Values-Based Approaches to Intercultural Conservation Around Lac La Ronge, Saskatchewan

Across Canada, boreal woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), are listed as “threatened” under the Canadian Species at Risk Act. Because the caribou have importance for many Indigenous and Euro-Canadian groups, they may especially benefit from intercultural approaches to their conservation. While Indigenous knowledges are increasingly sought after in natural resource research and management in northern Canada, Euro-Canadian government agencies face challenges with incorporating these from research into policy, such as how to weave Indigenous knowledges into boreal caribou conservation processes. The ongoing challenge of working across worldviews and, for Euro-Westerners, with Indigenous cultural or spiritual values that guide Indigenous Peoples’ relationships with other species, may still prevent or hinder progress toward protecting caribou together. Previous conservation policy has been limited to Indigenous knowledges that are most similar to that from the Euro-Western sciences – knowledge about things. This study takes an ontological and values-based approach to examine caribou conservation around Lac La Ronge, a large boreal lake in subarctic Saskatchewan. Affirming the Algonquian recognition of multispecies and multisentient actors, and through ethnographic and visual arts-based methods, the study documents Woodland Cree and Métis values regarding woodland caribou and intercultural conservation around Lac La Ronge, and considers their use and compatibility with existing Euro-Canadian conservation strategies. Findings highlight ontological differences between Indigenous and Euro-Canadian cultures as central to challenges of intercultural knowledge pairing, and, by extension, to the success (or failure) of intercultural conservation processes for woodland caribou more generally. The study produces a set of guiding principles and recommendations for conservation processes through a holistic, values-based framework, offering tools for weaving together multiple knowledge systems and creating ethical space for collaboration. Building on previous research that has begun to document Indigenous values regarding boreal caribou in Saskatchewan and across Canada, and adding to ongoing intercultural management efforts in Saskatchewan, these findings and recommendations have implications for developing more equitable and sustainable intercultural and interspecies relationships in Saskatchewan and elsewhere.

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