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The Porcupine caribou herd might spend the winter in the Northwest Territories this year, according to the Porcupine Caribou Management Board.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The herd has a range spanning 250,000 square kilometres of northern tundra in Alaska, the Yukon and the N.W.T., and is known for its massive migrations. <\/p>\n
Joe Tetlichi, the management board\u2019s chair, said the herd appears to be moving into the Rat River and Timber Creek area.\u00a0He said that area is about a one-day snowmobile ride from Fort McPherson, N.W.T. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s been about 10 years since the herd has overwintered there, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tetlichi said the main herd hasn\u2019t migrated to the Dempster Highway \u2014 a separate location on the eastern side of its range \u2014 since 2013, though a limited number of caribou were in that area a few years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s especially a big deal for the Delta people because they haven\u2019t gotten caribou for the last, for a number of years,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be a winter where people are going to see caribou all winter, and because of that, that\u2019s good justification for hunters to just hold off and let the caribou do what they need to do,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What the caribou need to do, according to Wanda Pascal, the former chief of the Tetlit Gwich\u2019in Council in Fort McPherson, is graze and get comfortable on the land where they\u2019ll spend the winter season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t take long,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you go after the first bunch, they\u2019ll just turn around and head back where they come from. That\u2019s what they\u2019ve been doing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Tetlichi, it\u2019s a matter of teaching patience to young people looking to harvest the animals.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now the rut is over and they’re going to start going into the trees for the winter \u2026 they\u2019re going to start fattening up, and that\u2019s when our people can harvest,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mary Effie Snowshoe, an 88-year-old elder in Fort McPherson, said the caribou are the livelihood of the Gwich\u2019in people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the main food of our diet, for years that\u2019s what the Gwich’in people survived on and that\u2019s how they remain strong and healthy,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are happy because people will get meat for their families.\u201d<\/p>\n