The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - The Hunt for Tradition

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

The annual deer harvest at Short Hills Provincial Park is a traditional Haudenosaunee practice that manages the overpopulation of deer, protects the ecosystem, and honors Indigenous cultural traditions and Treaty Rights. Since it began in 2023 it has faced both support and controversy. Field producer Jeyan Jeganathan explores how this harvest helps manage the park's deer population and preserves Indigenous customs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's the dead of night. The roads are empty, the only sound, the hum of the engine as Brian Skye drives through the quiet. He's heading to Short Hills Provincial Park near St. Catharines, Ontario for the annual deer harvest, a practice that's as much about tradition as it is about the hunt. Short Hills is the largest park in the Niagara region, spanning more than 700 hectares of rugged terrain. With its steep hills and deep valleys, the park lives up to its name. Every rise and dip carved by nature. It's frosted but when it's snow it's even more difficult. For humans, for deer it's easy.

It's below freezing, but the morning air cuts through, feeling several degrees colder. The prize target is the white-tailed deer. With the perfect spot for the camouflage blind chosen, all that is left to do is wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. It's climatizing yourself to the cold, dark morning that's going to release itself into the warm day and the sunlight slowly as the earth awakens.

Brian Skye is a member of the Cayuga Nation, one of the six First Nations in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Growing up along the Grand River in southwestern Ontario, hunting and trapping were simply a way of life for him. I received my first trifle I think when I was 12. I used to have a trap line along the Grand River, and I used to harvest from there and sell the fur to the local furrier and eat what was captured. Crossbow here, which with the pulleys and other attachments creates a a feet per second that is lethal.

These days, Brian doesn't get out hunting the way he used to, but is still doing his part to keep indigenous traditions alive and well. He's one of the co-leaders of the Haudenosaunee deer harvest at Short Hills, and a member of the Haudenosaunee Wildlife and Habitat Authority. You want a fairly dark color on this because that will affirm that you've either hit the heart or the lungs. His job is to make sure everyone partaking in the hunt is safe but more importantly that treaty rights are protected. Hunting is not normally allowed at Short Hills,

but this area is part of the traditional Haudenosaunee hunting grounds. The Fort Albany Treaty of 1701 protects Six Nations members' rights to hunt and fish here. This area of southern Ontario is considered a dish with one spoon, for much we will all eat. No one had permanent residence in this area. People would come to harvest medicines, harvest fruits, berries, animals, furs, food. Brian is particular about calling it a harvest, not a hunt. It's not a sport, it's culture. It's part of who we are. And we're not going to change.

Every fall for about six days, the park shuts down for the annual harvest. Entrances get blocked off and are patrolled by officers. There are no guns allowed, just compound bows. And harvesters must stay within the designated boundaries. According to Brian, the deer are harvested in a humane way, minimizing their suffering. We have about 10% ruining rate where we're just wounding an animal and it's getting away, which is very low for how many we actually do harvest. We make sure that they're within a very close range, and if they're not, then we tell everybody not to do it.

Looking through the little small spaces of the trees to see beyond that. That kind of precision is crucial because Short Hills has an overabundance of white-tailed deer. Annual aerial surveys from the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks estimate the deer population between 350 and 430. But according to the ministry, the park's ecosystem can only support about 50. They'll eat even shrubs that grow along the stream beds or swamp beds. And because they've removed that cover, salamanders won't live there. They're destroying habitat of our animals. There's no undergrowth, so there's not

as many songbirds. There's an imbalance, such an imbalance that they're affecting everything. What happens is these animals will feed in farmers' fields at night, then return to the safety of a protected area. The harvest has been controversial since it started in 2013. Protesters routinely picket the park's entrances, creating scenes like this captured by CHCH in 2018. Protesters blocked the entry into Short Hills Provincial Park, police having to direct them out of the way to let indigenous hunters pass through. The harvest has faced opposition from homeowners near the park,

animal rights groups and even some politicians. Hunters have also dealt with racist comments, both in the park and online. While the demonstrations have cooled down over the years, protesters call the harvest cruel and raise safety concerns like members of the public unknowingly wandering into the area. They have a right to protest. We've always used our right to protest when we object to something. So we affirm that right. Of course, we understand they would be protesting, but they understood everything.

Ontario Parks reports that 40 deer were killed in Shorthills in 2024. According to Brian, the fruits of the harvest are invaluable, and every effort is made to use every part of the deer. These are the hooves of the deer. They're toenails actually. Again, this is leather that's taken from the hide. These are utilized around your leg so that when you dance. You can just imagine ceremony that way and make a nice little noise. A group of harvesters who are

like-minded who sustain their lives, their family's lives with the food. They donate it to different longhouses for ceremonies. They give it to elders who no longer go out in the field. This is the Indigenous team that went to the Culinary Olympics. That's my mom there, Bertha Skye. Brian's late mother taught him the importance of food not only as sustenance, but as a means of nurturing community and tradition. In 1992 Bertha

was selected as the only woman on Canada's first all-Indigenous team in the Culinary Olympics where they won the competition including a gold medal for Bertha's three sisters soup. Corn, beans and squash it would always be my favorite soup to make because of her. We're very lucky that we have Brian here, Bertha's son, having prepped. Now, why do you know so much about prepping food like this? I've had some excellent teachers, starting with my mother from when I was a child.

Uh-huh, did you tell him to say that? Bertha's nourishing meals sparked Brian's love for cooking, a drive evident in this TV appearance in 2000. That passion would drive him to become a chef himself. Food was everything. I mean food like she would cook up a gourmet meal even though we didn't know it was gourmet at the time. Even when a hunt doesn't result in a successful harvest, for Brian it's about staying connected to the land. Food is a cultural foundation

and deeply embedded in indigenous traditions. For generations, the harvest of deer and the careful stewardship of the land have sustained not only families, but entire communities. It's men, it's women, it's children who are learning and who are, if they're not harvesting, they're helping. So it's that extension of looking after the earth, our mother, and seeing that things are in balance again.