Open letter to Premier Darrell Pasloski:
My husband and I visited the Yukon in May for 10 days to experience real Canadian wilderness. We chose the Yukon because it was (we thought) one of the last protected wildernesses on earth.
We found many unique things we loved including tough, resourceful, proud, progressive people, tight community spirit, and the midnight sun. Most of all we were impressed by quietness and virgin nature and how there were more animals than people. It seemed like we had indeed found a place “larger than life.”
Our nation’s pure beauty (and our honour) would be destroyed should you invite suitors to rape and pillage virgin land and the citizens and animals of the area by mining it for short-term gains.
Should the Yukon government ever allow mining in Tombstone and the Peel Watershed or world heritage spots like Kluane, you will forever alter a pristine habitat that attracts visitors, tourist dollars, and new talent that comes expressly to experience Yukon’s unique wilderness -Â not to mention compromising the historic cultural values of the Tr’ondek Hwech’in and unique flora, fauna and wildlife.
What tourist would come to the Yukon to look at scarred, polluted earth? We witnessed what happened in Dawson, and it’s pitiful. Where there once was a scenic spot, there is now a huge pile of gravel. We booked our annual vacation and drove 500 kilometres to see this?
What we saw from the Midnight Dome was heartbreaking—a panorama of the Yukon River and pristine mountains interrupted by long dead scars left by mining. It was haunting to behold under the midnight sun and it left an indelible impression on us.
Congratulations on your decision to not allow Canadian United Minerals to explore their Horn Claims in Tombstone Territorial Park. Please continue to protect Tombstone and all of the Peel Watershed for future generations.
Why poison the very place you live? Make no mistake, we will kill the golden goose if we let anyone spoil our last parcels of virgin land. Do the right thing now for the long-term - there is no honour in betraying Mother Nature.
Please protect our assets and do not deal them away. Leave a legacy showing us true responsible leadership like David Suzuki and Al Gore have. I have faith your government will use its power to withstand these mining advances. Show us we have learned since Chief Isaac’s time what greed does.
“All Yukon belong to my papas. All Klondike belong my people. Country now all mine. Long time all mine. Hills all mine; caribou all mine; mouse all mine; rabbits all mine; gold all mine,” Isaac was quoted saying in the Dawson Daily News on December 15, 1911.
“White man come and take all my gold. Take millions, take more hundreds fifty millions, and blow ‘em in Seattle. Now Moosehide Injun want Christmas. Game is gone. White man kills all moose and caribou near Dawson…Injun everywhere have hunting grounds. Moosehides hunt up Klondike, up Sixtymile, up Twentymile, but game is all gone. White man kill all.”
Andrea Voslar
Vancouver