Amarok HTA closes Sylvia Grinnell River to boats

MIRIAM HILL

The Amarok Hunters and Trappers Association voted this week to restrict boating and fishing on the Sylvia Grinnell River in an attempt to rebuild depleted Arctic char stocks.

About 60 people attended a public meeting Tuesday night, in which HTA members voted to ban net fishing in the area above the falls to Sylvia Grinnell Lake and all snagging or jigging. Angling and netting will still be allowed in certain areas.

Boats, including motorized vessels and kayaks, were banned indefinitely.

HTA members voted at their annual general meeting in December to close the river to both fishing and boating, but Tuesday’s vote provided more information about the closure.

Suzanne Laliberte, president of the Frobisher Bay Kayak Club, asked HTA members to reconsider their decision for the benefit of the community’s youth who use the river to practise white water kayaking.

“Kayaks stay at the surface of the water,” she said. “We use no oil and no fuel and we teach kids the proper way to clean up after themselves and treat the environment with respect.”

Jeetaloo Kakee, an HTA board member, told Laliberte that harvesting is the association’s priority — not recreation.

Sytukie Joamie tried to explain why a majority of members believe kayaks should not be allowed in the river. “There are two different management styles meeting here,” he said.

The scientific method is based on observations and Inuit management is based on the spiritual relationship with the animals. Through Shamanism, he explained, Inuit found out how animals existed and survived.

Celestin Erkidjuk, an elder who was chairman of the Amarok HTA during a similar river closure between 1983 and 1987, said he grew up in an area with a river like Sylvia Grinnell and he was taught not to throw so much as a pebble in the water for fear the fish would swim away.

“Fish are very vulnerable there,” he said in Inuktitut, adding that anything moving in the river, including kayaks, could disturb them.

Not all members agreed that the river should be closed to boats. Abraham Tagalik suggested the diminishing fish stock is a result of overfishing, not kayaking.

“The point is the fish should be a priority,” he said. Without concrete numbers about how many fish are in the river, it is hard to come up with a management plan.

“Once we know the number maybe we can set a limit,” he said. “Basically we have to balance the numbers.”

Fish study planned

Last year, community members raised concerns about fewer and smaller fish in the river. The HTA looked into the traditional knowledge and management of char, and the department of fisheries and oceans reviewed the history and biology of fish in the river.

Karen Ditz, a fisheries management biologist with the DFO, which co-manages the river with the HTA and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, was at the meeting to describe a three-year study set to begin this summer to update information on the current state of the stock.

The four-part study includes monitoring fish removed from the stock by interviewing fishermen about their catch. Fishermen will also be asked to give up fish heads so the ear bones can be used to age the fish.

Scientists will also be doing test netting to determine size, age and health of the char, with the healthy fish being distributed to the community.

Tagilik wondered who would be responsible for enforcing the fishing and boating rules that are now bylaws for HTA members.

“We as the members are the monitors,” Joamie said. “Let them face us.”

HTA president David Ell confirmed that members would be responsible for enforcing the new bylaws among themselves for now.

The motions will be forwarded to the NWMB for review before they are forwarded to the minister responsible for the DFO, who has 60 days to consider the application. If the recommendations are put in place, they will fall under the Fisheries Act, apply to everyone — not just HTA members — and be enforced by DFO officers.