On April 18, at the request of Nick Scigliano (MWF member and the owner of Nueltin Lake lodge), MWF staff traveled to Nueltin Lake Provincial Park to witness a recent caribou harvest, and what we saw will be burned into our memories for the rest of our lives.
Nick had previously been into his lodge property on April 11 for a spring wellness check of his facilities, to find that his buildings were occupied by people who had no permission to use his private property. He chose not to land at the lodge to avoid potential confrontations at that time, but from the air he saw a vast number of caribou carcasses strewn throughout his private property. Nick asked us to join him on a return visit on April 18 to bear witness and to provide expertise on the nature and scope of the caribou harvest that had occurred at his facilities.
Three RCMP officers and a conservation officer were also flying in on a separate helicopter and would be arriving at the lodge ahead of us to conduct their investigations and to secure the site so that Nick could return safely.
On the way to Nueltin Lake, we flew over one of Nick’s outpost cabins and could see it was occupied by strangers to Nick, with two snowmobiles parked out front and smoke coming out from the stovepipe. We carried on and landed near the main lodge’s airstrip to refuel and to give the RCMP time at the lodge.
There is a cabin and storage buildings on the lakeshore downhill from the airstrip. In front of the cabin, at least five large piles of caribou heads and carcasses were visible. We surveyed the first two piles, digging down through the snow to find six caribou in two of the carcass piles. All six appeared to be cows. We checked three of the sets of organs (i.e., gut piles) from the caribou and all three had fully formed, unborn caribou calves. Of the six caribou we checked (which was a small sample of the estimated 50-75 animals we could see from the helicopter) the front shoulders, neck and ribs were all mostly left as waste and two hind quarters were also left behind. We estimate that half of the usable meat was wasted on the six caribou we inspected of the many that were processed at that site.
From there we flew to the main lodge to meet up with Law Enforcement. As we flew in, the site looked like a war zone with cabin and lodge furniture strewn around the area, countless caribou carcasses in various forms and abundant garbage and trash, some of which was scattered by the helicopter’s rotors as we landed.
While Nick talked to the RCMP and Conservation Officer, we shoveled down through the deep snow into several of the caribou carcass piles. A foot of new snow had fallen the two days prior to our arrival. We inspected one pile of 10 caribou, which were really well processed, with all meat taken, including the necks and ribs, suggesting that multiple groups were involved in the hunt, with varying degrees of skill and effort in processing. These carcasses were much older and looked to have been harvested earlier in the winter. The organs were not present, so we could not inspect for signs of pregnancy.
We also checked a fresher pile of 4 caribou at the main lodge that were more like the first site near the landing strip, with about half the meat used. We checked the three sets of organs that we could find by digging through the deep snow and found an additional two, fully formed caribou calves still located in their amniotic sacs.
The MWF staff on the trip are very experienced in most aspects of hunting and game preparation and have processed and consumed countless fowl, fish and big game animals for many decades, and so are not squeamish or easily rattled. But on this day, we had to walk away from the kill site and sit on the snow and gather our thoughts. The heaviness of seeing all those unborn, fully formed caribou calves, so close to being born, was overwhelming and very emotional. And to see the amount of wasted meat was unbearable. Everyone in the group agreed that there is no future for the caribou in Manitoba with that kind of behavior.
These caribou are part of the Qamanirjuaq caribou herd which spends it’s time in both Nunavut and in Manitoba throughout the year. These are migratory barren-ground caribou that overwinter in the forested region of northern Manitoba and then make their way back to Nunavut in the spring to have their young. On this trip, we bore witness to a large-scale hunt that was occurring in mid-April as the female caribou were making their way back to the calving grounds to have their young, which happens in early June. The pregnant cows head back first, and so it isn’t surprising that all of the caribou we checked, except for possibly one, appeared to be females.
