 |
| Jill Legault came face to face with a caribou calf on Michipicoten Island in June of 2011 while volunteering to do research with Braun McLaren of Lakehead University |
Some challenges present
a pack of problems. Even more so when they concern a relatively unknown, remote
island where animals are moving pieces on nature’s chessboard. On Lake
Superior’s Michipicoten Island, a large, healthy wolf pack is moving in on the
territory of the most southern herd of caribou in the world. And without help there
soon could be a checkmate in store for all of them.
 |
| Michipicoten Island is the third largest Island in Lake Superior |
However, just as two radiating
lighthouse beacons on the island shine through the fog, hope still thrives in
some of the folks who know and love the island. They are very aware of the impending
difficulties and are raising ideas that aren’t going away anytime soon. In
phone interviews and emails with the Sault Star, they shared expertise on this
very dangerous predator-prey game. Requested comments from MNRF, Ministry of
Natural Resources and Forestry, are not available.
Brian McLaren,
Associate Professor in the Faculty of Natural Resources Management at Lakehead University,
wrote “We need to opt for a non-lethal wolf response program. Wolf kills and
landfast ice are not routine things but they matter in the long run when the
dice get rolled the wrong way.”
Gord Eason, Wawa
resident and retired MNR biologist, said, “We need to get a few of the caribou
off Michipicoten Island before they are all gone. They are very valuable
animals. We have to step in and be the immigrators.”
Leo LaPiano, Michipicoten First Nation Lands and Resources
Conservation Officer, added, “Something has to be done immediately. The first step
in a longer term goal is getting the caribou protected.”
Christian Schroeder, who has owned a camp on Michipicoten
Island since 2013, is very worried. “It seems to be the thing that is occupying
my mind most of the time now,” he said. “It is my dream that Canadians would
have a discussion about caribou as Americans did about moose.”
Michipicoten Island, the
third largest island in Lake Superior, is its own Provincial Park, under the
umbrella of Lake Superior Provincial Park, with Bob Elliott as Park Superintendent.
The fertile island has volcanic based soil with an abundance of luxurious
vegetation. Thick growth of ground hemlock, moose maple and tag alder make
inland summer travel almost impossible. However, the forest does eventually
open up onto a large sugar maple forest. Several lakes dot the interior.
The closest stretch of shoreline
to this 184 square kilometre wilderness beauty is about 15 km away. In the winter,
ice formation on the lake seldom creates solid enough footing to walk to the island
from the mainland. The usual mammals on the island are snowshoe hares,
muskrats, weasels, foxes and a lot of beaver. In fact, numbers of beaver have
been historically astronomical. In the fall of 1961 there were 730 active
lodges, with an estimated 5800 beaver. By October of 2015, 1300 active lodges
peppered the island. All the luxuriant shrubbery provided them with a bountiful
good life. Before the arrival of the wolves, beavers had free run of the island
which they also shared with the influx of an introduced caribou population. Caribou, or reindeer, which some peoples call them, have
some neat survival tricks. They have large rounded hooves which makes it easier
for them to dig for food and walk on snow. Caribou are excellent swimmers
because their hollow hair makes them buoyant. Plus both male and females carry
antlers. The male drops his rack in late fall after mating season. The males
drop theirs in late fall; a pregnant female carries hers for protection, sometimes
until June.
 |
| A Caribou cow protects her calf |
Caribou were a natural
presence on the island until the 1880s when mining activity and miners depleted
their numbers. But in 1981, someone spotted a mature male caribou on the island.
That’s when the MNR decided to help out that lonely bull. The next year, in
1982, the Ministry of Natural Resources, under the guidance of MNR biologist
Gord Eason, boarded eight caribou - one bull, four
cows, and three female calves - onto a Twin Otter bush plane and flew them to
Michipicoten Island. With no natural predators and tons of great greenery to
eat, the herd survived and thrived.
But there is trouble in
Michipicoten Island’s tough paradise. Today, beaver and caribou are the meat
market for the ancestor of man’s best friend. The
problem started almost four years ago. In 2014, during the Polar Vortex winter,
Lake Superior froze over and an ice bridge formed between the island and the 15
km stretch of water to the closest shore. While we were hunkering down under
duvets and wondering how to pay the next heating bill, three hungry wolves, two
females and one male, caught a whiff of the caribou and crossed the ice to the
island on a unique ice bridge. Thus the Russian proverb proved to be true. As
it states, “The wolf is fed by his feet.”
The crossing
of Lake Superior ice to find food brought an abrupt change to Michipicoten
Island. The wolves have made it their home, a healthy food-rich place to grow
their family connections. Family is everything to wolves. While only the alpha
pair breeds, the rest of the clan works overtime to help raise the litters of
four to seven pups. Even other females will lactate to help with the feeding.
And of course their vocal communications are our beautiful, deep, bone-chilling
mystery. Unless a safe ice bridge forms again, the
wolves, who do not swim in Superior, will be forced to stay on the island.
However, since caribou are so plentiful there, Michipicoten Island will be a
great place to be stranded - for now. But The Audets know better. They have
witnessed the change.
Roger and Mary Audet
have been summer visitors to the Island for over 50 years. “In 1963 we bought a
boat and that was the first time I saw the island,” said Roger in a phone
interview from his home in Wawa. “As soon as I discovered Wawa I discovered
Lake Superior and that was it.”
Today, the Audets own a
piece of their beloved island. They have a cabin in Quebec Harbour, one of the
few sheltered anchorages there. Roger and Mary have watched the caribou
population grow over the years and there is recent written proof of the herd’s
expansion. In his 2012 graduate thesis for Lakehead
University, Benjamin Kuchta wrote that in 1982 there were seven caribou; in
2001 there were 200 and in 2011 there were 680. But Kuchta had written his
study before the wolves found their way over to the Island. The Audets fear
that the caribou herd soon will disappear. At one time caribou were regular
visitors to their camp.
“They were
plentiful,” said Roger. “But there is a big, big difference now. Only the big,
big bulls will be left at the end.”
 |
| A boat docked in Quebec Harbour |
Eason is
worried too. He wants to see some of the caribou moved to Leach Island in Lake
Superior Provincial Park. In
the fall of 1984, a total of seven caribou were moved from the Slate Islands to
Montreal Island - one bull, three cows, two male calves and one female calf. One
of the cows moved over to Leach Island. The caribou lasted until 1994 when the
lake froze and a pack of wolves crossed over on the ice.
In a
prophetic 2011 report Eason wrote, “Don’t wait for the original animals to disappear. Take advantage of
their experience and genetics.”
He added, “Leach and Montreal Islands should be tried
again. Caribou could then move or be moved from these islands to the mainland.”
Another suggested plan is to move the wolves to Isle
Royale on the U.S. side of the border. Isle Royale, the largest island in Lake
Superior, needs wolves to help control Royale’s moose population.
LaPiano encourages the idea of transporting wolves to
Royale.
“What an opportunity for cross border cooperation,” he
said in a phone interview. “I’ve been in touch with the scientists on Isle
Royale. They have expressed interest in receiving the wolves.”
But LaPiano also has deeper concerns. He believes that
the caribou/moose predator situation is part of a bigger problem. “It is
representative of a much larger struggle,” he said. “It is about our
relationship to the planet. We are living in an age of mass extinction. In
order to respond we must open up a much broader conversation. It becomes pretty
depressing if we think of a planet for our children that is hollowed out and
homogeneous.”
 |
| An elusive submissive wolf on Michipicoten Island |
LaPiano credits Schroeder’s steady research and letter
writing campaign for bringing the whole situation to light. “If it wasn’t for
the determination of Christian much of this wouldn’t be happening,” he said.
Schroeder describes himself as a citizen deeply
concerned about the persistence of Lake Superior caribou. He has been doing the
tough work of dealing with bureaucracy. He is very persistent himself.
On March 30 of 2017, using the power of the Environmental
Bill of Rights, he submitted an application to the MNRF asking them to review
the Management Plan for the island. On May 30, 2017, MNRF responded denying
Schroeder’s application. The MNRF letter stated, “The MNRF …has determined that
the public interest does not warrant a review within MNRF ..or the need for a
new policy… creating the Lake Superior Island Caribou Reservation.”
 |
| Caribou graze on Michipicoten Island. |
Undaunted by the rejection, Schroeder then approached
Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing Member of Parliament Carol Hughes with Michipicoten
Island’s wolf/caribou conundrum. On June 28 Hughes wrote to MNRF Minister
Kathryn McGrarry and Catherine McKenna, Federal Minister of Environment and
Climate Change, asking that both levels of government “ work with U.S.
counterparts to look at the feasibility of having a number of wolves relocated
from Michipicoten & Slate Islands to Isle Royale ”.
On September 7, 2017, McKenna responded. Her letter
stated, “ ..since boreal caribou is a federally-listed species under the Species at Risk Act, the Government of
Canada plays a national leadership role in co-ordinating recovery actions..”.
However McKenna was quick to add, “I understand the
provincial MNRF is developing a range-specific approach to manage that area.”
She went on to
say, “Environment and Climate Change Canada will examine the approach being
taken. In that regard, the federal government will offer support to the
Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, where appropriate, in making sound
management decisions involving boreal caribou in areas of provincial
jurisdiction in the coastal range. ”
Studies are in the works and more MNRF observations
are planned.
McLaren is disturbed with the lack of real action.
“It breaks my heart really,” he wrote, “that caribou
conservation is such a national issue and yet, in one of the few cases where we
have a simple management response to help rescue them, we hide behind the idea
that we need to do more research. Or if we cannot pull the scientists together
on the same page, then we need to educate ourselves as a whole.”
LaPiano would most definitely agree with that one.
“It might be pretty idealistic and naïve,” he said, “but
if you’re going to dream about alternative realities why not chose one that
makes sense?”
 |
| A male caribou on Michipicoten Island carries a distinctive set of antlers. |
Note : A website courtesy of Johanna Rowe
http://www.wawahistory.com/northern-chronicles-et-alfebruary-26-2011-sault-star-wawa-vs-wolves-call-it-the-nature-of-the-beast
gives an historic perspective on caribou during the last century in the Wawa area.
 |
| Madeline and Laura Bazelot and Hilda Morrison at the Morrison cabin near Lake Superior during the mid 1900s. Note the caribou antlers above the door. |