First Nations Are On the Cusp of a Big Marine Conservation Win in Canada—and They Have Even Bigger Plans

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Binoculars glued to her face, Carrie Gray yells “Bear!” from the roof of a two-room plywood cabin perched on the edge of Ontario’s Hudson Bay. I drop my tent poles mid-setup and rush up a rickety ladder. From the vantage above the stunted spruce and willows, we spot the polar bear on a beach ridge a quarter-mile away. I take a grainy phone photo as it ambles across the sulfuric mudflats that emerge from the ebb tide. On the horizon, the ocean glitters like a mirage.

Our visiting group has just arrived after a day and a half of traveling across Canada’s boreal forest via car, air, boat, and amphibious all-terrain vehicle. I’m thrilled and terrified to see one of the massive predators, but Sam Hunter, the Weenusk First Nation natural resource monitor who has invited us to his hunting cabin, seems unfazed. “Last time I came out, there was a big one right between my cabin and the outhouse,” he calls from below as he sets up our base camp.

Looking at a map, you might not expect to spot the iconic Arctic species this far south. Spanning roughly the same latitudes as Glasgow to London, the geography of the north Ontario coast creates a singular subarctic ecosystem. Beyond the shore, the immense ­Hudson Bay and its southern extension, James Bay—or Washaybeyoh and Weeneebeg in the Cree language—form a shallow, inland sea fed by both freshwater rivers and cold ocean currents from the far north. As a result, sea ice forms in winter, sustaining this southernmost polar bear population as well as walruses, beluga whales, and Arctic foxes.  

While the bear has briefly captured her attention, Gray, Audubon’s boreal conservation specialist, is most interested in the region’s birds. Roughly 170 species, including millions of migrating shorebirds and waterfowl, breed or stop over amid the sprawling estuaries and spongy marshes on this coast. In late summer, the area becomes a major avian staging area: At least 25 shorebird species stay for several weeks to put on fat that fuels their journeys south. 

To track these migrations, a team from Audubon and the Wildlands League, a Canadian conservation group, are here to set up a radio receiver tower, called a Motus station, at Hunter’s cabin. If all goes well, the data it collects will plug into a global database that conservationists are using to fill in gaps about avian life cycles and protect places birds need. Amid rapid global habitat loss, the intact ecosystem on this coastline especially stands out: “We live in a very carved-up landscape. Even if you live in a rural area, it’s been shaped by agriculture and farming,” Gray tells me. “This gives you a sense of what the planet used to be.”

This, of course, is the landscape that Hunter and his ancestors have always known. Since time immemorial, the Omushkego people, which consist of a number of First Nations, have traveled from remote communities to seasonal camps to hunt Canada and Snow Geese on the coast, fish for brook trout in rivers, and track caribou and moose. Hunter, who was born at his family’s camp on the Sutton River, says that traditional foods make up a significant part of many people’s diets.

Today, however, Omushkego communities worry that encroaching mining and mounting effects of climate change threaten their way of life. And so nine First Nations are crafting a plan to protect a marine area the size of Maine—what they hope will be a first step toward conserving a larger swath of their territory. They know there is urgency to formally safeguard these vital ecosystems for the future. There is also unprecedented opportunity.

The Omushkego name evokes to the region’s muskeg: the bogs, fens, and mires of the boreal biome. In addition to an 800-mile coast, the Omushkego traditional territory covers nearly one-third of Ontario, including part of the Hudson Bay Lowlands, a peatland complex that stretches from Manitoba to Québec and may hold more carbon than the Amazon. The spongy peat that sucks at our boots and surrounds their communities has helped keep most industrial development at bay, since the land is largely impassable until it freezes, and then can only be accessed on rough ice roads. 

Despite the difficult terrain, threats mounted in the 1980s, says Lawrence Martin, director of lands and resources for the Mushkegowuk Council, which represents seven First Nations. The nickel and copper industry in Ontario began expanding its reach northward, and politicians resurrected the alarming notion of building the Great Recycling and Northern Development Canal, a scheme to dam James Bay and divert water to the Great Lakes, which would destroy the bay’s unique ecosystem. Climate change, meanwhile, was altering animal migrations, decreasing fish abundance, and increasing pest outbreaks in trees.

Such concerns prompted the Mushkegowuk Council to issue its first formal resolution to protect lands and waters in 1989. In the following decades it passed dozens more, all aimed at preserving what the Omushkego call the Breathing Lands and Birthing Lands: the carbon-rich peatlands and diverse coastline and waters, respectively. But the council lacked the money and political partners needed to realize these goals. 

That changed in 2019 when Canada announced it would increase its support for protected areas and backed that up with hundreds of millions of dollars and a pledge to prioritize Indigenous-led initiatives. The government now aims to protect 30 percent of its lands and oceans by 2030, including by creating 14 new national marine conservation areas (NMCAs) that safeguard marine and freshwater ecosystems for the benefit of all. In 2019, the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee signed an agreement with the federal government to explore an NMCA in the eastern half of James Bay. These coinciding developments spurred the Mushkegowuk Council, along with the nearby Weenusk (Peawanuck) and Fort Severn First Nations, to try for their own proposal, says Martin. 

This kind of support is a welcome change from the past, when legacy national and provincial parks were created on Indigenous territory—without consultation or regard for local knowledge, rights, or needs, says Valérie Courtois, director of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, a conservation group in Canada. These days, more Indigenous nations are actively working with federal and provincial governments to conserve and manage habitat, and most new protected areas are created in collaboration. While there are challenges, she says, “There are not very many instances where Canadians are proud of their legacy with Indigenous peoples, but this is one where great things are happening.”

In 2021 the Mushkegowuk Council secured a $2.2 million grant to shape the plan and conduct a feasibility study. Martin and his team, along with research coordinators from each community, conducted 124 interviews to document how people use the land and waters and their knowledge of wildlife. They also held dozens of community meetings to gather feedback about marine and coastal protection goals. Several outside groups, including the Wildlands League and Audubon, offered their policy and scientific support. Gray, for example, gave presentations about the region’s importance to the global conservation of avian migrants: “People don’t always agree about everything,” she says, “but they agree about the birds.”

Other conversations were long and sometimes heated, Martin says. Some community members and chiefs were wary of negotiating agreements that could govern the use of their land, such as those in Attawapiskat, a village downstream from a now-­decommissioned diamond mine. In 2021, the mine’s owners pled guilty to failing to report monitoring data for mercury, a pollutant toxic to people and wildlife. Others were skeptical given the government’s history of neglect of basic services like plumbing, health care, and electricity, and the traumatic and often abusive legacy of residential schools that separated families. 

The process was, in many ways, just as important as the outcome. Self-determination is at the core of the modern Indigenous movement, and conservation is an important way this plays out, says Wildlands League conservation director Anna Baggio. Lori Macadam, director of NMCA establishment for Parks Canada, agrees that it was essential for the First Nations to lead the way. “Ultimately, Parks Canada isn’t the only decision maker,” she says. 

In February, the government of Canada and the Mushkegowuk Council announced the feasibility study’s completion and the proposed boundaries of an NMCA that would protect a 33,204-square-mile area of ocean from bottom trawling, dumping, oil and gas drilling, and other industrial development. Once formalized, it would be among the largest of the five existing NMCAs in Canada. As of press time, most of the First Nation chiefs who were involved had signed off on the study’s recommendations.  

Beyond formal protection, the council and Omushkego land users like Hunter also hope a conservation area will attract opportunity for more local research, conducted by and with Indigenous community members. Setting up a Motus station at Hunter’s cabin could be just the beginning.

As evening nears at the cabin, Nick Mack and Gregory Patrick, Cree guides who drive vehicles on our trip and use rifles to scare off curious bears, join Hunter in cooking Canada Goose canned in the spring. The rest of us heat vacuum-sealed curry on a camping stove.

After dinner, Audubon migration ecologist Bill DeLuca turns to the Motus station. Its parts spread like unassembled Ikea furniture, he debates a construction plan with the Wildlands League’s Dave Pearce and Trevor Hesselink. Hunter shuts down their first few ideas. If they mount the tower on a tripod to the roof, hurricane-strength gales could tear the antenna off. Put a solar panel on the ground, and snow could bury it. Plus, the bears: “They really just like to mess with things,” Hunter says.

Together, they hit upon a solution: Secure the 10-foot pole to the side of the building with what Mack christens “Cree clamps”—durable snowmobile belts drilled into the framing. The antenna will stick only a few feet up above the roof, and Hunter will affix the solar panels to the side of a new cabin addition he plans to build before the snow comes in. Standing on the roof, Hesselink appraises the setup. “It makes it look like the highest-tech shed,” he jokes. 

The station will detect radio signals from tagged wildlife that pass nearby, forming the latest addition to the growing Motus Wildlife Tracking System: a global network of strategically placed stations that help scientists learn about animal migrations. The catch is that three-quarters of roughly 2,000 stations to date are in North America. In Canada, most are clustered near cities and the U.S. border in easy-to-access places. This station, DeLuca says, is among the most remote that Audubon has helped install. Doing so wouldn’t be pragmatic without Hunter, who will periodically download data and maintain the structure.

The data collected at this station, combined with that from others in the network, could shed light on which migrants rely on this habitat, when they arrive, how long they stay, and where they go next. It could offer insight, for example, into the migration timing for endangered rufa Red Knots and relatively rare Hudsonian Godwits, which leave the area on thousands-mile-long flights to South America. It could also, says Gray, help solve the mystery around the route that Lesser Yellowlegs, recently declared threatened in Canada, take south after they nest in the boreal forest—or elucidate the habits of Canada Geese and other common species that Indigenous communities depend upon.   

Hunter is excited to learn more about the birds around him. Though he went to school for communications, he has a scientist’s curiosity and has led expeditions for tourists and researchers for four-plus decades, since he was 14. He’s become the council’s unofficial conservation ambassador—“Our ear to the ground, so to speak, our eyes to the land,” Martin says—and the point of contact for scientists who come through Peawanuck, where he lives when not at his camp.

 Contributing to projects such as monitoring bears and whales or sampling the peatlands and rivers is, for Hunter, about more than collecting data. “It’s thinking about the people, too,” he says. For his community, global warming is an urgent threat. Just days before we arrived in August, Peawanuck reached an unheard-of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Increasingly, low river levels hamper boat travel—the main means of summer transport—making it harder for him to hunt caribou and other animals. Every year the winter sea ice seems to form later, causing polar bears to become hungrier and more aggressive. Avian communities are changing, too: Flocks of Snow Geese are smaller and leave the area earlier than Hunter remembers from his youth; cormorants are showing up more often.

Scientists increasingly recognize the value of such frontline observations, rooted in Indigenous experience over generations. But the reverse is also true. Many Indigenous people are eager for information and collaboration that will help them navigate uncertainty and build resilience. “What’s going to happen in the future 100 years from now and beyond?” Hunter asks. “We gotta know.”

Back inside, DeLuca completes the final assembly by registering the new outpost in the Motus network’s database. With a button’s click, Hunter’s two-room cabin lights up as a yellow dot on a map. Now he needs to name it. “Memphis’s Station,” Hunter says. Memphis is his grandson, and the name seems hopeful. 

Names hold deep meaning for the Omushkego. As part of its engagement process, the Mushkegowuk Council put out a community version of its feasibility study, separate from the highly technical report produced with Parks Canada. It combines art, Indigenous knowledge, science, history, and more. An interview with Jeronimo Kataquapit, a university student from Attawapiskat who is studying geography and environmental management, inspired its title: “Tawich is where I belong.”  

Tawich roughly means “out toward the bay,” Kataquapit says. It’s as much of a direction as a place where rivers, land, and estuaries meet; there isn’t a specific point where swampy marshes or tidal flats end and ocean begins. “For the Omushkego, there is no separation of land and water,” Martin says. That’s true for wildlife, too: Essentially all species here depend on land, rivers, and oceans as part of the same system.

The Omushkego vision reflects this philosophy. In addition to the NMCA, it proposes protecting a 12-mile-wide strip of land along the coastline—the area most vital for shorebirds and other species. But the NMCA is much farther along. As Audubon went to press, the Council was negotiating an establishing agreement with federal officials. These talks will determine budget and co-management details, like how many people will be employed to monitor and maintain the new reserve. It wasn’t a done deal yet, but both sides are optimistic and determined to make it work. 

Yet while the ocean and land flow seamlessly into each other for the Omushkego, Canadian law creates stricter boundaries: Because the land up to the low-tide mark falls under provincial jurisdiction, the council must work with Ontario’s government to put protections in place for the coast. That has proven trickier. So far, as of press time, the Mushkegowuk Council had not received a response to its request to discuss the proposal with Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. This past September, Leo Friday, Grand Chief of the Mushkegowuk Council, publicly put the request to Ontario Premier Doug Ford. “The province has not said no—but it hasn’t responded,” Martin says. (The ministry didn’t respond to Audubon’s request for comment.) 

Those involved suspect that Ontario’s interest in mining is behind its silence. The province is one of the country’s top mineral producers, with more extraction potentially on the way in a region known as the Ring of Fire, an inaccessible area surrounded by peatland that may hold vast deposits of nickel, platinum, and chromite, which are minerals in demand for the world’s renewable energy transition. The area, about 180 miles south of Peawanuck and 120 miles west of Attawapiskat, is near the source of some of the main rivers that flow through Omushkego Territory to the coast and into the Hudson and James Bays. In addition to the potential pollution of these rivers, many are worried that building roads and other mining infrastructure would destroy fragile peatlands and release significant amounts of carbon, Martin says. 

Several First Nations, including those in the Mushkegowuk Council, have called for a moratorium on mining and development in the Ring of Fire until a regional impact assessment is undertaken with strong Indigenous involvement. Mining claims in the region have skyrocketed, especially since the system was digitized in 2018, allowing anyone with a computer to easily stake one if an area isn’t formally protected. But First Nations in the Hudson and James Bay watershed do hold some leverage: The Ring of Fire falls under a treaty that grants them rights to trap, hunt, and fish on treaty land; and some already are suing for a lack of consultation in mining exploration and planning.  

For the Mushkegowuk Council, Ontario’s cooperation is important beyond protecting a swath of shoreline. It will need the province’s support for an even more expansive plan it’s developing, aimed at protecting peatlands, watersheds, and biodiversity across the traditional territory. The Omushkego Wahkohtowin Conservation Plan was among four Indigenous conservation initiatives the federal government selected in 2022 to share in a $575 million pool under a new program that offers sustainable funding over 10 years. “It’s not just conservation and then you got to scramble for money after the fact,” says Baggio. “This is conservation and money to actually implement it.” 

The funds could support Indigenous guardians who monitor the land and wildlife, create jobs for hunters who improve food security for elders, help First Nations develop ecotourism, and guide land-use planning. The plan’s name reflects the Council’s modern approach to conservation. “Our conservation plan is based around the idea of Wahkohtowin. It means ‘relationship building’ in Cree,” Martin says. 

Forming a relationship with the mining industry could be an important, or inevitable, step to making the council’s conservation goals a reality. Having met with company representatives, Martin believes there’s a path for collaboration. Most want to avoid conflict with Indigenous communities, he says, and clear land-use planning is in their interest. “They want to know where they can mine or not,” he says. “Conservation and critical mineral strategy can work hand in hand.”

Across the hemisphere, there’s a growing push to create more protected areas, all under the umbrella of a global pledge to protect 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean in this decade. Doing so must not only respect Indigenous rights, but also center their leadership, many advocates emphasize. Slowly, that idea is gaining traction: For example, in October the United States approved the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary in California—the nation’s first to be nominated by tribes.

For Omushkego residents, a new NMCA wouldn’t change much about daily life. “We don’t see that many disturbances,” says Kataquapit. But he realizes that change could come quickly and that formal protection is the best hedge against unwanted development. “If the NMCA weren’t established, it would only be a matter of time until industry came into the bay. There would be nothing to stop them,” he says. Protecting the land and water isn’t a choice but a responsibility; at stake isn’t just the ecosystem but also Omushkego culture, language, and identity: “Without the land, we aren’t really our own people,” he says. 

Birds are also tied to this place. The routes they take, and places they stop, are often hardwired, making it harder to adapt to habitat destruction or climate shifts. “They can’t just move to a new spot if there’s development,” Gray says. But while sensitive to disruptions, migrants offer a powerful means of confronting widespread environmental threats. “Motus stations don’t just connect places; they also connect communities invested in protecting those birds,” says DeLuca. 

Hunter has been thinking about those connections more often. This past March, on a whim after connecting with fellow birders on Facebook, he traveled to the Argentina coast to see where Hudson and James Bay denizens, such as godwits and sandpipers, spend the nonbreeding season and to raise awareness about their decline. His first trip to South America gave him a newfound appreciation for birds that fly so far, sometimes in just a few days—a speed that awes him. “It took me five days to get down there,” he says.

 While there, Hunter was concerned to see sand buggies in some protected areas he visited. But the experience was also motivating: He hopes to collaborate to help godwits, sandpipers, and other migrants across their entire routes and varied habitats.

The day before our group departs, I join Hunter to collect water. With the recent heat and low rainfall, the rivers are low and warm, and we head upstream where the current runs strong. You can’t separate what happens in one place from another, Hunter tells me as we load gallons on a sled to pull to camp. In the distance, a Motus station glints in the afternoon sun, and the ocean peels back silently from the shore. 

This story originally ran in the Winter 2024 issue as “Between the Ocean and the Shore.” To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.

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