Good morning,
Imagine being invited to dinner, and as the guests sit down to eat, one of them berates the hosts over the menu. Fat chance the rude guest will ever get a second invite.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but there are some parallels to a story related to my colleague Matteo Cimellaro, on a recent trip to Churchill, Man. Matteo was reporting on plans to create a National Marine Conservation area in the Churchill region, further cementing the city’s reputation as an eco-tourism destination, when he was told about an uncomfortable encounter between local Indigenous hunters and a group of tourists.
The Indigenous hunters had just killed a whale and were pulling it onto the beach to be butchered when the visitors stumbled onto the scene while searching for polar bears. The tourists, apparently shocked that Indigenous community members harvest whales for food, started to shout angrily at the two hunters. The encounter upset the hunters, who resented being judged by outsiders, and the tourists left without an understanding of local rights, food security and traditions.
That type of tension between visitors and locals is just one of the reasons why it may take some convincing for Churchill residents to embrace the conservation area idea. Although it would help protect the animals essential to the tourist trade, some fear labelling part of the bay a conservation area could shut out other industry and development opportunities.
You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Churchill who would want to shut down the tourist industry. But many would argue tour operators need limits to keep numbers reasonable and guidelines to ensure cultural awareness is woven into the agenda.
Adrienne Tanner - Editor-in-Chief
TOP STORY
It's easy to think of tourism as a benign industry that benefits the North. But it can clash with the culture and traditions of founding peoples. This is just one of the concerns among residents of Churchill, Manitoba, where plans are percolating to create a National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA) down the west coast of Hudson Bay. Already every year, thousands of tourists flock to see polar bears, belugas and northern lights. Cementing the area as a conservation zone is likely to draw even more.
Matteo Cimellaro reports
Number of the Week
15 — the number of new catch-and-release guidelines for sport fishers that will help salmon survive
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