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“Dene elder Roy Ladouceur’s voice grows quiet as his eyes settle on a cellphone photo of a bison slaughtered by poachers.
The animal from the Ronald Lake herd, which grazes in the boreal forest between Fort McMurray and the northern Alberta community of Fort Chipewyan, has been decapitated, its body left to waste away in blood-splattered snow.
“Why would they kill something that large and just throw the meat away?” Ladouceur said. “I mean, that’s disrespect to wildlife, let alone the land.”
Ladouceur is passionate about the land and its bison. The 64-year-old is the only member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation to live off the land year-round.
He calls himself the “guardian of the bison.”
The herd he loves is special: unlike others in Alberta, it’s disease-free — but its numbers are declining as a result of poaching and, Ladouceur said, oilsands developments. Environment Canada said the herd’s numbers have dropped from an estimated 200 bison to 100.
But now, Ladouceur worries those numbers could drop faster than ever before.
He said he’s concerned a mega oilsands mine planned for the southern edge of the bison’s habitat could doom the herd.
The Frontier mine is expected to be one of the largest oilsands open pits ever built. At 292 square kilometres, its footprint is expected to cover an area almost half the size of Edmonton.
“This is the only place that has not been touched yet,” Ladouceur said. “You mean to tell me, they are that greedy for power and money to go and damage the environment here?””
– CBC News, Alberta First Nation fears for bison herd if mega oilsands mine opens.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
