Conservation, Preservation and the Environment all challenges in early years of Chapleau region and Canada

Anishinabe Chief Louis Espagnol At Biscotasing Ontario (1905) Archives of Ontario

Note: In this article Ian Macdonald and Michael McMullen give an insightful look into the challenges of conservation, preservation and the environment. Thank you Ian and Michael. MJM. 

Ian Macdonald and Michael McMullen

The construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in Northern Ontario in the 1880s along the height of land, such as in the Chapleau region, sparked the development of the business and social infrastructure of the resulting new towns and villages. This created employment and enabled a new beginning and social fabric for many. As well, opportunities arose for timber development, mining development and hydro-electric projects.

As we look back at that time, we can reflect that conservation and preservation of the environment was likely considered, if at all, by only a few. There was an abundance of land, water, trees, game and fish. There was plenty for everyone. The priority was economic activity that began with the building of the CPR line. Any pollution of the environment was accepted as part of economic development. This was not limited to Northern Ontario, ththe country as a whole did not fully consider conservation or preservation as policy issues.

Also overlooked at the time was the impact on the First Nations people who had lived and survived on this land for centuries and coexisted with the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) for well over 200 years. Their way of life was now being significantly altered.

Conservation played a role in the fiercely competitive and ruthless fur trade of the early 19th century. HBC policies encouraging wildlife extermination were actually implemented in the southern regions of HBC territory in an attempt to exterminate the fur bearing species in the region thus discouraging the incursion of rival traders. HBC, paradoxically, implemented conservation policies in 1822 in the more secure and lucrative northern regions abolishing the use of steel traps and ordered the post factors to discourage the indigenous trappers from trapping cub beaver.

During the next decade the company sent out instructions on fur conservation and nursing encouraging trapping of smaller animals and in all but the frontier district only winter beaver pelts were accepted. This policy was difficult to enforce as beavers were trapped as much for the meat as for the fur and the company’s London headquarters implemented new policies including provision of summer employment of trappers so that they would not be forced to kill beaver for food. At New Brunswick House, indigenous trappers were hired to fish the nearby lakes, hunt geese in the autumn, and to work on the boats between Moose Factory and Michipicoten. The policy proved so successful that it was reported in 1843 that the Southern Department would not require any labourers or tradesmen from England that year.

In the United States in the early 20th century, conservation and preservation were being confronted directly by President Theodore Roosevelt who would go on and, during his two term tenure as President from 1901 to 1909 to establish the United States Forest Service, sign into law the creation of five National Parks, establish the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. Conservation and preservation were therefore very much in the forefront of public consciousness and particularly the captains and kings of our southern neighbour at the turn of the century.

Issues specific to the Chapleau region during that same period included the incursion of white trappers on traditional native hunting and trapping grounds along with indiscriminate mining and lumbering on a grand scale. Anishinabe Chief and former manager of the HBC post at Lake Pogoomasing, Louis Espagnol, was one of the most highly visible voices for indigenous concerns and had forcefully spoken to this issue during the Treaty Nine negotiations of 1905-1906.

Twenty years later in 1925, under the stewardship of Chapleau merchant and fur trader, William McLeod, the Chapleau Crown Game Preserve would be created to prevent the fur bearing animals in the Chapleau region from being totally annihilated. The Chapleau Game Preserve at 7000 sq. kilometers reflected the scale of solution necessary to deal with the conservation challenge which in most cases was only possible through government intervention. Conservation was a big challenge requiring big solutions and big thinking.

Chapleau Crown Game Preserve (2015) Ian Macdonald

Development of a regulatory framework focusing on conserving and preserving the Canadian natural environment progressed at a more measured pace than in the United States. Although the first national park in Canada at Banff, Ottawa was created in 1885, it would not be until 1930 when a national system of parks was entrenched in legislation with the passing of the National Parks Act. It would take until the 1979 revisions to the Act to give more specificity and emphasis on conserving the natural areas in an unimpaired state through ecological integrity and restoration, moving away from development based heavily on profit.

Roger Mizuguchi and Ian Macdonald Nemegosenda River (1962) Ian Macdonald

Canada’s first provincial park was in was in Ontario with the establishment of Algonquin Park in 1893. Nevertheless, some 60 years later, in 1953, there were only seven provincial parks in Ontario. However, in the 65 years since, the number has grown to 340 by 2018. In the Chapleau region, Ivanhoe Lake Provincial Park was established in 1957 and Chapleau Nemogosenda River Provincal Park in 1973.