Every spring, Crees pause to harvest geese, reconnect with the land and share cultural knowledge. Goose Break is a cherished time of rest, reflection and enjoying priceless moments with family.
“Being out on the land rejuvenates us in a special way, strengthening our connection to our values and roots as Iiyiyiuuch of Iiyiyiuu Aschii,” stated the Grand Council of the Crees, encouraging everyone to share their harvests and teach children safe firearm habits.
Waswanipi’s youth department organized a Goose Break festival April 30, with food essentials given away to those in need. Most communities provide subsidy bundles for young families and coordinate “Adopt a Youth” programs to help more people get out on the land. Mistissini’s Meechum Store donated $10,000 for the local youth program.
The Cree Health Board reminded hunters to use lead-free ammunition, vaccinate dogs for rabies, keep the land clean, boil water for two minutes before drinking and cook food thoroughly. Birds shouldn’t be touched with bare hands and propane shouldn’t be used in enclosed spaces.
The season got off to a sad start when beloved Waskaganish community member Roy Weistche passed away April 17 while goose hunting in the south. A week after the funeral, friends and family gathered to place a cross at the site of the incident May 3.
With uncertain ice conditions, hunters should keep people informed of their location and avoid going out alone. A deep blanket of snow remains in many areas, with coastal Elders saying they couldn’t remember a season with so much snow.
“The migration of the songbirds is about two weeks behind schedule,” noted Angela Coxon, director of wildlife management at the Eeyou Marine Region Wildlife Board (EMRWB). “Folks in Waskaganish are saying that the geese are flying low this spring because the ground is still covered in snow so the hunting has been better than recent years.”
A Cree hunter told Coxon that with less heat rising from the ground, the geese don’t have to fly as high to stay cool. Further north in Wemindji, tallyman Henry Stewart said there were still winter conditions and few geese in the area.
The Niskamoon Corporation is funding reseearch in association with EMRWB, the Cree Trappers’ Association, Hydro Quebec and researchers from McGill University and the University of Calgary to better understand goose populations and choice of habitats.
“Elders say geese used to fatten up on the coast and move onto their migration,” said project leader Frédéric LeTourneux. “Now the geese spend most of their staging period in the south on agricultural land where they accumulate most of the fat reserves they need for migration and reproduction.”
In phase two of the Coastal Habitat Comprehensive Research Project launched last summer, Eeyouch and scientists are monitoring goose abundance, distribution and behaviour. Data will be gathered over five years with drones, harvest measurements, cameras and sound recorders.
Harvested geese will be weighed and measured to determine fat reserves, an indicator of population health and reproductive capacity. In an CHCRP tutorial video, LeTourneux demonstrates how land users can take these measurements themselves, which will eventually be compared to body conditions in different areas and over the years.
The goal is to link this information with traditional ecological knowledge and empower independent Cree goose monitoring. LeTourneux suggested the Cree way of pinching the belly to assess bird fat might work better than their method. Adding this research to data obtained in Nunavik and the St. Lawrence Valley can develop a fuller picture.
“Current information is that a lot of the geese breeding in the Arctic use the inland route,” said LeTourneux. “When the geese are migrating, they’re looking for open water, especially in early spring. If it’s all frozen, they’ll tend to fly over or even fly back a little south if they hit an intense weather front.”
In collaboration with regional polar bear research, 30 passive sampling stations have been deployed at wetland habitats along the coast, with another 15 coming this summer. Equipped with cameras and sound recorders, these stations help identify habitat characteristics preferred by geese.
Drone technology is another tool for surveying goose populations. Flying high above congregations without disturbing them, they use computer software to count geese. Returning to sites each year can determine changes over time. There are plans to test goose reaction to the drones this fall and then train locals to use them safely.
Working with McGill University, Nature Canada or FaunENord, many Cree are developing scientific skills while securing meaningful employment. Chisasibi’s Lawrence Napash has taken researchers out on James Bay for five years and recently joined a project taking samples of eelgrass beneath the ice, a primary food source for geese.
“Sometimes we’d take water samples from the eelgrass beds to see if they’re healthy,” Napash told the Nation. “We believe the sediment from the dams goes out north and poisons the bay so the birds cannot eat. There were no shorebirds on the north coast of Chisasibi; on the south there were big flocks of Yellowlegs.”
Since Hydro-Québec diverted the Rupert and Eastmain rivers, Napash said La Grande River is too shallow in springtime for hunting. He nearly broke his boat motor two years ago trying.
“There was a smaller river up near LG-1 where there used to be thousands of geese feeding, but today there’s none because it’s dried up,” said Napash. “I think you can cross with hip waders now – the geese just land for a couple of minutes, then they take off. I think they’re going to try to transplant eelgrass in Chisasibi at the end of June.”
Since getting his own boat, Napash has been in high demand for projects researching berries, mushrooms, shorebirds and polar bears. He looks forward to becoming a diver for underwater research.
A meeting with EMRWB biologist Manon Sorais in March discussed hunting potential on the Twin Islands and Charlton Island in central James Bay, where it’s believed over 60% of migrating geese pass through. Researchers exploring where they’re nesting or wintering will have to contend with large numbers of polar bears on the islands.
“People are starting to hunt geese in the south because the [former] feeding grounds are no longer active,” said Napash. “Geese are starting to fly in the middle of the bay. When they told us the numbers of geese flying there, we had a meeting to get safe bear-proof camps there.”