Old Fort Rae

History at Old Fort Rae

NSMA members hunt, fish and trap, both historically and in recent years, in the region north of Great Slave Lake. Old Fort Rae, located within the candidate protected area Dınàgà Wek'èhodì, is an important site for many groups (including the Métis, Dene and Tłı̨chǫ) with archeological areas, graves, other sites of cultural significance. Today Old Fort Rae is a remote community camp with 11 cabins, arbour, main hall, washrooms, generator shack, 3 sheds, playground, docks. NSMA Guardians and staff have been monitoring the wildlife at Old Fort Rae for the past few years

What wildlife do we have at Old Fort Rae?

Currently we have 12 wildlife cameras installed at Old Fort Rae. These cameras are serviced 2-3 times a year and data is processed.

We have detected several species of interested so far including bears, wolves, wolverine and moose.

In 2023 we deployed 6 ARUs at Old Fort Rae to detect bird species. So far we have only been able to process a small sub sample of the data but these are the species we are seeing so far. In 2024 we deployed 4 bat ARUs to investigate the presence of bats at Old Fort Rae, stay tuned for results!

We have been conducting eDNA analysis at Old Fort Rae since 2022. Although we have never seen caribou on our wildlife cameras, we have detected caribou location through eDNA sampling, along with many other species.