Day 2

Report for Monday, August 18
Damant Lake North of 60 Gathering

We woke at 8 a.m. after far too short of a sleep, but we are both excited to visit and walk around to explore. Just as we were dressing, the Twin Otter (TO) came back with another load of people from Wollaston Lake, which of course prompted another series of hellos and quick visits. It was near 9 a.m. when we stopped at Lawrence Adam’s tent to have some coffee with him and Don Deranger. I teased one of the elders, Simon Robillard, by asking him if he was eating a “traditional Dene breakfast.” He started to laugh as he continued eating his “wagon wheel” chocolate bar.

My prediction of what the weather would be like was partly right. It drizzled off and on until nearly noon, and it almost felt like it was going to snow, but by late afternoon it was cool and largely clear. The wind has shifted to the north and east promises a cold clear night. This should rid us of most, if not all, the mosquitoes and blackflies.

Several more TO loads arrived with people from Black Lake and Fond du Lac, and more are yet to come. A Beaver arrived with two barrels of fuel, and then came a Cessna 185 – the latter ostensibly for safety reasons, but tomorrow it will become a hunting machine as the camp searches out “idthen” – caribou.

I phoned Tom Faess in Yellowknife and he said that the caribou are nowhere to be found. He just did a trip via a 185 from Yellowknife to Whitefish Lake (just to the north of us) and then the full length of the Thelon River to Beverly Lake. On the entire trip he saw only two caribou! He suspects they must be to the east of us and I suspect that within minutes the 185 will be headed toward Mosquitoe Lake to find meat.

Early this morning the people in the camp grew excited, as they could see a grizzly bear on the far shore. A few quick phone calls to the Northwest Territories Resources staff gave the green light to kill the animal, as it was too close for comfort and was deemed a threat. But, after half an hour, one of the canoes motored back with the news that the “grizzly” was in fact a bull muskox. After much discussion with the elders and many phone calls to the NWT officials, it was still unclear whether the animal should be harvested for meat. The elders were firm in their belief that it should be taken, but the phone calls produced no clear answer.

The Dene have always had a special respect for muskox. When the caribou herds missed their camps and the people were starving, the muskox could be found in more predictable locations. Many lives were saved by the harvesting of these curious-looking animals, and thus muskox gained a special reverence from the Dene. This lone animal today is fully 80 miles south of where people would normally expect to find one, and as such the elders feel it has come to give its life to them. The symbolism of this lone animal arriving today and staying nearby, despite the repeated approaches of those who would hunt it and the many planes racing low over its head, have convinced the elders that the animal wants to gift its life to them.

But, at the end of the day, the desired “go ahead” is not given, as bureaucrat after bureaucrat passes the buck. The elders puzzle as to why they must wait for the NWT government to give them the nod of approval for this hunt. After all, they say, “We have lived and hunted here for centuries. Why is there now a boundary line that tells us what we can and can not do?”

Sadly for the camp, a low pass of the 185 heading out to scout for caribou scares the muskox away. But in every cloud there is a silver lining, and the 185 returns with news that caribou in small groups have been spotted about 45 miles away. Plans are now being made for tomorrow’s hunt, and everyone is excited at the prospect of fresh meat.

There is a primal urgency to this camp and the coming hunt, and it is easy to swept into its timeless rhythm. Lynda and I, and the approximately 80 other people here, will all dream of fresh, fat caribou meat tonight.