About the Beaver Lake Cree Nation

The Beaver Lake Cree Nation is a small indigenous community on the fringe of Canada’s boreal forest, close to the town of Lac La Biche in northeast Alberta. It currently has about 900 members, around 500 of whom live on the Nation’s reservation.

Aboriginal history in Alberta extends back at least 11,000 years. The historical record is patchy, but what we do know is that the first Europeans arrived in the mid-1700s and by the early 1800s the Hudson's Bay Company had built a trading post at Lac La Biche as a centre for the fur trade. By the 1870's the Canadian government was involved in a gradual process of treaty making with the local inhabitants of Alberta, aimed at opening up lands for settlement, and in September 1876 the Beaver Lake Cree’s immediate ancestors met with Treaty Commissioner Alexander Morris at Fort Pitt.

As part of the resulting treaty, known as Treaty Six, the Cree surrendered approximately 195,000 square kilometres of land. In return they were given reservations and the right to hunt, fish and gather plants and medicines throughout their former lands as they had always done.

The Beaver Lake Cree still undertake these activities within their ancestral lands. However, this land is now being threatened, degraded or destroyed by tar sands developments, with the Athabasca field to the north and the Cold Lake field to the east of their reservation. Licenses for tar sands developments have been granted right up to their reservation boundary. See our photo story to see how tar sands developments are destroying the environment, upon which the Beaver Lake Cree depend.

Tar sands operations within the Beaver Lake Cree’s ancestral lands include: Shell’s Orion project, ExxonMobil’s Cold Lake operations, ConocoPhillips’ Christina Lake and Foster Creek projects and ConocoPhillips and Total’s joint Surmont project.
 
Tar sands developments are having a huge effect on the Beaver Lake Cree, their environment, and their traditional way of life.

• Huge areas are deforested for seismic exploration lines, pipelines and access roads, which now crisscross a vast area
• The movement of animals, such as caribou and moose, is disrupted and their numbers in the area are greatly reducing.
• Large game animals such as moose are increasingly being found to be sick when cut open by the Beaver Lake Cree
• The Beaver Lake Cree will no longer drink from the muskeg (lakes and rivers) citing water table pollution arising from in-situ tar sands developments.
• Large scale deforestation, wildlife disturbance and pollution occurring within their ancestral lands means the Beaver Lake Cree fear for the long-term survival of their culture and traditions, and the quality of life for future generations.

On the May 14 2008, the Beaver Lake Cree released their Kétuskéno Declaration asserting their role as caretakers of their traditional territories and started a legal challenge to:

• Enforce recognition of their constitutionally protected rights to hunt, fish and gather;
• Protect the ecological integrity of their territories.

Support the Beaver Lake Cree and help stop a potential climate and local ecological disaster:

• Donate to the Beaver Lake Cree– a charitable trust has been set up to support their legal challenge to stop further tar sands expansion
• Spread the word – tell your friends, family and colleagues to join this campaign and support the Beaver Lake Cree
• See the destruction for yourself - and how tar sands developments are destroying the Beaver Lake Cree’s traditional lands.