The Abundance of the Land

In a small blue cabin on the western shore of Ɂedacho Tué (Artillery Lake), Northwest Territories, a group of women from the Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation are busy processing the hindquarter of a recently harvested hazú ts’ı̨ ɂehjëre (muskox). It’s mid-March and twenty community members, including four students from the Łutsël K’é Dene School, and a handful of guests have travelled to Ɂedacho Tué (Artillery Lake) by snowmobile and ski-plane for a spring hunt and culture camp.

It’s 12-year-old Naomi Michel’s first time making drymeat. “Where do I start?” she asks Elder Terri Enzoe, a knife in hand. “Everyone’s got their own way of making drymeat,” the older woman tells Naomi as she demonstrates her technique. Returning the knife and meat, Terri looks on, offering quiet direction as Naomi uses the blade to thin the deep red flesh.

By lunchtime, strips of hazú ts’ı̨ ɂehjëre (muskox) have replaced frosted goggles and iced-up neck warmers on the racks over the woodstove. If carefully tended—drymeat needs to be turned periodically—the meat will darken and turn to leather, perfectly preserved for travel on the land and life in town.

The Guardians of Thaidene Nëné

Ɂedacho Tué (Artillery Lake), which marks the boundary between boreal forest and hazú (tundra), is part of the Thaidene Nëné Indigenous Protected Area, designated by Łutsël K’é in 2019 using their own Dene Laws. Through agreements with Parks Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories, portions of Thaidene Nëné were also designated a national park reserve, territorial protected area, and territorial wildlife conservation area.

The lake has two important ɂetthën (caribou) crossings, one at the north end, the other not far from the campsite. But as Ni Hat’ni Dene, the Indigenous guardians of Thaidene Nëné, and community members have observed, ɂetthën (caribou) rarely come this way now, just as they no longer come to Łutsël K’é, a community of almost 400 people on the East Arm of Tu Nedhé (Great Slave Lake).

Changing migration patterns and declining numbers prompted Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation to develop "Yúnethé Xá Ɂetthën Hádı," a community conservation and stewardship plan for ɂetthën (caribou). As the plan notes, the Łutsël K’é Dene “rely on ɂetthën (caribou) for physical, cultural, linguistic, emotional, and spiritual sustenance,” and have since time immemorial.

Critical Knowledge Sharing

"Now they are all around"

“When I was a kid,” Iris Catholique, Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation’s manager for Thaidene Nëné, recalls, “we were allowed one muskox per family per year. We had to come up [to Artillery Lake] at Easter to get that animal. Now they are all around Łutsël K’é.”

The group that travelled to the camp by snow mobile—which included Ni Hat’ni Dene and Ni Hadi Xá, the traditional knowledge monitors for Gacho Kué mine—noticed hazú ts’ı̨ ɂehjëre (muskox) tracks as they arrived to Ɂedacho Tué (Artillery Lake). Two days later, they re-traced their steps, eventually coming across a herd of 15 animals. The animal that opened this story was one of three bulls harvested that day.

A Hankering for Tundra Trout

While fresh hazú ts’ı̨ ɂehjëre (muskox) is appreciated, Elder and Camp Coordinator JC Catholique is hankering for tundra trout, so mid-way through the week a net is set off Ɂedacho Chela (Artillery Point). With more than a metre of ice on the lake and a thick layer of snow on top of that—the abundance of snow this year is just one of the changes in the land noted by elders and guardians—setting the net is slow going. The harvest over two days is small, but the retrieval of a 30-pound trout puts a smile on the fishers’ faces. JC and his daughter, Saniz, fix the fish, smoking the larger trout for Łutsël K’é elders and cooking what remains on the fire for those in camp.

The Abundance of the Land