Due North: Watershed Moments - Yukon's Peel River Watershed
Whatās the appeal of the Peel?
By Matthew Mallon
Photo by Peter Mather
The Yukon government recently decided to open most of the Peel River Watershed to development. One product the regionās immediately started pumping out? Controversy. Also: a lawsuit headed by Thomas Berger of the 1974 Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry. We asked people who have spent a lot of time in the area to explain why the new decisionāwhich unilaterally overturned a long-in-the-making āacceptable compromiseā land-use plan in 2011āis so shortsighted, and what makes the Peel worth preserving.
Gill Cracknell, executive director of the Yukon branch of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, one of the groups suing the government, spent four or five months every summer in the mountainous headwaters of the Snake River:
āOne day when I was sitting up there, looking in a telescope, I spotted a moose about three or four kilometres across the valley, surrounded by wolves. The wolves were ringing the moose, and I realized that she had a little, tiny calf. I watched that moose and calf for three or four hours, until it got dark. The wolves, some would go and lie down, and some would come back, and theyād be trying to get at the calfābut the cow was just defending it at all costs. It was a long way away but it was like, this is unfolding in front of my eyes, and it was an amazing, touching experienceāand I never really knew what happened in the end, because it got dark. About a week later a moose and calf came up through our camp, and we just kind of hoped that it was the same pair, but, yāknow, you never know.ā
Jimmy Johnny is an elder of the Na-cho Nyak Dun nation. Heās been horsewrangling and guiding around the Snake and Bonnet Plume headwaters since 1958:
āItās precious to our traditional values. For many reasons, but for traditional medicine especially, our berries and roots, and the willows. Some people donāt believe traditional medicine works, but it does. I was taught how to use it, and itās all out there and I donāt want to see it disturbed. Fort McPherson people donāt want to see the water get polluted from exploration and mining activity. Itās a big worry for me. Because developers have already left a lot of mess out there in the past and I donāt want to see that any more. When I go in there, I can also see signs of the ancient people, the trails where theyād cross into the NWT. Itās unbelievable. You gotta go there someday.ā
Chris Widrig leads hunters on horseback through the area, going after Dall sheep, wolverine, moose and grizzlies:
āSometimes we go one or two days on the horses, 25 hours in total, just to get to the areas where weāre going to hunt. We donāt offer a ritzy lodge or luxurious accommodations, and our clients pay over $20,000 for one trip. What theyāre paying for is the wilderness. Sleeping on the ground, riding horses, climbing mountains, calling moose.The headwaters of the Snake River and the Bonnet Plume River, those are the core of our hunting business and also the most pristine area in the whole Peel. If you look at the governmentās plan those are probably the most protected areas, but theyāre still not fully protected. Roads can be built there and any mining claims in there can be worked. I donāt consider that protection.ā
Photo by Peter Mather
Peter Mather is a wildlife photographer whoās been visiting the Peel since the 1990s:
āThereās a site on the Wind River, across from the confluence of the Bear River, known by different names: Stone Dragon, Flood Plain, Sheep Lick, Wolf Fields. Itās a gorgeous 10-square-kilometre flood plain, beneath a gargoyle mountain. On one side is this big clay bulge of a sheep lick. There are 1,000-year-old sheep trails, four inches deep and coming from each direction like a spider web. On the other side of the lick is a wolf den. So, sheep have to make it across all the flat terrain to the sheep lick. Once there, they have a wonderful escape route to small cliffs beside the lick. Every time we stop we see dozens of sheep and often watch them swim across the river, in a single white line. Itās scary though, because the old, abandoned Wind River road goes 30 feet from the sheep lick. And about five years ago, the government gave permission for the road to be opened up again for a mining exploration company. Luckily, they didnāt have the money for their venture.ā
Blaine Walden guided canoeists through the Peel for over 20 summers:
āProbably one of my most memorable times was on a Youth and Elders trip with the Gwichāin from Fort McPherson and also some Na-cho Nyak Dun folk. Robert Alexieāa very respected Gwichāin elderāwas on that trip, and also Joanne Snowshoe, another well-known elder.They had both spent a lot of their life in the Peel and the whole trip was very special to be on because of all the stories they could tell. As we got to this canyonāitās not Aberdeen Canyon, but thereās another canyon below the Bonnet Plume that has these really swirly rocks that youāll see in a lot of photography. Thatās an area that Gwichāin used to pass through when they would go up into the Peel in winter and trap, and then build their skin boats and come back down. That canyon at high water is quite turbulent and can be dangerous. It was interesting to see the effect on Robert as we approached it, and how serious he took it. He told us stories about when they were younger and going through the canyon in their skin boats. The men would take the boats through and the women and children would walk around. One time, one of the boats got damaged. They were on one side of the river and needed needles and thread to sew the skin boat, but that was with the women on the other side. The women had this dog along with them, I guess he was a pretty decent dog, and they tied the materials they needed to the dog and the men called the dog and he swam across with what they needed to fix the boat. Just watching Robertās whole demeanour changeāheās a very jovial fellowābut as we got close he was very serious and worried about the youth with us. We got through safelyāthe water wasnāt highāand as soon as we were through, it was āpull the boat over and letās have tea!ā It was a celebration that weād made it through.
We werenāt in any danger, but that had been ingrained in him since he was a child: how dangerous it could be. But I guess the whole trip brought to me just how closely the Gwichāin are tied to the Peel, how important it is to them and how their history is entrenched in the Peel.ā












