A Landmark Win For Nature
The Story Of The Mighty Magpie
One of the few remaining pristine rivers in North America lies in the Côte-Nord, North Shore Region of Quebec. The Magpie River sits in the area North of the Gulf of St Lawrence, from the Saguenay Fjord to Labrador. It’s pure freshwater from melting ice, tumbles down approximately 300 kilometres across the rocky landscape, through giant white water rapids, as it barrels towards the sea.
These rich estuaries are home to wild Atlantic Salmon runs and the feeding grounds for puffins, whales, seals and dolphins. Inland, this is one of the largest areas of intact forest in the world. This vast glaciated rock shield of Boreal Forest stretches through Quebec’s central mountains and tundra and is home to loons, the black bear, beavers and endangered species such as lynx and woodland caribou.
A swoosh of raven wings echo in the crisp air. Beaver claws scratch against the rocks on the shoreline. The ice blockade upriver groans and creaks against the rising waters. It’s springtime at the Magpie River.
This stretch of water is known as the Muteshekau-shipu by the Innu, the first peoples whose traditional lands surround it. The river is a vital part of their cultural identity.
“Our grandmothers went down the river; they went down the rapids,” Jean-Charles Piétacho, chief of the Innu of Ekuanitshit, says in French in the new film I Am the Magpie River, a documentary from The Nature of Things. “The Magpie is one of the only rivers that is supposed to stay as it is.”
According to the documentary, I Am The Magpie River, a documentary from the Nature of Things, less than a third of the planet’s large rivers remain free-flowing from source to sea. “Freshwaters are actually home to the world’s greatest amount of biodiversity,” says Dalal Hanna, a Canadian freshwater and landscape ecologist in the film. These ecosystems are quickly becoming the most endangered on the planet resulting in their animal populations shrinking at a rate twice as fast as those in the sea or on land.
It’s precisely the breadth and strength of this mighty river that makes it vulnerable as these bodies of water hold the most potential for the creation of hydro power. Hydro electricity is already a great source of capacity for Quebec, some of which is outsourced to North America.
For the locals and Innu culture, it’s painfully reminiscent of what happened in 2009 to the Romaine River which ran parallel to a highway of portage trails leading up from the St. Lawrence River. Four hydro-electric power stations were created by Hydro-Québec which eventually led to intermittent flooding. The dams eventually killed the landscape, wreaking havoc on animal habitat and disrupting the natural corridors that animals use to move through their territory.
Chief Piétacho sits near one of the power stations in the film: on one side is a vast expanse of flooded land, and on the other, an exposed riverbed — its powerful waters reduced to a trickle. “The Romaine woke us up,” Mathieu Bourdon, a tour guide who has led countless rafting trips down the Magpie for Innu youth, says in French in the film. “It was like a bulldozer. We weren’t ready to act.”
The two men, Chief Piétacho and Mathieu Bourdon took action, creating a consolidated alliance of indigenous and non indigenous groups to form the Muteshekau-shipu Alliance. Together, and as this newly formed group, they turned to Yenny Vega Cárdenas, president of the International Observatory on the Rights of Nature, to fight and protect the Magpie River.
The right of equal personhood to protect ecosystems was already established in Ecuador, New Zealand, Spain and Colombia. It was Cárdenas that came up with this similar solution for the Magpie and reminds us that “If we destroy nature, we are undermining our individual and collective capacity to prosper and live in relationship with our environment … when we affect the environment, we affect ourselves.”
In 2021, the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the regional municipal council of Minganie passed sister resolutions, granting the Magpie River the landmark right of legal personhood — a title which bestowed nine rights upon the Magpie River:
- The right to live, to exist and to flow.
- The right to the respect for its natural cycles.
- The right to evolve naturally, to be protected and preserved.
- The right to maintain its natural biodiversity.
- The right to perform its essential functions within its ecosystem.
- The right to maintain its integrity.
- The right to be free from pollution.
- The right to regenerate and be restored.
- The right to sue.
Although there is still much work to be done on the protection front, may this be the legal precedent that begins to change the outlook for our planet and it’s precious ecosystems. May this reflect a new beginning in our preservation efforts and our respectful relationship with nature. Afterall, we are not separate, but an integral part intertwined with nature herself.
BOREAL FOREST ANIMALS OF THE MAGPIE RIVER
5 creatures you may see between paddle strokes on your whitewater trip
In 2010, the Magpie river was named one of the top 10 whitewater kayaking rivers in the world by National Geographic. (Q Films)
