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Norman Yak'eula has had it with the Americans' garbage.

Having recently completed his annual hike through the Canol Heritage Trail in July, the former Dene national chief is calling on current Sahtu leaders to take charge of the cleanup, which has been repeatedly delayed.

"There's really nobody there to pay any interest to the trail, other than the Canol Youth Leadership hike we have every year," Yak'eula told ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Media. "We've been doing that for 20 years.

"I would like to see the land claim presidents take a very active interest in sitting the federal and territorial governments across the table and negotiate an operational type of budget for the Canol Heritage Trail and and create a park."

Used as a logistics and communications corridor during the Second World War by the United States military, the trail is still covered in wartime relics and debris: 176 vehicles, 5,000 empty 45-gallon barrels, batteries, hazardous waste, asbestos, pipeline material, bridges and telephone wire — which can harm or kill wildlife. At the peak of activity, there was more than 3,000 military personnel on the trail during the 1940s.

During their annual pilgrimage down the trail this year, hikers came across several animals that got entangled in a bundle of wire, where they struggled until they finally died. Yak'eula said the Canol Youth Leadership hiking team he led through the trail counted 17 moose and caribou who had been killed by the garbage strewn about, all of which had died over the summer.

Cleaning up the Canol Trail has a special spot in Yak'eula's heart, as the route was a key plank in the Sahtu Dene Metis Land Agreement, which he helped negotiate. Under Chapter 17.3, the federal and territorial governments are required to create a national park along the trail and call it Doi T’oh National Park.

But even though the agreement came in to effect in 1994, the goal of a park is still far from being achieved.

Yak'eula said the delay stems from a disagreement between the federal and territorial governments as to who is responsible for cleaning up the Americans' mess, with neither side wanting to cover the cost of removing the stadium's worth of waste and restore the trail to its natural state.

With over 30 years having gone by, he said it's time for people in the Sahtu to take the initiative and do the cleanup themselves.

"Everybody is sitting on their ass and pointing fingers at each other," he said. "When you look in the mirror, it is our own leadership who need to be present.

"There's still old buildings, there's still vehicles, there's still junkyards and pipes. As of this year, still wiring all over the trail too," Yak'eula added.

In doing so, he said the Sahtu would not only show the land the respect it deserves, but also fuel pride in the Sahtu nation and even create jobs in the area.

In the interim, the area is still Crown land. The federal government's website states remediation of the trail was completed between 2018 and 2019 at a cost of $5.9 million. The Government of Canada says it removed over 314 kilometres of wire from the trail. The website notes that many of the buildings were demolished and/or boarded up, but "many have been left standing for heritage value."

ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø contacted the Sahtu Land and Water Management Board and the Sahtu Renewable Resources Management Board for comment. A spokesperson for the latter said they didn't "have time to comment on it this week." The former did not respond to inquiries prior to publication deadline.