Research Advisory Group Meeting
August 14th, 2015
Attending: Toddi Steelman, Graham Strickert, Prabin Rokaya, Sarah Baines, Evan Andrews,
Jennifer Fresque-Baxter, Maureen Reed
Regrets: Greg Poelzer, Stuart Macmillan, Tim Jardine
Action Items
Task
Responsible
Follow up with potential sources of funding for Delta Day 2016:
Various

Jen: Walter-Duncan Gordon Foundation, northern
airlines, Tides Canada

Kiri: Blue Water Foundation, Gwenna Moss, University
Conference Fund, North American Partnership for
Environmental Community Action

Toddi: GIWS

Graham: Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement
Delta Day agenda – clarify objectives
Sarah/Kiri
Hire new community coordinator
Sarah/Kiri
Meeting Minutes
1. Update from Prabin Rokaya, PhD student working with Howard Wheater and Karl
Lindenschmidt

This project will look at the Peace-Athabasca and Slave River deltas, focusing on the
hydrology of the basins. The context for this is that people are concerned over the
drying of the delta. Changes to the rivers, landscape, vegetation, climate, etc. are also
influencing to people’s lifestyle. We want to know what the implications of some of
these changes are for the future. We are trying to find answers to questions about how
to replenish the delta, future water availability, and ice safety for navigation. We
know that compared to the previous decade, there has been a decrease in water
(average daily flow) for the Athabasca River. In addition, the Peace River is
experiencing a decrease in flood frequency, as well as ice thickness. The purpose of
this research is to develop large-scale hydrological models that can provide reliable
and accurate flow forecasts for three basins under changing environmental conditions.
We are looking at the implications of climate change in river hydrology (Athabasca
River), evaluation of regulation impacts (Peace River), modelling of lake and
wetlands (Peace-Athabasca Delta). In summary, this research will help understand
and describe the present and past natural processes and forecast future scenarios to
address socio-economic and environmental concerns.
Questions

The socio-economic side of this is interesting. Do you know what it would cost for
the dam to operate trying to mimic more a more natural flow regime?
o We don’t know yet, but want to find out. We need to find out how much water
the delta needs (this will be part of the project).

(to Jen) In the recent transboundary agreement, was this [mimicking natural flow] on
the table for when water crosses the boundaries?
o The NWT isn’t negotiating with BC. The ecosystem agreements are in place
(for example, 90% of the water flow is available for the environment), and
each jurisdiction is responsible for meeting their objectives.

The socio-economic analysis would be very interesting – there is potential for a lot of
utility in management.
2. Delta Day

A draft agenda and budget were circulated to the group. We want to know: How do
we incorporate as many people as we can? Is what we have suggested accurate, is this
the right scale, etc.? All of this will have implications for how much funding we are
looking for. If the point of this upcoming Delta Day is to help different communities
come together to build their own conversations and connections, then the best way to
do that is to bring them together. We need to make sure we are all on the same page
for this larger objective.

This event will essentially be in the middle of the grant? So research won’t be
completed?
o No, it won’t be entirely completed. Evan will be done, Sarah’s data collection
would be completed, and the Slave River Delta data should be collected.

We might want a bigger university-centered splash in a year from the next one, so it’s
nice that the focus is on the community side of things this time around.
o The problem with a university-centered Delta Day in the future is that we are
not sure where the money for that would come from.

This is our chance to bring people together. Results will continue to come back, but
this is an opportunity to present - if not results - then the data collected and get
feedback.

The discussion with the group was that this was the best time for it in terms of the
lifecycle of the grant. If the intent of the grant is to have overall reporting on
knowledge mobilization, and we wait to the end of the grant to have an event like
this, then we won’t have an opportunity to bring people into that discussion.

If we won’t be presenting on results, will people report back on outstanding data
individually?
o In the Slave River Delta, for example, there are regular group meetings. Those
are opportunities to bring people together (in that region) and present on
results.

On the draft agenda, the first day is mainly about getting to know each other, then
trying to bring in community elements. There might be a way to shorten some of that
if we want to bring it into a two day events. If we include the PAD, flights don’t
occur on Saturdays, so if we end on Friday we will have to accommodate people
through to Sunday or Monday, which is a big expense item.

The budget is certainly big – could we think about potentially billeting people? This
could save costs, if people are willing to do it.

If we don’t get the Connections Grant, could we organize this as a meeting via video
conferencing?
o In Fort Res and Fort Smith, and likely in Fort Chip, video conferencing is very
difficult. Very few places have them, the space isn’t big enough, the service
isn’t reliable. It’s also good to have community meetings in community
spaces, rather than government spaces (e.g. ENR office with video
conferencing abilities).

Some suggestions for places to look for funding thus far:
o Conference Fund from U of S ($5000)
o Gwenna Moss outreach fund
o GIWS (Toddi will look into this)
o Tides Canada (Jen will look into this)
o Blue Water Fund (RBC) (Kiri will look into this)
o Walter Duncan Gordon (Jen will look into this)
o North American Partnership for Environmental Community Action (August
25th deadline) – funds NGOs, but might be able to fund travel for community
members (Kiri will look into this)
o First Air and Canadian North often provide support to community events and
potentially cost reduction – could potentially follow up on whether there is the
possibility of a group rate discount (Jen will look into this – Northwestern Air
as well)
o Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, CPAWS – for Cumberland House
specifically, if they were eligible to participate (Graham will look into this)

NSERC – unsure whether it has money for conferences, but it doesn’t have an
equivalent to the Connections Grant

We do have some money from the DDN allocated for the event

Could Sask Power be a possibility?
o This could potentially be contentious with some of our partners though
o Federal money could also be contentious, but less so than industry

Have to think strategically about what we want the Connections Grant to pay for so
we don’t have to ask our partners to go through the paperwork, which can be onerous.

In terms of the agenda, is this what we want to do? Should we scale it back?
o Three days is good because people are travelling a long ways. More could be
done if it’s three days, but the costs do go up.
o Agree that the three days is good – especially given the connections we are
hoping to build, and the goals we are hoping to achieve. Need to make sure
we have clear objectives for each day and each session – what do we want as a
group (the DDN) to get out of that?

There is a section on culture camps – where did this come from?
o This came out of the work that Evan has done in the Saskatchewan River
Delta. It was also part of the need or desire to involve youth that was part of
the original proposal. When Evan was there last year, he attended a culture
camp and as part of that some of the folks in the school were interested in how
to create land-based curriculum. This year Evan and Kiri went back and
worked with students there – we are working to figure out how to incorporate
the work we did into the curriculum.
o Background to the Sask. River Delta project: 25 years ago they had a
celebration in the community and Maria Campbell captured it on video – the
community wanted to update that at their celebration of 125 years of
education. The students we hired were involved in capturing video and
photographs, as well as conducting interviews, but we want the community to
decide what they would like the final product to be. It’s two-pronged in that
we want to provide updated documentation of their 125 celebration, but also
to provide potential content in a locally developed course. They have a great
need to use the classroom to teach more about the delta.

Does this warrant its own space on the agenda for all of the groups during Delta Day,
or should it fit into one of the other conversations? Want to make sure we aren’t
putting community groups in the space of talking about something that hasn’t
previously been part of the project.

There had been a lot of interest on the Peace-Athabasca side on what was happening
in the Saskatchewan River Delta in relation to the culture camps. Would there also be
interest for folks in the Slave River Delta?
o There would definitely be interest in talking about youth engagement. Maybe
it’s a matter of reframing the session on culture camps to focus on the third
day, which is about youth engagement more broadly.

Do we have any sense that if people are coming all the way down here that they
would want to do things that they can’t do at home (e.g. shopping)? We might need to
build in free time.
o We could have just one evening event, and leave the other ones open.

We will bring the Connections Grant proposal back to group, and in the meantime we
can pursue other funding opportunities.
3. Update on community coordinators

One of our community coordinators has resigned. Is everyone ok with going back to
the initial candidates and offering the position to one of them if possible?
o Yes.
4. Fall meeting schedule

Is everyone still ok with meeting roughly once a month going into the fall? Is email
still the best way to organize meetings?
o Yes.