NWT First Nation band says no to Nunavut gold project

Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation’s community has traditionally harvested from the Bathurst caribou herd. (GOOGLE IMAGE)

A First Nation located in the Northwest Territories fears Sabina Gold and Silver Corp.’s Back River gold project proposal will disrupt the calving grounds of the Bathurst caribou herd, “severely” impacting its peoples’ constitutional rights.

As part of the pre-hearings into the gold project, located 400 kilometres south of Cambridge Bay, Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation submitted its feedback to the Nunavut Impact Review Board Nov. 18.

In a letter signed by Lutsel K’e chief Felix Lockhart, the First Nation stressed that it is a critical time for the Bathurst herd, whose numbers have plummeted in recent years — from 60,000 in 2006 to fewer than 10,000 today.

An air survey carried out by the government of the NWT earlier this year pegged the herd’s population of breeding females at just 4,000.

And that’s a problem, Lutsel K’e said, due to the gold project’s proximity to the herd’s calving grounds.

The Lutsel K’e First Nation — and its community of 300 located on the southeast short of Great Slave Lake — has traditionally harvested from the Bathurst herd. But the Lutsel K’e Dene have more recently taken measures to cut back on that harvest, the letter said.

“The calving grounds are the caribou nesting area,” Lockhart wrote. “The place they return to every year to birth their young. Disturb that area, and what draws the caribou to that place will be lost, and with it, new calves each spring.”

“… regardless of mitigative action, the presence of such a large scale operation like this in the most critical of caribou habitat, with the current state of the Bathurst caribou, will certain and severely impact our constitutionally protected rights.”

As a result, the Lutsek K’e Dene cannot consent to the project, Lockhart said.

The letter also calls on a moratorium of all development of the Bathurst herd’s calving and post-calving grounds, on both sides of the NWT-Nunavut border.

The Back River project encompasses seven properties on about 120,000 acres.

Once in operation, the company predicts it will produce 300,000 to 400,000 ounces of gold per year over 10 to 15 years.

The proposed project, which includes six open-pit mines within the Goose and George properties and one underground mine at Goose, would employ 1,600 workers during its two-year construction phase and 900 during mine operations.

The project would include roads within the properties, between the properties, and linking the properties to the Bathurst Inlet shipping area.

Pre-conference hearings for the project just wrapped up in Cambridge Bay; that feedback will now inform the NIRB’s decision regarding updates to Sabina’s draft environmental impact statement.