Latest news with #culturaluse
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Joffre Lakes Park to close for month of September
The popular Joffre Lakes Provincial Park near Pemberton, B.C., will be closed to visitors for one month, a much shorter period than two local First Nations initially planned to use it for, the province announced Tuesday. The Instagram-famous park also known as Pipi7íyekw will close from Sept. 3 to Oct. 3. 'The closure allows the park to recover from a busy summer and provide time and space for members of the Lil'wat Nation and N'Quatqua to reconnect with the land, carry out cultural and spiritual practices, and recognize the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation,' a statement from the Environment Ministry reads. The Lil'wat Nation previously said the park would close for cultural use for two months, from Aug. 22 to Oct. 23. At the time, the province said those dates had not been confirmed. 'The nations had requested additional closure dates, beyond what we were prepared to agree to,' the ministry wrote in a statement to CTV News. 'After careful consideration, B.C. has confirmed a schedule that balances cultural practices, conservation goals and public access to the park.' The province said the number of closure dates is now consistent with last year and the revised schedule means the public can visit Joffre Lakes over the Labour Day long weekend. The park also closed to visitors from April 25 to May 16 and from June 13 to 27. 'Pipi7íyekw/Joffre Lakes Park has become one of the busiest parks in the province. As more people go to the park, there is a need for enhanced visitor-use management, ensuring the park is not degraded by heavy use,' the statement from the province reads. 'We have a responsibility to support public access to parks, as we also support First Nations cultural practices and conservation goals.' CTV News has reached out to The Lil'wat and N'Quatqua nations for comment and will update this story if a response is received.
CBC
12-06-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Weight of traditional knowledge discussed at public hearing for Diavik's water licence
A handful of Indigenous governments want to see more criteria enshrined in the conditions of Diavik diamond mine's new water licence, to determine that water will be safe for cultural uses. The Wek'èezhìi Land and Water Board (WLWB) is holding a public hearing about the company's application for a 10-year water licence renewal, at the cultural centre in Behchokǫ, N.W.T.,̀ this week. The Tłı̨chǫ government, the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, the Łutsel K'e Dene First Nation and the Deninu Kųę́ First Nation are all participating in the hearing, along with representatives of the federal and territorial governments and an environmental monitoring board. Violet Camsell-Blondin, who presented Wednesday morning on behalf of the Tłı̨chǫ government, told the hearing that both Western science and Indigenous traditional knowledge should be used to assess the water of Lac de Gras, the tundra lake in which Diavik operates, about 300 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife. "Cultural use criteria should not have a lower status or less clout in measuring successful closure and influencing the return of security deposits," she said. The WLWB has already required Diavik to incorporate traditional knowledge and cultural use criteria in its plans – but the Tłı̨chǫ, the Łutsel K'e Dene and the Yellowknives Dene want it to have the same weight as scientific monitoring and for it to be tied to the return of security deposits. What are cultural use criteria? An amendment to Diavik's current water licence required that cultural use criteria be developed for dumping processed kimberlite back into the open pits which will eventually, as part of closure, be filled with water and reconnected to Lac de Gras. A letter from the Tłı̨chǫ government to the board during that amendment process a few years ago describes cultural use criteria as the clarity, temperature, colour, smell and taste of the water, as well as whatever unnatural material might be in it. Diavik held workshops with Indigenous partners to establish that criteria and summarized in a report afterwards that healthy water would look clear, feel cold, smell clean, taste fresh and sound alive. "A lot of times science will say the water is good, you could drink it, but they won't drink it," said Patrick Simon, a Deninu Kųę́ First Nation councillor participating in the hearing, adding that scientists also use numbers that are hard to understand to communicate that water is safe. "If I told you, as an Indigenous person, the water is good, you can drink it, I will not only drink it but I'll show you the freshness of the water and the vibrancy, the clarity and even the feeling …. When we're around bad water it don't feel good. When we're around good healthy water, we feel alive, we feel connected. It's part of us." Simon said cultural use criteria will help Indigenous people decide whether they want to drink the water and harvest the animals in and around Lac de Gras once Diavik has closed. 'Flexibility should be maintained,' Diavik says A decision for the WLWB to make, once the hearing is over, is whether traditional knowledge and more cultural use criteria should be enshrined in the conditions of the licence – or whether those will be discussed further as part of the mine's closure plan. Diavik has expressed preference for the latter, stating in its presentation this week that it "strongly recommends that flexibility should be maintained" by discussing cultural use criteria through the final closure and reclamation plan and not establishing "fixed" licence conditions. Diavik is already in the process of creating a traditional knowledge monitoring program with its Indigenous partners that'll be submitted to the land and water board for approval. "Adding licence conditions might restrict the program that's in development. [The program] that really, at the end of the day, communities are developing for us," said Sean Sinclair, Diavik's manager of closure. "Potentially putting that in a box through licence conditions … we don't think it would necessarily be helpful and that it could be more flexibly managed through the closure plan." In a letter to the board ahead of the hearing, Diavik also said that there's uncertainty about how cultural use criteria would be evaluated for regulatory compliance. Diavik is trying to set itself apart from a history of abandoned mines in the N.W.T by closing responsibly. Its existing water licence expires at the end of the year, and it needs another one to wrap up production in March 2026, carry out closure, and start initial post-closure monitoring up until 2035. The hearing wraps up in Behchokǫ̀ on Wednesday.
