 “The land is very fertile. It is very good land, very beautiful land…The land is our home. We have to protect what we have lived on all our life,” Łutsël K’é Elder Albert Boucher told the members of Thaidene Nëné Xá Dá Yáłtı—the operational management board for the Thaidene Nëné Indigenous Protected Area—during a recent meeting in his home community.
Thaidene Nëné Xá Dá Yáłtı means the people that speak for Thaidene Nëné in Dënesųłıné yatı. Though appointed by the Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation, the Government of Canada, and the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT)—the three parties to the establishment agreements—the seven board members speak only for the land, the water, the plants, the animals, and the people that call Thaidene Nëné home, not for the parties that appointed them. The board’s first meeting in February 2021 was largely an orientation. Presentations about the history of the Indigenous protected area and the establishment agreements that created Thaidene Nëné helped the new board members understand the origins of Xá Dá Yáłtı, as well as its mandate and authorities. The board members’ orientation continued at the April meeting with implementation updates from each of the parties. Senior staff from Łutsël K’é, Parks Canada, and the GNWT brought the board members up to date on activities related to policy development, staffing, infrastructure, and programming. The focus of this meeting, though, was the board’s governance policies. These policies are critical to the board’s work, which includes developing a management plan for Thaidene Nëné and making decisions about cultural promotion, ecological protection, access and use permits, and research and monitoring. The establishment agreements for Thaidene Nëné make clear that Xá Dá Yáłtı is to develop “its own operating procedures and rules for the performance of its functions.” Work on these procedures began in February with discussions of guiding principles, member roles and responsibilities, and how meetings will be conducted. A draft governance document was reviewed and refined at the April meeting. The board members also discussed consensus decision making in more detail. Thaidene Nëné Xá Dá Yáłtı was designed with Indigenous governance in mind. The first point in the board process section of the establishment agreements states: “Thaidene Nëné Xá Dá Yáłtı will make all decisions by consensus.” JC Catholique, one of Łutsël K’é’s appointees to the operational management board, explains how consensus decision making works in Dene communities, “When any kind of situation happens, we come together. We talk about it and come to an agreement. Everyone has a say and we all agree to the final outcome.” Elder Albert Boucher attended the meetings, which are open to the public, listening through translation as the parties provided updates and the board members discussed governance. On both days, he asked to speak to the board. Albert spoke about the importance of the land to Łutsël K’é Dene and the history of the protected area. He also explained the spirit and intent of the elders’ original mandate to protect Thaidene Nëné. On Friday, he told the board, “The elders have given us the words and we have to keep those words. We are the ones that are carrying on our elders words.” Drawing on those words, he encouraged the board members to work together, to make decision by consensus, and to engage the community, including elders and youth, as they chart a path forward for Thaidene Nëné. Albert’s presence at and participation in the meetings are further evidence of the ways in which Thaidene Nëné Xá Dá Yáłtı is re-imagining protected and conserved areas. As Steve Ellis, senior advisor to the Łutsël K’é Dene First nation, observed after Albert spoke on Thursday: “You can’t make any decisions without elders. That’s Indigenous governance.” This is part of a series of profiles about the staff, leaders, and community members who are hard at work implementing Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation's vision for the Thaidene Nëné Indigenous Protected Area. You can read the other profiles here.  Paul Catholique is the newest Ni Hat’ni Dene guardian. Paul brings a wealth of experience living and working on the land to the crew. For a decade, he spent his summer months working as a guide at Frontier Fishing Lodge, showing guests the best fishing spots on Tu Nedhé (Great Slave Lake) and sharing the history and the culture of the area with them. He also spent ten years working for forestry, first as a fire crew member and later as a crew boss and supervisor.
In between contracts, Paul would hunt and trap, using the skills he learned from his father, John Catholique (his mother is Bertha Collins [Tłı̨chǫ]). “From a young age, we went trapping,” he says, often working out of a cabin on Ts’ǫ Ɂáı Tué (Noman Lake). His uncle, Antoine Michel, also played a critical role in teaching Paul how to live off the land, especially beyond the treeline. “He used to take us out to the barrenlands every year,” Paul recalls. “As soon as it was frozen, we would go to the barrenlands by skidoo. We went often, sometimes three to fifteen times a year.” Paul credits his uncle Antoine with teaching him to navigate in the springtime, when it’s more dangerous to travel on the land—“You have been really knowledgeable at that time of year,” he says—and also with showing him the old routes and roads. Equally important to his education as a harvester and land user was knowledge shared by Łutsël K’é Dene elders: “When I was in town, I would listen to the elders talk and tell stories.” His greatest teacher, though, was the land itself. In Paul’s words, “I learned from going all over on the land, trapping, travelling, and just living on the land.” When asked about his favourite places in Thaidene Nëné, almost all of Paul’s picks are beyond the treeline: Ɂedacho Tué (Artillery Lake), Dené Bésda Tué Chogh (Fletcher Lake), Ɂejëre K’áanı́ Tué (Campbell Lake), and K’ásba Dezé (Ptarmigan River). Contrary to the image suggested by the name barrenlands, Paul see the tundra as a place of abundance, “Everything I need is there.” Hazú (tundra) is also special because of the connection to his ancestors. Paul’s great-grandfather Gahdële is buried on Ɂedacho Tué. Paul wanted to be a Ni Hat’ni Dene guardian because the job description is basically his life. “This position was made for me,” he says. More than this, Paul, like many in the community, wants to protect the land and Ni Hat’ni Dene play a critical role in that. “We need to protect the land, the water, the animals, the trees,” Paul explains. “We need to protect the old campsites, the old burial sites.” Working alongside the other guardians, Paul will be responsible for mentoring the summer students. By creating hands-on learning opportunities, he notes, Ni Hat’ni Dene “can help make it safer to send younger people out on their land.” Being a skilled and conscientious land user is important to Paul; so is modelling Łutsël K’é Dene values. As just one example, he notes that “Ni Hat’ni are teaching young people how to put nets in the water, so they can share the fish with the community, with the elders.” Paul also sees the important role that Ni Hat’ni Dene play in welcoming visitors to Thaidene Nëné, while also teaching them how to live and travel safely on the land. “The things we teach the young people are good for visitors too,” he says. “We don’t want them to be left out. Everybody is welcome.” This is part of a series of profiles about the staff, leaders, and community members who are hard at work implementing Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation's vision for the Thaidene Nëné Indigenous Protected Area. You can read the other profiles here.  Terri Enzoe was born on hazú (the barrenlands). Her parents, Elizabeth (Nitah) Enzoe and Billy Enzoe, named their daughter Doris (pronounced Door-ass), the Dënesųłıné version of Terese. Later, travelling by canoe, the family moved to Reliance, where there was a trading post, then eventually to Snowdrift as Łutsël K’é was then known. In the fall time, the family would relocate to the bush to trap and harvest, returning to the community at Christmas. The rest of the year, Billy Enzoe did odd jobs. Terri was raised with a foot in two worlds, though her heart is on the tundra.
Today, Terri, who lives in Łutsël K’é with her partner Andy, takes every opportunity to be out on the land, most often travelling with her son, Kyle, who she describes as “made for the bush.” (Terri is mother to three other children and grandmother to six.) When she’s in town, Terri can be found fixing meat, tanning hides, and sewing—her expertly crafted designs are available through Caribou People Creations. Terri was a familiar face at the community meetings that were critical to the establishment of Thaidene Nëné. When she thinks about Thaidene Nëné, Terri recalls those meetings and the elders’ commitment to protecting the land for younger generations. “The elders knew that development was coming and that it might destroy our water and our animals,” Terri says. The elders called the area of land they wanted to protect, Thaidene Nëné. “Thaidene means long time ago, the old timers,” Terri explains. “Thaidene Nëné is where our ancestors used to live long time ago.” It was Terri’s sister, Gloria Enzoe (now Shearing), who started Ni Hat’ni Dene, which means “watchers of the land” in Dënesųłıné, in 2008. Terri and her son, Kyle, applied because they were looking for a man and a woman to serve as guardians. Terri saw the utility in that approach: “That way you can bring young girls and young men out, to teach them both how to live off the land.” Over ten summers, Terri worked closely with young women and men from the community, sharing her knowledge of how to live on the land, but also Dënesųłıné language and culture. She recalls, “We showed them spiritual places, burial sites, the places where our ancestors used to live. We showed them where you have to be quiet, where you have to pay the water. We showed them that this is a good place for stopping when it’s windy. This is a good place for fishing. And we’d tell them how it used to be long time ago.” Terri has many stories from the decade that she spent travelling the land and water with Ni Hat’ni Dene. There was the time, for instance, they were winded for five days at the Ni Hat’ni cabin at Talthelie Narrows. Terri, Kyle, and the four summer interns busied themselves setting and pulling a net for fish sampling. Together the group processed 17 trout and 67 jumbo whitefish. Just as they finished, they turned around and there was a moose. After fixing the meat, the group travelled back to town. “I went to the store and told everyone, ‘There’s lots of fish, lots of moose.’ I spent the rest of the day giving away fish and meat,” Terri remembers with a big grin. Today, Terri is a member of the Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation council and Sub-Chief of the community. In that capacity, she is supporting and helping to guide Łutsël K’é’s work in Thaidene Nëné. Terri believes strongly that the success of Thaidene Nëné is directly related to youth: “We have to motivate our young people. We have to tell them how we used to live and how we’re going to live today. The life cycle has all changed now—it’s so different—but we still have to keep our old ways of living if we want to keep Thaidene Nëné.” This sharing of knowledge is critical to the future of the Indigenous protected area. Terri likens the way forward to a path: “If you follow those footprints, it will go on to the next generation and the ones after that. If you don’t, it stops there. The path ends. Then there’s no Thaidene Nëné.” |
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November 2024
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