Wood Buffalo National Park

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Wood Buffalo National Park is the largest national park of Canada at 44,741 km2 (17,275 sq mi). It is in northeastern Alberta and the southern Northwest Territories. Larger in area than Switzerland, it is the second-largest national park in the world. The park was established in 1922 to protect the world's largest herd of free-roaming wood bison. They became hybridized after the introduction of plains bison. The population is currently estimated at 3,000. It is one of two known nesting sites of whooping cranes. The park ranges in elevation from 183 m (600 ft) at the Little Buffalo River to 945 m (3,100 ft) in the Caribou Mountains. The park headquarters is in Fort Smith, with a smaller satellite office in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. The park contains one of the world's largest fresh-water deltas, the Peace-Athabasca Delta, formed by the Peace, Athabasca and Birch rivers. It is also known for its karst sinkholes in the north-eastern section of the park. Alberta's largest springs (by volume, with an estimated discharge rate of eight cubic metres per second), Neon Lake Springs, are in the Jackfish River drainage. Wood Buffalo is located directly north of the Athabasca Oil Sands. This area...

Main articles: Peace River country and Athabasca Country This region has been inhabited by human cultures since the end of the last ice age. Aboriginal peoples in this region have followed variations on the subarctic lifeway, based around hunting, fishing, and gathering. Situated at the junction of three major rivers used as canoe routes for trade: the Athabasca, Peace and Slave rivers, the region that later was defined as the national park was well travelled by indigenous peoples for millennia.

In recorded times, the Dane-zaa (historically called the Beaver tribe), the Chipewyan people, the South Slavey (Dene Thaʼ), and Woods Cree people inhabited the region, where they sometimes competed for resources and trade. The Dane-zaa, Chipewyan, and South Slavey speak (or spoke) languages from the Northern Athabaskan family. These languages are common also among the peoples in the regions to the north and west of the park, who call themselves the Dene collectively. The Cree, by contrast, are an Algonquian people. They are thought to have migrated here from the east within the timeframe of recorded history, as most Algonquian-speaking peoples are along the Atlantic coast, from Canada and south through much of the United States.

Sometime after 1781, when a smallpox epidemic decimated the region, the Dene and Cree made a peace treaty at Peace Point through a ceremonial pipe ceremony. This is the origin of the name of the Peace River that flows through the region: the river was used to define a boundary between the Dane-zaa to the North and the Cree to the South. [ citation needed ]

Explorer Peter Pond is believed to have passed through the region in 1785, likely the first European to do so, followed by Alexander Mackenzie three years later. In 1788 British fur traders established posts at Fort Chipewyan, just east of the current boundaries of the park, and Fort Vermilion close to the west. Fur traders followed the First Nations in using the Peace River as part of their network of canoe routes for the North American fur trade. The Métis people, descendants initially of European traders and indigenous women, developed as another major ethnic group in the region.

After nearly another century of domination by the Hudson's Bay Company, Canada purchased the company's claim to the region. Agriculture was never developed in this part of Western Canada, unlike to the south. Hunting and trapping remained the dominant industry in this region well into the 20th century, and are still vital to many of its inhabitants. Following the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897, the Canadian government was keen to extinguish Aboriginal title to the land. It wanted to be able to exploit any mineral wealth found in the future without having to contend with possible objections from First Nations. The Crown signed Treaty 8 with these peoples [ clarification needed ] on 21 June 1899, acquiring much of the territory as Crown land.

- See also: History of bison conservation in Canada

Established in 1922, the park was created on Crown land acquired through Treaty 8 between Canada and the local First Nations. The park completely surrounds several Indian reserves such as Peace Point and ʔejëre Kʼelnı Kuę́ (also called Hay Camp).

Despite protests from biologists, between 1925 and 1928 the government relocated nearly 6,700 plains bison here from Buffalo National Park, to avoid unwanted mass culling at the latter park due to over-population there. The plains bison hybridized with the local 1,500–2,000 wood bison, and carried such diseases as bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis, which they introduced into the wood bison herd. Since that time park officials have tried to undo this damage, making successive culls of diseased animals.

In 1957, a healthy and relatively pure wood bison herd of 200 was discovered near Nyarling River. In 1965, 23 of these bison were relocated to the south side of Elk Island National Park. Today, they number 300 and are the most genetically pure wood bison remaining.

Between 1951 and 1967, 4000 bison were killed and 910 tonnes (2 million pounds) of meat were sold from a special abattoir built at Hay Camp. These smaller culls did not eradicate the diseases. In 1990, the government announced a plan to destroy the entire herd and restock the park with disease-free bison from Elk Island National Park. The public quickly reacted negatively to this plan and it was abandoned.

Local governance within the Alberta portion of Wood Buffalo National Park was introduced on January 1, 1967, with the incorporation of an improvement district. Originally numbered as Improvement District No. 150, it was renumbered as Improvement District No. 24 on January 1, 1969.

In 1983, a 21-year lease was granted to Canadian Forest Products Ltd. to log a 50,000-hectare area of Wood Buffalo National Park. The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society filed a lawsuit against Parks Canada for violating the National Parks Act. Before the trial commenced in 1992, Parks Canada acquiesced and recognized that the lease was invalid and unauthorized by the provisions of the act.

In March 2019, Kitaskino Nuwenëné Wildland Provincial Park was established on the borders of Wood Buffalo National Park. The Mikisew Cree First Nation had first proposed protecting this land as a park. It preserves the natural ecosystems from the expanding industrial areas north of Fort McMurray. The park was created after three oil companies, Teck Resources, Cenovus Energy, and Imperial Oil, voluntarily gave up certain oilsands and mining leases in the area, following negotiations with the Alberta government and Indigenous groups. This provincial park is closed to forestry and new energy projects. But existing wells can keep producing, and traditional Indigenous land uses are allowed.

Main articles: Peace River country and Athabasca Country This region has been inhabited by human cultures since the end of the last ice age. Aboriginal peoples in this region have followed variations on the subarctic lifeway, based around hunting, fishing, and gathering. Situated at the junction of three major rivers used as canoe routes for trade: the Athabasca, Peace and Slave rivers, the region that later was defined as the national park was well travelled by indigenous peoples for millennia.

In recorded times, the Dane-zaa (historically called the Beaver tribe), the Chipewyan people, the South Slavey (Dene Thaʼ), and Woods Cree people inhabited the region, where they sometimes competed for resources and trade. The Dane-zaa, Chipewyan, and South Slavey speak (or spoke) languages from the Northern Athabaskan family. These languages are common also among the peoples in the regions to the north and west of the park, who call themselves the Dene collectively. The Cree, by contrast, are an Algonquian people. They are thought to have migrated here from the east within the timeframe of recorded history, as most Algonquian-speaking peoples are along the Atlantic coast, from Canada and south through much of the United States.

Sometime after 1781, when a smallpox epidemic decimated the region, the Dene and Cree made a peace treaty at Peace Point through a ceremonial pipe ceremony. This is the origin of the name of the Peace River that flows through the region: the river was used to define a boundary between the Dane-zaa to the North and the Cree to the South. [ citation needed ]

Explorer Peter Pond is believed to have passed through the region in 1785, likely the first European to do so, followed by Alexander Mackenzie three years later. In 1788 British fur traders established posts at Fort Chipewyan, just east of the current boundaries of the park, and Fort Vermilion close to the west. Fur traders followed the First Nations in using the Peace River as part of their network of canoe routes for the North American fur trade. The Métis people, descendants initially of European traders and indigenous women, developed as another major ethnic group in the region.

After nearly another century of domination by the Hudson's Bay Company, Canada purchased the company's claim to the region. Agriculture was never developed in this part of Western Canada, unlike to the south. Hunting and trapping remained the dominant industry in this region well into the 20th century, and are still vital to many of its inhabitants. Following the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897, the Canadian government was keen to extinguish Aboriginal title to the land. It wanted to be able to exploit any mineral wealth found in the future without having to contend with possible objections from First Nations. The Crown signed Treaty 8 with these peoples [ clarification needed ] on 21 June 1899, acquiring much of the territory as Crown land.

See also: History of bison conservation in Canada