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Link to Carly’s GoFundMe page

Hi, my name is Carly Bastien-Wells. I am fundraising to purchase a stone memorial in honor of my dad the late Harley Jack Bastien. My dad passed away on September 28, 2025 from cancer. His battle was short, the cancer was aggressive and it all happened so fast. Harley was a true steward of the land, especially Southern Alberta and the Old Man River.

We would like to put this memorial near his beloved camp “Buffalo Rock Tipi Camp” which is also the location he and the crew have saved fish from. The Flume Bridge. We would like to honor him this October and place a memorial in honor of his dedication to not only the fish but the Old Man River as a whole.

I have copied the presentation of the Fish Rescue that I did shortly after his passing. I was invited by the Lethbridge and Northern Irrigation District to present this at their annual conference in Lethbridge Alberta.

As a proud Piikani Nation member, my dad dedicated his life to protecting the land, sharing knowledge, and preserving culture. Raised in the Oldman River valley, he spent decades restoring Southern Alberta’s ecosystems and bridging Indigenous teachings with Western science. He founded the annual Peigan Friends Along the River fish rescue in 1990 in hopes of helping a species in need, a species critical to the ecosystem of the Old Man.

The fish rescue began 35 years ago with my parents, my 2 siblings and I, my dads 2 best friends and a handful of cousins. At the time we really had no clue what we were doing and we definitely did not come prepared. My dad just came inside one Saturday morning and said “Get ready and put your rubber boots on, we’re going to rescue some fish”.

This may have sounded like a crazy request to a lot of people, but it was like a shrug and OK cool for us. You see, we grew up in the Old Man River Valley where we were taught from a very young age to protect it. We spent weekends wrapping cotton wood trees with chicken wire to prevent the beavers from chewing them down, but you know, beavers will be beavers. We spent an equal amount of time planting trees. Creating picnic spaces for our community to enjoy. Learning at a young age what trees grow in the valley, what animals live there, what birds live year around and which ones migrate. Did you know that when all of the birds come back after winter, when they sing and begin building their homes that they wake up the trees. It’s their way of knowing that its time to wake up.

This was what it was like growing up with an environmental conservationist for a dad. Trained to notice the world around us which includes everything from humans, animals, birds, water, plants and all living things. Understanding at a young age that well preserved forests and rivers are the arteries for the grasslands. They are the lifelines that make the ecosystems livable.

Seeing first hand the negative impacts, habitat loss and fragmentation resulting in the loss of biodiversity and highly compromised watersheds. The ever growing pressure from agriculture, oil and gas drilling, residential and commercial development, water use and recreational activities has greatly affected these ecosystems. My dad saw a need to preserve the fish as a crucial part of this ecosystem.

So we begin the annual task of saving the fish trapped in the flume bridge and irrigation canal. Peigan Friends Along the River was already a non profit organization dedicated to preserving the Old Man River valley. We then included saving the fish. We started off with fish nets and rubber boots. Then we opted for hip waders and head band flashlights and a net. We would slide our feet on the floor of the interior of the bridge both because we didn’t want to step on a fish and we didn’t want to slip. We call this a sweep. When the sweepers arrive at the North opening of the bridge the rest of the crew is prepared with fish nets and buckets in hand, we begin the actually really fun task of capturing them into buckets that are then lifted up and dumped into our holding tanks. The fish sit for a bit in the oxygenated tanks until there is enough to do a river dump. We did for a very long time measure, weigh and identify the species, gender and record this information which was shared with the Provincial Government. To date I feel like we have rescued over 300,000 fish. Which I think is pretty cool. Its a great feeling at the end of the day. This happens every single Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend rain, shine, wind or blizzard (sometimes all 4 in the same day) you can bet that we will be there. However over time and with the sneer of politics somewhere along the line this information sharing stopped. However today, with the generous heart and open mind of Gary Burke we are once again working on creating a bridge of communication and collaboration.

We have built the PFAR Fish Rescue into an event that brings like minded people together for the common goal of saving the fish. Thus allowing them to continue to reproduce and thrive as a very important species that inhabits the Old Man River. Our life saving initiative has gained the attention of of many organizations and people including the;

Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society

Indigenous Vision

Crown of the Continent Geo Tourism Map

Won The Queen Elizabeth 11’s Platinum Jubilee Medal - in recognition of his valuable contribution to the province. On February 8, 2023

Nominated for an Emerald Award

Mother Earth is my Religion and the Forest is my Church. This is what my dad so often said. So I leave you all today with a message from my family to yours. Water is truly life. As we all know the water that the LNID directs to farmers, ranchers and businesses alike provides us with the necessary nutrients and sustenance to sustain our life. Thus, we must walk in harmony and balance on this journey of life being mindful of water and all it provides for us and with a common goal of ensuring the next 7 generations and those beyond that, still have access to water.

Thank you.

A cult of ignorance has been cultivated on selenium released from coal mining, with the false notion that if you don’t monitor it in water or in fish, the problem doesn’t exist.

Enjoy the fishing — but don’t eat the fish

Fish contaminated by selenium were first recognized in tributaries of the Crowsnest River affected by runoff from the legacy Grassy Mountain coal mine. Subsequent research on fish in Crowsnest Lake indicated high levels of contamination from the legacy Tent Mountain coal mine. This should have warranted immediate advisories for people consuming fish. Instead the UCP dragged their collective feet, seemingly unwilling to advise people of the health risks, and only did so a year after the knowledge was evident.

Finding the public notification of health risks is difficult and even the provincial sportfishing regulations provide no warning. Instead, in true political spin, the angling advisory reads more like an advertisement than a warning: “Fish is an excellent source of lean protein, and provides essential nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, iron, selenium and vitamins A, C and D.”

There has been a complete failure to complete the monitoring of selenium in fish for the remainder of the Crowsnest River and further downstream in the Oldman River.

There is speculation that the UCP is unwilling to undertake comprehensive selenium research before their Coal Industry Modernization Initiative is released. This is purported to provide new guidelines for coal development in Alberta. The only participant has been the coal industry, and they have been actively lobbying for an increase in selenium releases from coal mines.

It is evident the UCP has not proceeded with further watershed-scale selenium research and monitoring that might upset an Australian company intent on gaining approval for a coal mine.

As a result, an independent study of selenium contamination of fish was recently undertaken by Crowsnest Headwaters, a small conservation group (Analysis of Selenium Tissue Concentrations in Multiple Fish Species of the Oldman River).

This work was done downstream of the Oldman Dam, to assess the waterborne movement of selenium downstream from legacy mine sources and how that has affected contamination levels in fish lower in the watershed.

A summary of this research included this:

“Thirty-eight fish, from five species and representative of the fish assemblage of the Oldman River downstream of the Oldman dam, were analyzed for selenium concentrations in muscle tissue. Of the sportfish species (rainbow trout, brown trout, and mountain whitefish), 33 per cent of the fish exceeded Alberta’s threshold for the protection of aquatic life. This also has implications for people who consume these fish. Compared with fish in Alberta waterbodies not impacted by coal mining, the mean selenium species concentrations for Oldman River fish suggests a broader selenium problem for the Oldman ecosystem, both upstream and downstream of the Oldman dam.”

The results of the reconnaissance study by Crowsnest Headwaters points out that waterborne selenium has moved from upstream sources downstream to contaminate fish below the Oldman Dam. “There’s a one in three chance of eating a fish that has higher selenium levels than are good for you,” remarks Bob Costa, an angler and member of Crowsnest Headwaters.

This indicates a more systematic and comprehensive examination of selenium is urgently required to connect the dots between legacy coal mines and contamination of fish and aquatic invertebrates for the larger watershed. This should include, at a minimum, fish tissue analysis for selenium over the length of the Crowsnest River, the Oldman Reservoir, and the Oldman River downstream to Lethbridge. Sampling of fish populations in the Castle and upper Oldman rivers is necessary to provide baselines for comparison.

It should be evident to the UCP this information is necessary to understand the ecological and toxicological implications of selenium contamination from coal mining, past and proposed. It is equally important to provide robust notification to anglers, consumers of fish (including those on the Piikani Nation), and other water users in the watershed of the risks of legacy and proposed coal mines.

To do nothing is a flagrant disregard for human and ecosystem health, and a failure of governance. It is an indictment of this government when a small, unfunded conservation group has to shoulder essential monitoring in the public interest.

Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a former Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence, Travels Up the Creek, and Conservation Confidential.

Crowsnest Headwaters is a purely volunteer group of citizens committed to the protection and recovery of the Crowsnest/Oldman watershed from decades of coal mining and clear cutting. We rely on your donations to continue our work in the field, in the laboratory and in the courts. Please donate what you can by Interac eTransfer to funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca

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That disturbing finding comes from a Mount Royal University analysis of fish sampled from an irrigation canal downstream of the Piikani Nation. Piikani citizens regularly catch and consume fish caught below the dam and in reserve waters.

The fish showed selenium tissue concentrations “greater than the Alberta threshold for protection of aquatic life of 4.0 µg/g (micrograms per gram), as well as the guideline for fish consumption.”

The fish samples were collected by retired Alberta aquatic biologist Lorne Fitch who co-authored the report with Dr. Jon Mee, chair of the Mount Royal University biology department. The analysis was conducted in the university’s biology lab.

Titled “Analysis of Selenium Tissue Concentrations in Multiple Fish Species of the Oldman River”, the report urges comprehensive examinations of water and fish quality in the Crowsnest/Oldman River system which is the source of water for Lethbridge residents and southern Alberta’s farm and food industries. (Selenium accumulates in agricultural soil and farm animals. As as an elementary heavy metal, selenium does not decompose and there is no known way to remove selenium from municipal water supplies.)

“This reconnaissance level study assessed selenium concentrations in fish tissue of species found in the Oldman River, downstream of the Oldman Reservoir and a reach through the Piikani Nation. The data form a partial benchmark of selenium concentrations in fish lower in the watershed and an indication of the need for a greater scope of study to evaluate the issue.”

Motivation for the study originated with the late Piikani elder and conservationist Harley Bastien who for 30 years led the Piikani community’s rescue of fish trapped by the seasonal closing of the main canal of the Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District.

Harley, shortly before his unexpected death in the fall of 2025, had initiated legal proceedings against Evolve Power’s Tent Mountain and the governments of Alberta and Canada for depriving the Piikani People of their constitutional right to the healthful harvest of fish from ancestral waters. Harley’s demand letters were limited by scientific evidence to Crowsnest Lake, for which the Alberta government’s own science proved the resident trout were unfit for human consumption.

It was Harley's wish that a comparable analysis be completed for fish caught within the Piikani reserve. To that end, Crowsnest Headwaters secured the donated services of Lorne Fitch and Mount Royal University to carry out the study in Harley’s honour.

The study fish were taken during an irrigation canal rescue operation by Freshwater Conservation Canada in October 2025. Significantly, these fish were likely life-long residents of waters downstream of the Oldman Reservoir.

“It seems likely that the Oldman dam is a barrier to downstream fish movement and the fish collected were resident in the reach of the river downstream of the dam.”

Crowsnest Headwaters calls upon provincial and municipal authorities to urgently undertake their own comprehensive analyses of water and fish throughout the Crowsnest/Oldman watershed.

The full report is available here for download in PDF format.

Link to CPAWS Facebook post

Crowsnest Headwaters is a purely volunteer group of citizens committed to the protection and recovery of the Crowsnest/Oldman watershed from decades of coal mining and clear cutting. We rely on your donations to continue our work in the field, in the laboratory and in the courts. Please donate what you can by Interac eTransfer to funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca

Leadership of Harley’s legal action has been taken up by his son Trevor. The case is a crowd-funded effort, managed by a partnership of Crowsnest Headwaters and Chinook Water*Shed Crew. To donate directly to Trevor Bastien’s legal action, please address your Interac eTransfer to trevorstrust@thewatershedcrew.org

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Open to all, the Piikani annual Pow Wow blends ancestral dress, drumming and dancing with cowboy rodeo and Indian Relay racing. Food trucks offered bannock and poutine, a fusion cuisine unique to Canadian First Nations.

Crowsnest Headwaters partners with members of Piikani Nation and Chinook Water*Shed Crew to reverse the toxic selenium poisoning of the Crowsnest/Headwaters River System caused by years of coal mining and regulatory neglect by both levels of government.

Crowsnest Headwaters is working hard, on the ground, in the laboratory, and through the legal system, to restore the health of the Crowsnest/Oldman river system.

Donations are welcomed by Interac eTransfer to funding@crownestheadwaters.ca.

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The video opens with Dad flying in with a fresh fish in his talons. Mom proceeds to tear a few pieces from the fish for her chick, and then carries the remainder off into the trees for a quiet breakfast on her own.

Dad guards the nest until Mom returns. Then a young osprey flies in for a look and quickly departs once he sees Dad ready to defend his family.

This is followed by a small songbird intent on annoying Dad with a couple of low passes.

The video ends with Dad surveying the landscape while Mom tidies the nest as a train approaches from the west.

Osprey are at the top of the aquatic food chain and, unfortunately, bio-accumulate selenium from a river poisoned by decades of coal mining and government neglect.

Crowsnest Headwaters is working hard, on the ground, in the laboratory, and through the legal system, to restore the health of the Crowsnest/Oldman river system.

Donations are welcomed by Interac eTransfer to funding@crownestheadwaters.ca.

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Twenty Reasons for Conservation Concerns

Lorne Fitch, P. Biol.

How many reasons are there to be concerned about the pathway of conservation in Alberta? Let us count some of them.

• The questionable axing of many long-standing conservation initiatives in Alberta (e.g. Alberta Water Council, Alberta Clean Air Strategic Alliance) and the drying up of operational funding for other non-government initiatives by the UCP government.

• The failure of the UCP to fund internal departmental environmental monitoring and research, especially on critical issues related to water quality, species at risk recovery, and work on climate change.

• The chicanery of the UCP related to decisions about coal mining in the Eastern Slopes, especially to allow the zombie Grassy Mountain mine to be revived with new coal exploration. This despite the opposition of the majority of Albertans to coal mining.

• Since 2022 five independently reviewed scientific papers have demonstrated the extensive, pervasive, lingering, and damaging negative impacts of coal mining in Alberta.

• A decision by the CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) to forgo a scheduled public hearing on Mine 14 near Grande Cache and to provide regulatory approvals for the mine after an apparent political intervention by the mine owner. Similarly, the AER has approved expansion of the Vista coal mine near Hinton, again without a regulatory hearing or an environmental impact assessment.

• Another “unfettered” decision by the AER to secretly change the rules to limit who is “directly affected” by developments and preclude public participation in hearings.

• The “failure” of the Water Not Coal petition to make it through the impossible and suspect hurdles of the Elections Alberta statistics labyrinth. Over 200,000 Albertans signed the petition in good faith.

• To counter the federal government’s “A Force of Nature,” a strategy to extend landscape protection nationally, the UCP erroneously contend 60 per cent of Alberta is already “protected.”

• Regional planning efforts for entire watersheds have stalled in Alberta, with no broad-based, long-term perspective to define land use outcomes, in the public interest. Instead, subregional planning for the Upper Smoky, Red Earth, and the Caribou Mountains follows the dictates of industry to maximize short-term economic activity at the expense of watershed protection, biodiversity concerns, cumulative effects, ecological thresholds, and recreation.

• Building commercial resort developments in provincial parks is now permitted, despite impacts on water, biodiversity, and other recreational pursuits. It is doubtful most Albertans will be able to afford to stay in such upscale developments.

• The inability of regulatory agencies in Alberta to exert even minimal enforcement of guidelines for logging in Eastern Slopes forest watersheds which harbour species at risk trout and are the water supply for most Albertans. Sustainable forest management has been perverted to maximum timber harvest.

• An obviously illegal logging bridge constructed over the Highwood River in critical habitat for bull trout was ordered removed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), yet no charges were laid under the Species At Risk Act. DFO has subsequently permitted the construction of another bridge at the same location.

• Instead of following the “avoidance” principle, provided in DFO guidelines for species at risk trout protection, the department is instead issuing permits to the logging industry to destroy critical trout habitat, as long as there are “offsets” to compensate for the loss. No evidence or monitoring is provided to validate the effectiveness of such decisions.

• There is a rollback of federal legislation and weakening of the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, and other environmental guardrails to facilitate “accelerated economic development.”

• Wildlife management changes are more to benefit commercial interests than to provide recreational benefits to Albertans or for conservation objectives.

• Irrigation expansion fever dreams, including multiple proposed new onstream dams (5) and several off stream reservoirs (4) at mind-blowing financial and environmental costs. This is leading us, inexorably to “water bankruptcy.”

• Several AI data centres proceeding with essentially no environmental oversight despite real concerns over water availability, power consumption, cumulative effects, and effluent releases.

• A complete antipathy on the part of the UCP government to renewable energy, a clear pathway to coping with climate change.

• Despite the evidence linking burning fossil fuels and climate change, leading to greater incidences of wicked weather, wildfires, drought, flooding, heat domes, and health risks, Alberta continues to push for more oil and gas extraction. Connecting the evident dots seems insurmountably difficult.

• There is the wildly improbable fig leaf of carbon capture and underground storage, a politician’s wet dream to evade the reality of exacerbating climate change from expanding petroleum extraction and combustion.

One doesn’t need much insight or analysis to conclude conservation, the protection of our natural environment, is not a priority in Alberta. You don’t even need to be much of a conspiracy theorist. In fact, the evidence points to a concerted effort to thwart conservation efforts, even to contend they are unnecessary and impede economic development.

Evidence to the contrary, that we are quickly sacrificing our wild heritage and the ecosystem attributes contributing to our well-being, is dismissed out of hand. A resource extraction and development mantra is deafening. Subsidies, perks, incentives, and political support for economic development are running rampant, while conservation efforts, environmental protection, research, and monitoring are starved of funding.

Failure to protect, conserve, and steward our natural assets is like running blindly with scissors. It is racing to an obvious hurtful fall for all of us, which is completely avoidable.

Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a past Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence, Travels Up the Creek, and Conservation Confidential

When looking at the above photo it’s not hard to see why First Nations people saw the power and the beauty of this once pristine part of the world.

The late Barney Reeves is the archeologist who discovered the Indigenous fish camp on the shore of this lake which dates 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. Back then and at first glance it would be hard to not think that this gorgeous body of water lying under the watchful eye of Crowsnest Mountain wasn’t special and worthy of investigation. To establish an actual fish camp speaks to the bounty that these First Peoples were able to realise, which made a significant contribution to their ongoing way of life.

But sadly, what lies below that surface film of water is tragic. The beautiful but highly contaminated Crowsnest Lake is the heart of this effort in launching a court challenge. The intention is to hold entities accountable and to take responsibility for restoring this headwater lake of the Crowsnest and Oldman river systems back to its healthy origins, and being able to provide First Nations with an unquestionably acceptable food source once again.

To view the report provided by Environment Alberta’s own scientists please click here.

The effects of high levels of selenium on fish, in this case trout, are grotesquely upsetting. Alevin, or newly hatched trout, will show spinal curvature, yolk sac edema and hemorrhage, missing fins and severe facial deformities.

This next one is particularly upsetting.

Below are 2 rainbow trout with missing gill plate covers caught in the Crowsnest River. That gill plate is integral to the protection of the gills themselves where the highest concentration of blood is for the purpose of dissolved oxygen / carbon dioxide exchange. The gills are extremely vulnerable and damage to them often results in severe blood loss causing death.

Premier Smith is gifting Albertans $100.00 of our own taxpayer money under the guise of an energy rebate. This has been referred to colloquially as Dani-dollars, but they are your dollars. We invite you to reinvest them with the possibility of guaranteed long-term dividends for water quantity and quality.

Trevor Bastien, son of Harley Bastien, the late, highly respected Piikani Elder and environmental steward, has taken up a legal action started by his father. “Harley’s Vision”, the name Trevor chose for his commitment to restore to clean water and healthy fish, honours his father’s legacy.

Government of Alberta scientists have proven all tested fish in Crowsnest Lake were and continue to be poisoned by coal mine selenium and other contaminants to the point they are unfit for human consumption. This is a result of effluent originating from a mine located on Tent Mountain which was decommissioned 40 years ago but continues to pollute. Despite full disclosure of research documents to the appropriate government ministers and departments, nothing has been done to mitigate this travesty.

This is a direct denial of First Nations Treaty and Constitutional Rights to catch and consume wild fish from public waters.

In early May, appropriately on Mother’s Day, a small group of Piikani Elders, Piikani Nation citizens and others gathered on the shores of Crowsnest Lake. We joined together in a ceremonial prayer circle, gifted with tobacco and smudge. The Elders, wise and dignified, quietly shared a message of sadness but also, hope. Trevor and his daughter attended. Trevor’s message, from the heart, spoke of his father’s commitment to righting the wrongs against Mother Earth, and shared examples of the Bastien family’s efforts to do so.

We invite you to join Trevor in helping to fulfill Harley’s Vision. Ackroyd LLP, Edmonton, with a reputation of many successes with environmental issues, has been retained to represent Trevor and his Nation as they move forward demanding their Treaty Rights be honoured. We anticipate this action may reach the Supreme Court of Canada.

Ackroyd LLP has served Demand Letters to Australia based Evolve Power (owner of the Tent Mountain coal mine), Environment Alberta, Alberta Energy Regulator and Environment Canada (collectively, these Entities). The cease-and-desist letter demands that these Entities immediately stop, or require Evolve Power to immediately stop releasing selenium effluent into the Crowsnest Lake and river system and that they undertake a complete removal of accumulated selenium sediment in the lake bottom. None of them has voluntarily agreed to this reasonable demand.

Because none of the named Entities are prepared to meet the required demand, as they ironically continue to monitor, the next step is to secure an Order from the Court of Appeal forcing them to restore Trevor’s First Nation rights to a healthy source of fish from Crowsnest Lake. If the Entities fail and/or deny compliance of this Order we anticipate this constitutional case may eventually end up at the Supreme Court.

We invite you to invest in Trevor’s Trust for the protection of the quality and quantity of our waters. This is a lofty goal, but doable and attainable. Your financial support using your energy rebate or simply donating to this important action is sincerely appreciated and integral to the success of this initiative. Crowsnest Headwaters has partnered with the Chinook Water*Shed Crew Society in order to make this happen.

Harley’s Vision was all encompassing. He emphasized the importance of honouring relationship, as the strands of interconnectedness impact everybody and everything. As well, reciprocity is essential for mutual benefit. By offering financial support we will honour his vision and get Trevor closer to his goal.

Working together we will meet the goal of clean water in perpetuity.

If you would like to be kept apprised of the progress to meet Harley’s Vision, legally and financially, we will send out periodic updates. Please provide us with your email by replying to: harleysvision@thewatershedcrew.org

All donations big or small are welcome and appreciated.

E-transfer to: trevorstrust@thewatershedcrew.org

Cheques may be issued to Trevor’s Trust and sent to:

Trevor’s Trust - The Chinook Water*Shed Society

PO Box 3226 Claresholm, Alberta T0L 0T0

If you choose, there are several ways to donate your ENERGY REBATE to Harley’s Vision.

If you are already receiving the Alberta Seniors Benefit, your Energy Rebate will be automatically deposited to your bank account.

If you do not receive the Alberta Seniors Benefit, you need to create or use your existing Alberta.ca account to apply.

The link to the Energy Rebate application is here:

Any and all donations can be e-transferred to: trevorstrust@thewatershedcrew.org

Donated funds will be transferred to Trevor Bastien’s retainer account with Ackroyd LLP. The Chinook Water*Shed Society will collect and administer all monies.

We at Crowsnest Headwaters are deep in the throes of very busy and demanding times, like so many of our “sister” organizations. The workload is big right now, but that’s not mentioned for sympathy or high acknowledgement. It’s simply a statement of fact as we try, now in conjunction with our partner organization, Chinook Water*Shed Crew, to try and close the file on the coal mining of our headwaters in the East Slopes of the Rockies.

The above photo is where I spent my day which is the first time I’ve fished flowing water this year. I was by myself, encountered no other people on the water, and it was absolutely grand. Just me and the bugs….and I can live with that.

There were people in the valley, several of which were on side-by-side vehicles and we waved at each other in a friendly exchange while they stayed on the gravel road with their speed low as well as their noise level pretty darn quiet in my opinion. I thought, we’re all here in our own way to enjoy this beautiful backcountry. There was no animosity nor was there any attitude.

These are not easy times and I know that some will question my acceptance of what I encountered but, it’s the way it is and I make no apologies for it.

My need to be there was to take necessary time to clear my head and in doing that I chose to be okay with all that was there. Was I happy to see the logging? No, and I vacated that area quickly. But was I willing to confront motorized vehicle enthusiasts with either attitude or ignorance? No. I needed to benefit myself and I wasn’t about to sacrifice that for what I’m normally fighting for on a daily basis.

Sometimes we have to take the bigger picture into consideration, recognize what we can and can’t engage with for whatever reason, and look after oneself. Yep. I can see certain faces and hear disparaging comments from them but again, I make no apologies.

Today I needed to commune with Westslope Cutthroat trout. I had the luxury of being alone on two creeks with no other fishers about. Like I said, just me and the bugs.

I have been fishing these waters for the better part of 50 years and the population decline is more than just noticeable. To be expected with the amount of activity in these sacred places both with recreation and industry. At 75 I know my time is running out and I just want to be able to enjoy what’s left for awhile longer. It gets my head right and I am so thankful to still have some semblance of it still intact, (the environment and my head).

But we need to do more. I need to do more, (albeit the energy level is getting pretty skinny on my end). Please stand with me and Crowsnest Headwaters, Chinook Water*Shed Crew, Defenders of the Eastern Slopes, CPAWS, AWA, and all of the individuals and organizations that are are doing our/their best to preserve, protect, and defend this historic and legacy environment from further destruction, not to mention our source of water.

Thanks for reading.

Thank you Lorne and congratulations!

Read the article here.

Read Andrew’s article in The Tyee article here.

That’s the consensus after successive archaelogical digs in the 1970s by Bea Loveseth and Barney Reeves and, in the 1980s, by Margaret Kennedy.

For 8,000 years, indigenous miners extracted blocks of chert from the surrounding limestone and chipped it into tradable chunks.

Chert is a glass-like mineral that can be shaped in any direction and was prized for the making of knives and points.

A TransAlta high-tension power line cuts across the site. There is no historical marker but the pits, back-filled with limestone, are clearly visible. Bits of discarded chert are easily spotted, but please leave them in place.

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If you would like to support our work protecting the Crowsnest Watershed, please donate by Interac eTransfer to: funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca

Link to Deanne Watt’s ArcGIS Storymap

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If you would like to support our work protecting the Crowsnest Watershed, please donate by Interac eTransfer to: funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca

Why Conservation Makes Me Mad and Motivated

Lorne Fitch, P. Biol.

Setbacks in conservation and environmental protection are legion. It feels like the economic and political weight of the world is arrayed against me in rigged deals, unequal footings, and unfair processes. Population pressures, consumer demands, and economic growth seem insatiable and irresistible. Conservation successes are few, infrequent, and ephemeral. But failure is not an option.

One of the contradictions of our lives is we see ourselves as living on the land but not the land living in us. As such, the linkages are broken, severed even, and do not serve to inform our conscious lives about these essential connections.

We have forgotten that within the land is power and life, origins and futures, foundations and walls, humility and promise, and myth and story. When we lose that sacred bond to place we become untethered through ignorance, greed, and even malice. When we break the land, pollute it, corrupt it, shifting it to just another commodity to be used up and discarded, we are doing the same thing to ourselves. What some term progress can eat away at a landscape as leprosy does to a nose.

There is a tendency to default to “taking the world as it is.” This was recently articulated by our Prime Minister in response to world affairs. Carrying this forward to the relentless economic development impacting the natural world, the conclusion would seem to be to give up hope on biodiversity, on ecosystem strength and resilience, on combating climate change, pollution, and land degradation. Perhaps in the minds (and actions) of politicians and corporate giants these might be considered only aspirational goals.

However, aspirations lead to awareness, it leads to concerns, concerns are a link to action, and action takes us into the realm of the possible. Then, instead of blind acceptance we view the world, not as it is, but as it should and could be.

When I see the unwarranted delays or reversals in environmental protection I formulate a question. I ask this of politicians and economists, corporate executives, and the apologists and cheerleaders of unbridled economic growth— have they ever calculated the number of species and their habitats that must be condemned to extirpation, degradation, irrelevance, and death to produce one more vote, one more stock dividend, and one more rich person in a land made poor because of a single-minded pursuit of wealth?

Where in the balance sheets of the Sirens of economics are recorded the costs of being rich—the frequency and intensity of floods, drought, wildfires, air quality alerts, heat domes, and the other wicked weather linked economic development? Or the losses of biodiversity, water and air quality declines, soil loss, and reduced landscape resilience to changes brought on by getting rich.

Most governments spend more on subsidies that destroy biodiversity than they do on financing conservation. If much of that money was redirected from supporting fossil fuel extraction, destructive mining, harmful agriculture and logging, the perversity of making our world less habitable through public tax dollars would decline and conservation efforts would be better funded.

It is human nature to reject evidence that doesn’t support our opinions. Although we are all entitled to our opinions, it doesn’t mean we get to make up our own facts. However, the strategy employed by those unmoved by facts, the uncomfortable truths, follows a time-tested pattern. Disparage the science, attack the scientists, make outrageous statements, including the invoking of conspiracy theory, and manipulate and use only the information that seems to support your side.

Science serves everyone, but only if we choose to listen. Facts don’t cease to exist because we won’t accept them, or worse still, ignore them. Science doesn’t give you the answer you want, it provides the result the evidence indicates.

Muting science to make the compromises orchestrated by governments, businesses, and ourselves is a testament to something—let’s make a deal where everyone is a bit unhappy. A standard level of unhappiness by all seems to signal success in negotiation. In the give and take between the environment and economics there is a lot more give expected from the environment and much more take anticipated from the economic side.

Such compromises epitomize our everyday world thinking but rarely does the evidence shore up the result. For example, not imposing a realistic carbon emissions target that actually slows climate change, putting faith in an unproven carbon capture technology, while ramping up oil production, and pushing any reconciliation with the evidence far into the future, may well ensure we don’t have a future. The contention that accelerated economic growth can be aligned with environmental protection is a pernicious myth.

Disconnection—the tendency of ignoring the evidence to connect the dots to the erosion of earth’s systems— allows ecological abuse to continue, regulatory blindless to persist, lies to compound the damage, and the surrender of us all to greed, corruption, inequities, and fantasies.

Some of us wonder where and when change will occur. Shifts in attitudes and behaviours with awareness of options can help. But often the sense is that individual actions are cancelled out by government and business to inaction or contradictory actions. It seems that the motivation to change, to act, only comes when we are teetering on the edge of an abyss. Then all the previous alarmist calls become real and compelling at about the same time there is a realisation our options are limited or precluded.

If we viewed climate change and everything associated with it—fire, flood, drought, wicked weather, death, famine, and extinctions—like a world-wide plague (which in all respects it is), or an asteroid on an impending collision course with earth (with past precedent), we might have a sense of urgency about the need to change, shift, and adapt in time.

Some won’t recognize the urgency because in their minds the evidence isn’t compelling, or there is the ever present illusion we will dodge all of this with yet unknown, untested technology. To some, explanations of the nuances, intricacies, and outcomes of scientific research can often sound made up, unbelievable, and even stupid—not airtight like biblical references, an economic development prospectus, or a government news release.

Others will simply party on because if we are going out with a bang, so be it. For many of us the status quo is hard to avoid—it seems so comfortable and safe. We’re in a rut, but it’s carpeted and well furnished. It’s easier to watch Netflix than a documentary on biodiversity loss.

Essentials like air, water, soil, and biodiversity are a common good. They need to be commonly protected. If they are not, then the suffering includes all of us, everywhere. The rich might think they have lifeboats, but those will be rendered useless if there’s no water or safe harbour. The concept of wealth needs a reboot, to remind us what is essential to our survival.

In matters of the environment it is not enough to be aware. It is not enough to be concerned or anxious. It is not enough to be angry. Feeling helpless, powerless, or resentful, and that failure is inevitable is self-defeating. We must resist the urge to acquiesce, to surrender, to give up. Now is not the time to sit on our hands, or passively wring them—it’s time to raise a hand.

Passively accepting ecological losses is to assent to the system responsible for the destruction, and to become part of it. Resist when government and corporations try to convince you otherwise. If those who destroy ecosystems feel no consequences for their actions, nothing will change.

Resistance and change happen in dialogue, in conversations. These are facilitated, and delivered through the art of words conveying feelings. Issues are complex. People hear fragments and from those fragments it’s difficult to grasp the bigger picture. Shared understanding needs to be built with an ecological education.

This can only happen with trusted relationships in neutral settings where there is a sharing of ideas and concepts with lots of listening. This should be occurring at all levels of government, but isn’t.

Each generation must commit to protect wild places, processes, and things, and not give way. This will require a fundamental shift in our thinking and approach to Earth’s gifts. We spend our lives in pursuit of what we want and in denial of what we need. An essential move is to a better accounting of the essentials of life that cannot be bought but are easily destroyed.

Wind and water eventually wear away stone. Persistence is the handmaiden of resistance and the ultimate solution for conservation.

Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a former Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence, Travels Up the Creek, and Conservation Confidential.

Read David’s take at this link.

A big thank you to Andrew Nikiforuk for passing this on to me.

Wendell Berry - Poet and Prophet

Please listen to this 40 minute interview here. You will not be sorry you did.

On Friday, July 3rd….you know….”Convenient Friday”, with the weekend ahead and the Calgary Stampede beginning the same day, we once again have wonderful distractions for people to be directing their attention. How could one not when we’ve been starving for warmer temps with sunshine days and Alberta’s biggest annual attraction?

On Friday, yesterday, (I’ve needed a day to recover from the shock) Elections Alberta rejected Corb Lund’s “Water Not Coal” petition saying the verification process found duplicate signatures and incomplete information, failing to meet the requirements for a citizen initiative petition.

Needless to say, we are not prepared to take this sitting down or at face value.

This is not the first time we’ve witnessed this trickery by a UCP government when it comes to decisions around coal mining and the protection of the Eastern Slopes. You will recall the cancellation of the 1976 Coal Development Policy for Alberta which was revealed by a media release on the Friday afternoon before the May long weekend in 2020. They make it a point to be clever at this.

Similarly, they recently did it again declaring that the deadline for this petition to be a referendum item on the October ballot had been missed. Suddenly after Corb had delivered 207,000 signatures on June 10th, the day that Elections Alberta designated as the deadline, that deadline had been missed because it mysteriously had been changed to June 1st. Who knew? Who was supposed to know? NOBODY.

Allow me to throw some numbers at you and I’ll use round numbers to keep it simple, erring on the short side.

Corb delivered some 207,000 signatures that had been scrutinized by his team, to Elections Alberta in Edmonton. 207,000 was somehow changed to 196,000 as reported by the CBC and I think it’s fair to suggest that the CBC did not pull that number from thin air.

The required number of signatures necessary to uphold the petition for referendum, based on the electoral list for Alberta is 177,000. Elections Alberta has “verified” 172,000 arriving at a shortfall of 5000. Hmmm. Based on the government’s number of 196,000 received that implies approximately 11,000 that were scrapped. However, based on Corb’s delivery of 207,000, that’s 35,000 signatures that were disqualified.

Seriously??? Let me say clearly right here and now that Corb’s team absolutely would not have allowed this to happen given that the team is made up of so many professionals who realize the necessity of integrity and the importance of credibility.

So the numbers beg the question:

How did 207,000 suddenly become 196,000 and how can Elections Alberta and the Alberta Government be content with what is seemingly a 35,000 signature discrepancy? I can offer one reason straight away. “Elections Alberta says the number of verified signatures dropped after applying a random statistical sampling method….” (CBC - July 3, 2026).

You mean to tell me that we’re supposed to accept the random sampling provided by computerization with something as significant as this? Am I outraged? You bet I am. Are you? I’m sorry but this implemented methodology with such a political hot potato is incredulous.

The Alberta government and Elections Alberta really need to be taken to task on this and right now while it’s fresh off their desk. I’d say write to your MLA but if you have one that suffers deaf ear syndrome, what’s the point? That said, something definitely needs to be done and our polite and abiding conventions don’t seem to be getting us there.

With that said I leave it to you and your connections, your groups, your individual brilliance to make noise and demand an explanation to what I see as a travesty of our democratic process.

And, you can see CBC’s coverage of this travesty here.

I’m passing this on for the Water Not Coal group and it has important information regarding follow up by Elections Alberta. If you signed the Water Not Coal petition please read this and be prepared. This message needs to reach 207,000 individuals who signed so please pass this on to others.

Thanks!!

Hello!

Thanks to your hard work, grit, and determination, Water Not Coal’s message was received loud and clear on June 10 when we delivered over 200,000 signatures. What happens next is yet to be determined (more on that soon!), but in the meantime, our signatures are being validated and we need your help in the next stage of the process.

Elections Alberta will call and email a random sample of petition signatories to verify their information. It is vitally important to the success of the petition that everyone who is contacted by Elections Alberta is prepared to answer their questions.

Please help us and share this information in your communities!

Elections Alberta will verify your name and residential address (not your PO box!), and ask if you signed the petition; were an eligible elector at the time of signing; and what form of ID was shown to the canvasser. (The full details can be found HERE.)

Here’s What You Need to Do:

1. If your driver’s license lists just a PO box, look up your physical address (the address that you provided when you signed the petition) and be ready to provide those details if/when you are contacted.

2. Save Elections Alberta’s phone number 877-672-1365 to your contacts/address book so you know their call isn’t just another telemarketer.

3. Add PetitionValidation@elections.ab.ca to your email contacts to help ensure their emails don’t go to your spam folder.

4. For the next 10 days, be on the lookout for a call or email from Elections Alberta!

5. If you are contacted, respond to the call or email as soon as possible. If they leave you a voicemail, call them back at 1-877-672-1365 right away. If they contact you by email, reply to the email and confirm the information requested.

6. Spread the word! Share this email with friends, coworkers, and anyone else who might have signed the petition. We need to make sure everyone is aware of this crucial part of the process, so they know what to expect (and don’t think the call is a telemarketer!)

Once our petition has been verified, the government will respond, and Water Not Coal will be ready for whatever comes after that. Our petition compels the government to either create legislation prohibiting new coal development in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains, or put the question on the ballot of an upcoming referendum — and we will do everything we can to protect the Eastern Slopes.

THANK YOU for your help and support. We hope you’ve had a chance to get some hard-earned and much deserved rest over the past week or so, and also, take time to reflect on the impressive accomplishment that we just achieved as a team.

Water Not Coal wouldn’t have come this far without the incredible support of Albertans like you. What began as a petition campaign has become a province‑wide movement—thanks to volunteers like you and to Albertans who know our mountains and our water are worth protecting.

Keep up the great work—we will do the same.

With gratitude,

Team Water Not Coal