Protest concert in Carmacks, Yukon, calls for a ban on heap leaching

First Nations across the Yukon are coming together in support of Na-Cho Nyk Dunfollowing the Eagle Gold mining disaster.

On Aug, 24,crowds from across the Yukon gathered in Carmacks for a concert series called Cyanide in the Water in support of the First Nation, and to protest heap leach mining facilities in the territory.

The idea for a concert came to Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation Chief Nicole Tom in the weeks following the heap leach failure on June 24, which saw hundreds of millions of litres of cyanide-contaminated solution escape containment at the mine site.

She says the event created "massive heartache" for many Northern Tutchone.

Little Salmon Carmacks was already dealing with escalating concerns over its own local cyanide leaks at the Mount Nansen mine site, abandoned since 1999.

"I feel that we are making the same mistakes and not doing anything to rectify the issue," said Tom. "My nation can say things, the whole tribe can say things and scream at the top of their lungs. But we're just not being completely heard."

Tom says the idea for a joyful kind of protest came as a way that would allow Yukoners to speak out while uplifting the community of Mayo.

"NND has been working overtime, doing all the public publicity that they need to do, all the media, all the monitoring, all the data collection, and they're exhausted."

The event brought buses full of concert-goers from Mayo.

"Everybody was really excited to come and gather considering our hearts have been heavy for some time now," said Na-Cho Nyk Dun Chief Dawna Hope.

Hope says support from other First Nations has been deeply meaningful in the months following the disaster.

"It's growing, not even confined to the Yukon borders, but in the N.W.T. and B.C., as far away as New Zealand," she said. "They're in the process of developing their own mining legislation, so they're very interested in what's going on here as people are trying to mine in the traditional territories and cultural spaces of the [Mori]."

"It's amazing, it's shocking ... it just tells me that we're in a time in history where we can all see it's time to change."

An unlikely venue

With a population of just under 600 people, Carmacks may seem like an unlikely destination for major acts like Snotty Nose Rez Kids and Love and a .38.

But at the direction of Tom, organizer Colin Prentice gave it a shot.

Prentice, who is also Little Salmon Carmacks' lands manager and moonlights as the lead singer of Yukon band Unicorn Parts, saidhe was able to lean on friends in music for help.

"I started calling some bands that I know put on a really good show, some of them that I've had the amazing opportunity to play with before," he said.

One of the biggest draws for youth at the event was the Polaris and Juno-nominated duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids, who frequently speak out on political and environmental injustices in Canada.

"I didn't think they'd answer," Prentice said. "I let the weekend go, I still didn't have a response. I sent one more follow up just to see, and immediately their manager got back to me and we were chatting about details. So this whole thing just spiraled like crazy."

Prentice was also fully supportive of the political motivation behind the event, and drew parallels between Eagle gold mineand other abandoned, toxic Yukon mine sites like Faro and Wolverine.

"We can't just sit by and allow companies to privatize profit but hand us the bag when it comes to paying for the clean-up."

Calls for a ban on heap leaching

Chief Nicole Tom is very clear about the message she wanted the event to send.

"We want heap leaching banned," she said. "There are other processes to extract gold, we don't need to be archaic anymore."

Heap leaching is a low-cost process of extracting gold that requires cyanide to be sprayed over a pile of ore, typically in the open-air.

Yukon environmental non-profits such as the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) and the Yukon Conservation Society were present at the event to educate attendees on heap leaching.

A number of concert-goers signed a petition to ban heap leaching in the territory.

Elder councillorShirley Bellmore was also in attendance to support that cause. She said she's glad to see youth taking notice of "the serious things happening to our lands."

"If you look ahead seven generations, all that cyanide is eventually going to go into the Yukon River and we've been fighting for our salmon to come back," she said. "It affects the whole Yukon.

"We still need economic development, but they need to find a better way of taking the gold out of the rocks. There's got to be a better way."

Yukon Morning5:42Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation hosts Cyanide in the Water, a musical protest of heap leach mining

Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation hosts Cyanide in the Water, a musical protest of heap leach mining. CBC's Caitrin Pilkington was there.