Abstract:

The Eleonore mine is located on Cree territory, in northern Quebec, and the Cree community is involved in the site reclamation process. The tailings storage facility (TSF), located in the territory of VC-29′s trapline, will be reclaimed with an engineered cover and revegetated to comply with regulations. However, the presence of certain deep-rooted plants, which are prioritized by the tallyman of VC-29 (the guardian of the territory), must be compatible with the technical performance of the engineered cover. This paper documents the vision of the tallyman of VC-29 (the Tallyman) and the different stakeholders regarding the revegetation scenario of the Eleonore mine TSF based on the co-design process put in place by the mine. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders (the Tallyman, the Eleonore mine, the Québec ministère du Développement durable et de la Lutte Contre les Changements climatiques, the Québec ministère de l’Énergie et des Ressources naturelles, and the Cree Nation Government). All stakeholders agreed on the importance of integrating traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) into the Eleonore TSF revegetation process (although this is not required by the Quebec government). This paper documents, and integrates, where possible, the expectations of the Tallyman into the Eleonore mine TSF revegetation scenario.