'It's our highway:' Researchers, Indigenous guardians monitor lake ice in N.W.T.

Iris Catholique says over the past two decades, she's noticed the waters of Great Slave Lake surrounding Lutsel K'e, N.W.T., taking longer to freeze in the winter. Climate change is making ice conditions on the lake, which is roughly the same size as Belgium and the deepest lake in North America, less predictable.

Iris Catholique says over the past two decades, she's noticed the waters of Great Slave Lake surrounding Lutsel K'e, N.W.T., taking longer to freeze in the winter.

"In the past, the lake used to freeze by November, December and by early December, we're able to travel through traditional trails and different small lakes between here and our traditional hunting grounds," she said. "Now we can't do that. We have to wait until after the lakes start to freeze in January."

The ice is not as thick in some areas at it used to be, Catholique added, and people from the community also have to travel farther to find caribou and muskox.

Catholique is manager of Thaidene Nene, meaning "the land of the ancestors" in Denesuline Yati, an Indigenous protected area larger than 26,000 square kilometres on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake near Lutsel K'e.

The community, home to more than 300 people, is only accessible by plane or travelling on the lake by boat in the summer and over the ice in the winter.

"It's our highway," Catholique said of the ice. "It's pretty much our lifeline to our traditional harvesting areas."

Climate change is making ice conditions on the lake, which is roughly the same size as Belgium and the deepest lake in North America, less predictable. In May 2019, three people travelling by snowmobile from Dettah to Lustel K'e were believed to have gone through the ice.