Members and supporters of the Northern Trappers’ Alliance met this past weekend to discuss plans going forward.
In November, a group of trappers erected a highway blockade north of La Loche in response to the what they say has been disruption to their trap lines caused by companies doing uranium and oil exploration.
In December, RCMP executed an injunction to have the blockade taken down but members of the alliance have remained at an encampment along Highway 955 ever since.
Alliance spokesperson Candyce Paul says the weekend meeting went well.
“It was a beautiful weekend of togetherness of the community with Dene people from all over,” she says. “People came from communities where they lost every bit of their land and the warning from them is don’t let it go, don’t let it happen.”
At the meeting the group discussed long-term plans.
“We are going to work together as a people to develop a sustainable economy and we are going to keep guardianship over the land as is our cultural duty to do so,” the English River First Nation band member says.
Organizers sent invitations to the meeting to officials in the provincial government but they say they were informed government representatives were unable to attend.
Paul says the government doesn’t realize the impact exploration companies are having on the land.
“The government says this type of exploration is low impact but there is enough drilling companies that it is not low-impact. Everybody agrees that this kind of development is dangerous to the land and to the future health of all the animals, plants and people.”
The Northern Trappers’ Alliance plans on maintaining the encampment indefinitely.