Metis Hunting in Alberta

Alberta Metis Hunters make us very proud in Alberta. Between Jason Madden and these dedicated hunters working with the Metis Nation of Alberta - we can not lose. If you get a chance to go to a community meeting and hear these men speak - take the opportunity.

Our hunters are doing this at their own cost. It has cost many of them thousands of dollars and many hours. They have started a legal defence fund that they have contributed their own money to the cause. They are very supportive of our Metis Leader - Audrey Poitras and they work closely with her and the Minister of Metis Rights, Cecil Bellrose to ensure that they will move forward on the Metis agenda.

The entire article that was in the Edmonton Journal can be found at:

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/sundayreader/story.html?id=cf6efdc0-7680-4ac9-a9a5-5a3579fc0c8f

I have put a portion of the article here.

Alberta Metis are staging illegal hunts aimed at provoking a court battle with the provincial government. For them, it's a matter of principle and cultural pride

Darcy Henton
The Edmonton Journal

Sunday, February 17, 2008

CESSFORD - Heading out across the Southern Alberta prairie to set up a Métis hunting camp, Ron Jones stops at a fork in the road.

It's apparent that he isn't sure whether to turn right or left.

A former hunting guide with a large black stetson and the Métis penchant for brightly coloured clothing, he steps out of his truck to consult with travellers following in another vehicle. After they consult maps and a GPS, they suggest he turn right.

Jones, 58, who resides on the Kootenay Plains on the edge of Alberta's mountain parks, isn't familiar with the flat, treeless terrain north of Brooks, some 160 kilometres east of Calgary. He's never hunted here. ...

...Most of the hunters arrive before dusk. Some have come from as far away as Fox Creek, Hinton and Valleyview.

They pitch tents in -18 C temperatures around a teepee constructed by Jim Lambert, 65, who dragged his 10-metre poles 650 kilometres from Robb, near Jasper Park.

The Fort Vermilion-born outfitter, guide, trapper and jack of all trades has picked a low spot for camp near a frozen marsh that provides a few willows for protection against the unrelenting wind.

Lambert, clad in a plaid shirt, jeans and fur hat, curses the treeless prairie, where he has to mount a lengthy search just to find a stick, but with the eye of an experienced chef, which he is, he has been hungrily eyeing the pheasants running thick in the tall grass.

After camp has been set up and the blue Métis "infinity" flag raised, a council is held in Lambert's teepee to discuss the next day's hunt.

Participants stand around a campfire, smoking cigarettes and shuffling their feet to keep warm, while Jones, seated near the teepee entrance, explains the reason and rules for the hunt.

"Our goal will be to harvest an antelope for food and to be subsequently charged by the Alberta government," he says, reading his notes by lantern-light. "Law enforcement officers have been invited to attend. It is important to keep in mind that the officers are just doing their job, as we are just doing ours."

He sets out the rules -- no alcohol, no drugs, no unregistered firearms and no trespassing.

Jones praises the others who are supporting him on the hunt, but who are not expecting to participate in the actual shooting of an animal.

"You're proud and making history," he tells them. "You will be remembered for fighting for our cause."

Earlier in the day he and the other "deputy captains" briefed two Fish and Wildlife officers about the hunt, providing them written copies of the rules at a Brooks coffee shop.

The two officers, Doug Etherington of Medicine Hat and Bob Machum of Hanna, arrived wearing flak jackets over their forest green uniform tops, the head of a bighorn ram displayed on their shoulder badges.

Jones explains the hunters plan to shoot one antelope, likely in the Medicine Hat District, but failing that they would settle for a deer.

"Call us when you get one on the ground," says Machum.

He also advises the hunters to follow hunter safety regulations, not to shoot from secondary roads or within 50 yards of their vehicle. ...

...A big-game hunter who has hunted around the world, Mohan says he killed his first moose when he was 11 and was hunting ducks with a slingshot before he went to kindergarten.

He's only now embracing his roots and he's not worried about the fallout.

"I'm getting to the point that I don't care any more because my true friends respect me for me," he says. "I can't sit on the fence. I have never been good at doing that."

A hunting camp on the first morning of the hunt is alive with excitement, but the mood is pensive as Jones and his spotter, Josh Slager, head out with Mohan and Lambert following in his truck.

Jones is anxious about doing this right. He wants to shoot an antelope cleanly, obeying all the other regulations, to ensure that it will be a clear issue for the court to decide.

But he also knows that if he is successful, he will be charged with a hunting violation for the first time in his life? and that saddens him.

The Métis hunters stop one last time to check an area map, picking out a section of pasture south of Canadian Forces Base Suffield they want to try first.

"We're hunting now," announces Jones. It's 11:30 a.m.

Within a couple of minutes, Slager, 31, who professes to being colour blind, spots a four-point mule deer buck bedded in a pasture.

"There's a little buck there but we'll let him go," he says, after studying the deer with his binoculars.

Slager, the only Métis hunter who has ever shot an antelope, says his colour blindness is an asset for spotting game.

Jones turns off a gravel road into a pasture just north of the Trans-Canada Highway and follows a meandering trail that winds around a gravel pit and a number of gas wells. He drives only a few minutes before Slager spots a pair of antelope bucks bedded down in the tall grass about 180 metres away, but Jones keeps driving on past them.

He wants to make sure he is a legal distance from the highway and any occupied buildings before he starts to stalk the animals. Once Slager has examined the hunting regulations and zone maps and double-checked to ensure they aren't in any prohibited hunting area, the pair begin stalking the animals from the north. It takes them about 20 minutes to get into position for a shot.

The temperature is above zero, but a biting 25- to 30-km/h wind brings it down close to -10 C and makes it difficult to hold a rifle steady. Jones fires three shots from his custom-made .257 Weatherby from about 75 metres, but misses and the antelope bound out of sight over a low rise to the south.

The disappointed hunters return to the truck to resume scouting.

"We're just a bunch of poor starving Indians," Lambert calls out to the invisible quarry. "Give up the ghost for us."

The hunters spot two more antelope a few minutes later, but by the time they disembark behind a low rise, the prey have taken off to the south to join up with a herd of about 40 antelope.

Jones eyes light up. He outlines his intention to crawl toward the crest of a hill to get a shot at the closest antelope which is, according to Mohan, just under 300 metres away.

"I'll be right back," he says confidently. It's just after 1 p.m.

As he moves toward the grazing herd, it suddenly bolts.

Two shots ring out. One antelope stops. It's hit.

A third shot rings out, a fourth, a fifth. Jones shoulders his rifle. The antelope is down. It's 1:07 p.m.

"I was watching the whole herd in the binoculars and all of a sudden one stopped dead," Slager says later. "The first shot hit it in the low shoulder."

The buck, which Slager estimates to be three years old, is still alive when the hunters approach. Jones finishes it off.

It's not the clean kill he wanted, but his mission is accomplished.

Though he knows the antelope carcass will be seized as evidence for any subsequent court proceeding, he prepares it for butchering, field-dressing it and dumping the entrails into the snow.

If he wins his court case, he can apply to have the meat returned to him. But that could take five years or more.

Back at his truck, which has been driven forward to the site of the kill, he calls the Fish and Wildlife office in Medicine Hat to report that he has an animal on the ground. He would have preferred to take the antelope to camp for a feast, but he gave the officers his word he would call them from the scene of the killing.

He slumps dejectedly in the seat of the truck awaiting their arrival.

"I feel very sad," he explains. "I killed that animal and it won't be eaten because it will be confiscated. It will go to waste and I feel bad about that."

Jones says he feels neither nervous nor guilty of a crime. It's the province of Alberta that is breaking the law, he says.

"The Supreme Court of Canada directed the provinces to accommodate Métis harvesting," he says. "Alberta hasn't done that. Alberta is the lawbreaker."

The Fish and Wildlife officers -- Etherington and Len Lupyczuk -- arrive in separate trucks about an hour later.

Etherington asks Jones to accompany him to his truck to provide a statement. Lupyczuk investigates the scene, taking photographs and measurements.

As the investigators go to work, a cellphone rings in Mohan's truck. It's a customer needing a welding truck.

"I'm in the middle of being arrested and I can't stay on the phone too long," Mohan drawls.
Later, as the two officers accompany Jones to his truck to seize his rifle, the antelope emerge from behind a ridge and cross in single file behind them, silhouetted against the setting sun.
Jones hands over his scope-mounted .257 Weatherby magnum rifle -- a firearm he estimates is worth more than $3,000. He was hoping it would not be seized, but he doesn't complain.
"It doesn't matter," he says. "They can take the truck, too."

Jones is charged with hunting wildlife during a closed season and unlawful possession of wildlife. He is issued a summons to appear in court May 9, but Métis officials say their lawyers hope to "bundle" the six cases and deal with them all at once at one trial.

Jones is confident that informed Albertans will support the Métis cause.

"The more we educate people the more understanding they will have to make an informed decision, rather than a knee-jerk reaction."

University of Alberta native studies professor Nathalie Kermoal says Métis in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and B.C. are also struggling with provincial interpretations of the court ruling.

Métis continue to be charged, cases tried and decisions appealed.

Robert Lee, the Métis Nation of Alberta's manager of justice issues, says his people just want to continue to hunt for food the way they always have.

"We don't want any special favours."

Jones says he takes pride in standing up for Métis rights for his nine-month-old granddaughter, who is a descendent of mountain man Ewan Moberly, a Métis leader evicted from Jasper in 1907 when the national park was created.

"I want her to be very proud. I am doing this for future generations," he says. "I want them to be proud of their culture."

dhenton@thejournal.
canwest.com

A video about Metis hunting produced by the Edmonton Journal can be found at:

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/photogalleries/metis_hunt_final/index.html