About the Region
Overview of the Iskut-Stikine Watershed:
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The transboundary Iskut-Stikine watershed is one of North America’s largest and most intact wild salmon watersheds. The Stikine, meaning ‘The Great River’ in Tlingit language, covers a diverse range of climates and geography from alpine tundra to ancient coastal rainforests. John Muir described part of the Stikine as a “Yosemite 100 miles long”. It is 52,000km2/20,000 square miles, making it larger than Switzerland.
It is the traditional territory of the Tahltan First Nation, and supports thriving sport, commercial and subsistence fisheries, guided and subsistence hunting, and a variety of other cultural, recreational and economic activities.
The Stikine River is 640km/400 miles long from its headwaters in BC’s Spatsizi Plateau to its estuary near Wrangell, Alaska. The Iskut River, the largest tributary of the Stikine, flows for 236km/145 miles from Kluachon Lake near Iskut, BC to its confluence with the lower Stikine River near the US/Canada border.
Despite substantial protected areas, the Iskut-Stikine is one of the continent’s most threatened watersheds. Several mining and energy projects are in development while about a dozen companies are negotiating with the Tahltan First Nation for other projects to begin. The scope and pace of development proposed in the Stikine is unprecedented. In 2006, 50% of all mining exploration activity in Northwest BC was taking place on Tahltan territory. Alaska continues planning the transboundary Bradfield Road and an electrical intertie with Canada, both of which would go through important roadless areas and drive resource exploitation to unsustainable levels
Upper Iskut-Stikine:
The Upper Iskut-Stikine region, separated from the Lower River region by Highway 37 (the Stewart-Cassiar), is dominated by the Spatsizi Plateau. Known as “BC’s Serengeti”, Spatsizi contains some of the most spectacular wildlife populations in BC and its healthy predator-prey interactions are reminiscent of those that once dominated all of North America. This upper region of the watershed forms part of the Sacred Headwaters where four great rivers are born—the Stikine, Skeena, Finlay and Nass. It is a vital subsistence and cultural area for the Tahltan First Nation, whose name for it means Land of the Red Goat. The upper reach of the river runs for 260km/160 miles from Tuaton Lake to the Highway 37 bridge over the Stikine.
The upper watershed contains world-class wildlife habitat and populations, and is important for the Tahltan’s traditional and guided hunting. The aggressive industrial development now underway threatens this and other existing economies and cultural activities. The Todagin Wildlife Management Area hosts the largest lambing herd of Stone Sheep in the world, and BC’s largest concentration of woodland caribou gathers in the Spatsizi for the rut. Goats, bears, moose and wolves also thrive here. This area feeds the Nass, Skeena and Stikine river systems, providing clean water for salmon, wildlife and people. While Spatsizi Provincial Park does protect some of this region, the Sacred Headwaters were excluded from the park to accommodate future mining development.
Threats
The major threats to the Upper Iskut-Stikine region and its people are numerous, and include:
- BC Metals’ Red Chris mine and road project is located on the Todagin Plateau between Ealue and Kluea Lakes, approximately 18km/11 miles southeast of the village of Iskut. Mine activity, especially frequent blasting, would threaten the Stone Sheep populations on Todagin Mountain. The tailings impoundment would impact fish habitat and likely end a 55 year-old traditional Tahltan guided hunting enterprise. The project has received regulatory approvals, but BC Metals cannot operate without a viable source of power.
- Fortune Minerals’ proposed Klappan open pit coal project is just on the edge of the Spatsizi Provincial Park, with the haul road to go from the headwaters of the Little and Big Klappan drainages of the Stikine through the headwaters of the Nass and Bell-Irving.
- Shell Canada also is exploring for coalbed methane and has drilled four test wells at the head of the Little Klappan and Spatsizi Rivers. This type of industrial activity requires numerous access points and drill sites and the energy it produces contributes to climate change. This project would be especially harmful to water quality given its proximity to the Sacred Headwaters.
The combined impacts of all of the projects currently proposed in the Iskut-Stikine watershed would do immense harm to the environment and to local communities.
In 2006, Iskut First Nation elders formed a group called the Klabona Keepers Elders Society, as a step to ensure the long-term sustainable stewardship of their territory, especially the Sacred Headwaters. In August 2006, the Iskut Nation hosted a gathering to support the protection of the Sacred Headwaters. Joining the Iskut Nation were Hereditary Chiefs of the Haida, Gitxsan, Wet’suwet’en, Taku River Tlingit, and Haisla Nations, as well as non-aboriginal allies, including Rivers Without Borders.
This collaboration between First Nations, and between First Nations and non-aboriginal allies, is critical to turning back this tide of aggressive and poorly planned development. A reasonable plan would be for the BC government to halt any industrial development in the Sacred Headwaters and slow down the pace of development and exploration elsewhere in the Stikine.
Lower Iskut-Stikine:
The Lower Iskut-Stikine region includes 386km/240 miles of the mainstem Stikine River, from the Highway 37 bridge over the Stikine to the sea, including the 100km/60 mile Grand Canyon section with its 300metre/1000 foot walls. This area also includes the Iskut River, the main tributary to the Stikine River, which flows for 236km/145 miles from Kluachon Lake near Iskut, BC to its confluence with the lower Stikine River near the US/Canada border.
The Lower region supports thriving sport, commercial and subsistence fisheries in BC and Alaska and provides important economic, recreation and cultural opportunities for Iskut, Telegraph Creek and Dease Lake in BC, and Petersburg and Wrangell in Alaska.
This region is vital for salmon, with many fish spawning in the mainstem Stikine. The Iskut River supplies critical spawning, rearing and migration habitat for up to 40% of the entire watershed’s salmon and steelhead. The salmon are a keystone species in the coastal food chain, providing a vital food source for the grizzly bear and other animals, as well as contributing to the nutrient cycle critical and the health of coastal ecosystems.
The confluence of the Stikine and Iskut Rivers is an important wetland complex providing habitat for many species including migratory birds, moose, mountain goats, wolves and bear. The Lower Iskut-Stikine is the largest river system in British Columbia where a thriving valley bottom riparian habitat has not been altered by commercial timber harvesting. The lower 48km/30 miles of the Stikine in Alaska are protected as part of the Stikine-LeConte Wilderness Area. The estuary is irreplaceable migratory bird habitat for half a million geese, swans, ducks, eagles and other birds.
Threats
This Lower region is part of an extensively mineralized belt known as the Golden Triangle. Mining exploration and development, with its associated need for roads and power supplies, is rapidly increasing, including: –Nova Gold’s Galore Creek open pit mine, 32km/20 miles from the Stikine River, would be one of the largest in the world. The potential for damage to water quality, and wildlife and salmon habitat is significant given the scale of this operation. The extensive access road needed also raises concerns around water quality and habitat, as well as the potential for further spin-off industrial development.
- Nova Gold has purchased the Coast Mountain Hydropower project, which would dam the Iskut River near Forrest Kerr Canyon for electricity production. A section of river would be almost totally de-watered at certain times of the year.
- The construction and operation of electrical interties could fragment and harm fish and wildlife habitats, but the greater threat is the development boom they could foster. BC has plans for a major transmission line into the region and Alaska has proposed a cross border electrical intertie. The proposed 287 kilovolt line to Bob Quinn would drive mining to unsustainable levels.
- Alaska continues to promote the transboundary Bradfield Road project, both as a road and power line route from Wrangell, Alaska to Highway 37 near Iskut, BC. The area potentially affected by the road is part of one of the most extensive mainland roadless areas in North America, bounded by the Stikine/LeConte Wilderness, Misty Fiords National Monument and the Craig Headwaters Protected Area. The critical Iskut-Stikine confluence wetlands would become much more accessible, with potentially grave impacts on the grizzly bears and migratory birds that currently thrive there. In addition, this road would pave a way for BC resources to flow to US ports.
In concert with the Sacred Headwaters campaign in the Upper Iskut-Stikine, a similar effort is underway to achieve protection of the Lower Stikine-Iskut confluence area and to ensure it remains roadless. This will link the Stikine-LeConte Wilderness with the protected areas of the middle (Mt. Edziza Park) and upper Stikine (Spatsizi Park). If successful this effort would not only protect the region from logging and mining impacts due to the lack of roads, it would protect a wild transboundary river and 7082km2/1.75 million acres of grandeur on the scale of Canada’s majestic Banff National Park.