yukon’s cap, it said. The territory would be recognized, at home and abroad, as “responsible and forward-thinking.”

Elder Elizabeth Collins didn’t have a statement per say, but after to listening to nearly 20 other speakers, she did have a question.

“Is it [Fort McPherson] going to be listened to or are they [Yukon government] just going to go ahead and do what they’re going to do?”

Nobody from the government stepped up to answer.

This was the last meeting in the series of community meeting the government’s had about the Peel plan.

It was supposed visit McPherson last month but cancelled at the last minute, saying it was too cold for its workers to drive from Inuvik.

Said Diane Koe: “If they can’t travel in those conditions, how do they expect to develop up there [in the Peel] when it’s 70 below - they’ll all freeze on the spot.”

The public has until Feb. 25 to submit written comments on the Peel plan.

McPherson rallies for Peel protection

FORT MCPHERSON, N.W.T. - Fort McPherson residents turned out in force for a Yukon government meeting Tuesday on the Peel River watershed land use plan.

More than 200 people crammed into the Johnny D. Charlie community hall – from school children to elderly grannies – to discuss the river that flows past their front door.

Even though most of the watershed lies in the Yukon, McPherson’s Tetlit Gwich’in have strong historical ties to the entire region.

They still rely on caribou from that land and the fish from the river. And they know that whatever happens upstream could eventually come down the river to haunt them.

“We are the first community that will be affected by any sort of development,” Tetlit Gwich’in official Diane Koe told the six-member Yukon contingent who flew in from Whitehorse for the four-hour meeting.

“The world is changing drastically and it’s because of development and it’s because of industries that ruin land and water all over this world,” she said.

“As Gwich’in people, we want to keep the Peel watershed free from development.”

The Tetlit Gwich’in Renewable Resource Council said the only plan it supports is the one it helped to create.

It worked with the Peel commission for years, sharing its knowledge and providing input at every stage in the planning process.

“It is disappointing and alarming…to see that work pushed aside for the government’s new plan, which clearly ignores the years of consultation with us and everyone else who was consulted,” said the council’s Wilbert Firth in a written statement.

The government’s new proposals “do not reflect any of the feedback that we have given after all those years of consultation,” he said. “This is not protection, this is development.”

For Abe Stewart Jr., clean water is key.

“If we look after our land and our water, they in turn will look after us. That’s the way it’s been for generations and generations and that’s still the way it is today,” he said.

And it won’t be any different for future generations.

“They’ll carry this fight on for as long as the river flows, they’ll carry it on,” he said. “It’s never the end. It’s never the end for us.”

Elder Eileen Koe said the Peel’s wilderness helped her heal.

She credits a four-month stay in the Snake River area in the 1970s as changing her “unbalanced life.”

Grappling with the impact of years spent at residential school, coupled with the recent loss of two people she loved, her father sent her upriver to the Snake to get her out of the community.

The “harsh, but beautiful” landscape helped her deal with her overwhelming grief, she said.

“I came out of there with a better understanding of who I was and what I needed to do,” said Koe, who now helps others who are grieving.

The McPherson meeting was the last one the Yukon government is holding in the communities.

It’s accepting public submissions on the Peel plan until Feb. 25. All that input will be posted on its website shortly after that.

It then plans to enter government-to-government negotiations with the four affected First Nations – Mayo’s Na-Cho Nyak Dun, Dawson’s Tr’ondek Hwech’in, Old Crow’s Vuntut Gwitchin and the Gwich’in Tribal Council.

The First Nations have already said they support the commission’s Peel plan and have threatened to take the Yukon to court if it tries to push through its new proposal.

Fort McPherson fills the hall

More than 200 people packed into Fort McPherson's community hall for a Yukon government meeting on the future of the Peel watershed. Their message was loud and clear: protect it.

Peel advocate dies of cancer

The former executive director of CPAWS-Yukon, Mike Dehn, died Feb. 4 after a long struggle with cancer.

Dehn spearheaded the organization's work to protect the Peel watershed since 2007. He retired three months ago due to his illness, just before the government launched the last round of public consultations.

In a tribute sent out by CPAWS-Yukon and the Yukon Conservation Society, they said Dehn will remembered for "his compassionate nature, his fighting spirit and his unwavering dedication to the protection of the Peel watershed, to which he devoted the last years of his life."

Fueled by his passion for wildlands and wildlife, he used his determination, courage and brilliant intellect to try to save "one small piece of the world," they said.

"His was not a fight against individuals, it was against the mindset of industrial 'progress' at all costs, which threatens wildands and life support systems the world over...

"He chose the Peel because of the opportunity it presented - to save a large tract of wilderness and wildlife habitat before it became fragmented and parcelled off to industrial interests."

Dehn never doubted the Peel would one day be protected and was inspired by the amount of support behind that belief.

They said the greatest tribute people can make to Dehn is to tell the Yukon government to accept the Peel commission's final recommended land use plan.

The government is accepting submissions until Feb. 25. They can be sent to peel.consultation@gov.yk.ca.

A formal celebration of life for Dehn will be held, but no date has yet been set.

A memorial fund has been set up in his name to raise money to help protect the Peel watershed.

TIA Yukon rejects YG's Peel plans

The Yukon government’s new plans for the Peel watershed could have serious consequences for tourism operators if implemented, says the territory's largest tourism organization.

The new plans the government launched in late October don't address the needs of tourism in the region, said the Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon in a recent news release titled New Peel plans would create uncertainty for Yukon tourism.

“We have actively attended presentations and earnestly listened to Yukon government’s explanations of their new concepts, seeking to understand how tourism operators would have certainty for sustainable operations on the rivers of the Peel watershed,” said TIA chair Neil Hartling in the release.

“We have carefully reviewed the new concepts on the table and do not see an option that provides certainty for tourism operators in the river corridors.”

The Wind, Snake, Hart, Bonnetplume and Blackstone rivers attract tourists from all over the world.

"Trip itineraries in the Peel region include numerous hikes up onto the ridges so visitors can enjoy the dramatic views of the wide open valleys," said Blake Rogers, executive director of TIA Yukon.

“Infrastructure such as roads and camps cannot be hidden in these broad, sparsely treed valleys,” he said.

“Development of right-of-ways, bridges and camps, accompanied by diesel transports, would lead to the deterioration and inevitable termination of these trips.” 

TIA Yukon is also concerned the parameters of “active management” in the government’s new plans have not been clearly defined.

It’s also worried about the ability and willingness of future governments to pay for resources that would be needed to co-ordinate and enforce these “active management” areas.

Thee government’s plans leave “too many unanswered questions” for tourism, the release said.

“The only plan that would provide the necessary amount of certainty for the industry is the Peel Planning Commission’s final recommended plan,” it said.

The government should support that plan – the one most Yukoners and the four affected First Nations also endorse, it said.