Ways we respect caribou: hunting in Teetł’it Zheh (Fort McPherson, NWT)

• Author / Creator

  Wray, Kristine Elizabeth Joyce

• The Porcupine caribou herd is the focus of multiple stakeholder groups, all of which have different ways of understanding and valuing caribou. This thesis focuses on the knowledge and perspectives that the Teetł’it Gwich’in of Teetł’it Zheh (Fort McPherson, NWT) bring to Porcupine caribou co-management. This paper-based thesis has two major aims: first, to explore how the Teetł’it Gwich’in construct knowledge about caribou; and second, to explore Teetł’it Gwich’in rules-in-use with respect to caribou hunting. A comparison is made between Gwich’in methods of knowledge construction and rules-in-use with those of the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT), and the Porcupine Caribou Management Board (PCMB), with the intent of understanding difficulties in co-management. The thesis offers the concept of the Gwich’in Knowledge Complex, a knowledge complex created from multiple sources of information about caribou, including scientific information (mainly from the PCMB and the GNWT) as well as Traditional Knowledge.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Rules-in-use
  • Co-management
  • Fort McPherson
  • Gwich'in Knowledge
  • Knowledge construction
  • Teetł’it Gwich’in
  • Teetł’it Zheh
  • Gwich'in Knowledge Complex
  • Porcupine caribou

• Graduation date

  Spring 2011

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R37H1K

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.