A Summary of the North Slave Métis Alliance's Recorded Cultural Knowledge on Climate A
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POLAR KNOWLEDGE Aqhaliat POLAR KNOWLEDGE Aqhaliat Ogawa, M. 1995. Science education in a multiscience Suter, G.W. and Cormier, S.M. 2011. Why and how perspective. Science Education 79:583–593. doi: to combine evidence in environmental assessments: CONTINUAL CHANGE AND GRADUAL WARMING: 10.1002/sce.3730790507. Weighing evidence and building cases. Science of the Total Environment 409:1406–1417. A summary of the North Slave Métis Alliance’s recorded Palmer, M., Galloway, J.M., Jamieson, H.E., Patterson, R.T., Falck, H., and Kokelj, S.V. 2015. The concentration Sutherland, D. 2002. Exploring culture, language, and cultural knowledge on climate and environmental change of arsenic in lake waters of the Yellowknife area 15 the perception of the nature of years after the end of gold ore processing. Northwest Territories Geological Survey. Open File 2015–16, 29 pp. science. International Journal of Science Education24:1– doi: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2582.5041. 25. doi:10.1080/09500690110067011. Snively, G. and Corsiglia, J. 1998. Discovering Indigenous Usher, P.J. 2000. Traditional ecological knowledge in science: Implications for science education. Science environmental assessment and management. Arctic North Slave Métis Alliance community members1 *, Shin Shiga1, Peter Evans2, Dave King2, and Beth Keats2 Education. Retrieved October 2010. ERIC database. 53:183–193. 1 North Slave Métis Alliance, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada 2 Trailmark Systems Inc., Victoria, British Columbia, Canada * [email protected] The Geoscience Tools for Environmental Assessment Project is being co-led by the Geological Survey of Canada and Carleton University, in collaboration with the Government of the Northwest Territories Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program, the Northwest Territories Geological Survey, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Canadian Museum of Nature, Queen’s University, University of Leeds, Seabridge Gold, TerraX Minerals Ltd., the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, the North Slave Métis Alliance, the Tlicho Government, the Tłįchǫ Research and Training Institute, and Hadlari Consulting, Ltd. The study area comprises the Slave Geological Province, with a focus on the areas around Yellowknife and Courageous Lake, Northwest Territories. Abstract Geoscience Tools for Environmental Risk Assessment warmth, such as the Holocene Hypsithermal and the of Metal Mining was a three-year (2015–2018) project Medieval Warm Period, as analogues for twenty-first- led by the Geological Survey of Canada and Carleton century warming and its projected trajectory. Traditional University (Polar Knowledge Canada Project #1516- knowledge represents important sources of information 149). The project was a collaborative effort to study on past climate and pre-industrial environments of the the impact of climate change on the transport and fate study regions. The North Slave Métis Alliance (NSMA) of arsenic at two sites contaminated by legacy mining initiated a traditional knowledge study to contribute to and mineral processing: Giant Mine, near Yellowknife, a collaborative project led by the Geological Survey of and Tundra Mine, northeast of Yellowknife in the Canada and Carleton University to better understand central NWT. This information may be used to assess the role of climate and land-use change on the the efficacy of remediation and establish benchmarks transport and fate of metal/metalloids in areas of high against which potential impacts of future resource resource potential and contaminant loads in northern development, land use, and climate change can be Canada. Métis cultural knowledge linked to climate and determined and regulated as necessary. A hind-casting associated environmental variability in the Northwest approach involving both traditional knowledge and Territories was used to provide long-term climate and western science offers the opportunity to further environmental data necessary for evaluating records evaluate the hypothesis that climate can mediate of past geochemical change. Data were extracted from chemical change through studies of past periods of Suggested citation: North Slave Métis Alliance community members, Shiga, S., Evans, P., King, D., and Keats, B. 2017. Continual change and gradual warming: A summary of the North Slave Métis Alliance’s recorded cultural knowledge on climate and environmental change. Report prepared for Geological Survey of Canada Geoscience Tools for Environmental Assessment of Metal Mining (compiled by Jennifer M. Galloway3 & R. Timothy Patterson4, Project Number #1519-149); Polar Knowledge: Aqhaliat 2018, Polar Knowledge Canada, p. 99–116. DOI: 10.35298/pkc.2018.13 98 REPORT 2018 REPORT 2018 99 POLAR KNOWLEDGE Aqhaliat POLAR KNOWLEDGE Aqhaliat historical interviews conducted with NSMA members par la Commission géologique du Canada et l’Université relationship with animals and other resources, are economy, exploration, and science as well as traditional and from a selection of primary and secondary literature Carleton visant à mieux comprendre le rôle des storehouses of invaluable insights into environmental land use, including subsistence. As a result, the Métis relevant to Métis historical experience. North Slave Métis changements climatiques et de l’utilisation des terres sur trends over la longue durée, the long term. traditional knowledge of climate change complements Alliance members’ cultural knowledge suggests that in le transport et le devenir des métaux et des métalloïdes climate observations of fur traders, post workers, and addition to variability in weather and corresponding dans les régions présentant un grand potentiel de In assessing the evidence of climate change in the Arctic, explorers. environmental conditions to be anticipated year to ressources et des charges de contaminants dans le nord Hinzman et al. (2005) find that, although a wide variety of year, climate change is producing an overall warming du Canada. Les connaissances culturelles des Métis liées regional changes have occurred over the course of the last Methodology and sources with impacts on seasonality, precipitation, water levels, au climat et à la variabilité environnementale connexe 400 years, many of these changes began or accelerated and ice quality, and as a result, impacts on the health, dans les Territoires du Nord-Ouest ont été utilisées pour in the mid-1970s. Some of the changes, such as later The NSMA holds a variety of records pertaining to the behaviour, and distribution of fish and wildlife. Results of fournir les données climatiques et environnementales à freeze-up and earlier break-up of Arctic rivers and lakes, history of Métis in the Northwest Territories and the the NSMA traditional knowledge study will be integrated long terme nécessaires à l’évaluation des changements mirror Arctic-wide and even worldwide increases in air role of Métis in the development and operation of the with western science knowledge to produce a knowledge géochimiques antérieurs. Les données ont été extraites temperature. Others document more subtle or complex fur trade on Great Slave Lake. Among these are digital assemblage on climate and environmental change that d’entrevues antérieures menées auprès de membres de responses of the Arctic system as it adjusts to current and copies of Warburton Pike’s account of his travels to the includes human contextual experience. This approach is l’AMNS et d’une sélection de publications primaires et longer-term trends in climate. Since the Arctic system is Barren Grounds with his Métis guide King Beaulieu. expected to provide insight into past climate dynamics secondaires pertinentes à l’expérience historique des particularly sensitive to changes in rain and snowfall, It was published in 1892 as The Barren Ground of not discernible using paleoecological approaches alone. Métis. Les connaissances culturelles des membres de the timing of freeze-up and break-up, and the intensity Northern Canada. Pike provided a day-by-day account l’Alliance des Métis de North Slave indiquent qu’en plus of storm activity, it is likely that much of what has been of his journey with Métis guide Beaulieu to the east Résumé de la variabilité des conditions météorologiques et des documented to date (and will be documented in the end of Great Slave Lake and then north to the Barren conditions environnementales correspondantes à prévoir future) reflects these changes. Regardless of the driving Grounds. In describing the party’s route and decisions La publication Outils géoscientifiques pour l’évaluation d’une année à l’autre, les changements climatiques forces, the combined observations and documentation made along the way about when, where, and how to environnementale des mines de métaux était un projet produisent un réchauffement global ayant des offer substantial evidence, although often diffuse, that travel, shelter, harvest food, and gather supplies, Pike triennal (2015-2018) dirigé par la Commission géologique répercussions sur la saisonnalité, les précipitations, les the Arctic system may be entering a state not seen in frequently revealed cultural knowledge held by his Métis du Canada et l’Université Carleton (projet no 1516-149 niveaux d’eau et la qualité de la glace et, par conséquent, recent history (Hinzman et al. 2005). companions. The project team reviewed Pike’s work to de Savoir polaire Canada). Le projet était un effort de sur la santé, le comportement et la répartition des extract relevant examples of Métis cultural knowledge collaboration