N.W.T. Supreme Court grants eviction orders for occupants of 2 cabins

The N.W.T. Supreme Court has issued three rulings in cases related to the territorial government's push to remove unauthorized cabins from public land, two of which resulted in eviction orders.

The rulings, released Wednesday, relate to cabins near Narcisse Lake and Banting Lake. The cases are part of the territorial government's Unauthorized Occupancy Project, a program launched in 2021 to address the growing number of cabins built or bought without legal permission to use the land.

The Unauthorized Occupancy Project separates cabins built before and after April 1, 2014, the date the territory assumed responsibility for administering territorial lands from the federal government. More than 700 cabins were identified for review under the program.

Structures built before that date are evaluated for potential tenure eligibility. If a site fails to meet the criteria or cannot be linked to an Indigenous treaty right, legal action for removal can be taken.

In two of the three recent cases, the court granted the government's application to evict the occupant. In the third, the judge declined to grant the eviction because of concerns about the information used to justify it.

Matt Pond was born in Yellowknife and is a member of the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation. In the late 1990s, he built a cabin with his parents north of Narcisse Lake. He had no lease, but he argued that his Indigenous status and his intention to transfer to the Yellowknives Dene First Nation entitled him to occupy the land.

In the affidavit, Pond said he received verbal assurances in the 1990s and early 2000s that a lease was not required for small traditional-use cabins. He also said he completed a voluntary declaration form to assert those rights, though it was not signed by any N.W.T. Indigenous government, which is a requirement.

The judge found Pond was not yet a member of a local Indigenous government with established or asserted rights in the area. She ruled that the possibility of transferring band membership in the future wasn't enough to give him legal permission to stay on the land.

The court granted the government's application for eviction.

In a second case, Frank Walsh took over a cabin on Narcisse Lake in 2007. The cabin was originally built around 2000. In 2013 or 2014, he asked the Department of Lands about getting a lease and was told that he would need a bill of sale and to remove a lakeside wharf.

Walsh did not remove the wharf or apply for a lease. The department later determined that the cabin's location did not meet leasing criteria because it was within the ordinary high-water mark. Walsh also admitted he was aware he had no lease.

Walsh argued he had occupied the site for over 20 years and should be allowed to stay under the legal principle of adverse possession.

The judge rejected the argument, writing that Walsh had acknowledged the government's authority by inquiring about a lease and by later asking the court to order one. She also cited case law suggesting that public land cannot be claimed through adverse possession.

The court granted the territory's application for eviction.

In the final case, Thomas Van Dam purchased a cabin on Banting Lake in 2015. The structure was originally built in 2005 or 2006. A previous owner applied for a lease in 2013, but the application was denied in 2014 due to a temporary hold on recreational leasing in the area.

Van Dam declared his ownership of the cabin to the Department of Lands after he began working there in 2021. He says a supervisor told him verbally that he would "get a lease." However, in 2022, he was informed that his site did not conform to cabin evaluation criteria.

The government's application to court stated that the site failed to meet the criteria. However, the judge found the documentation did not specify how the cabin failed the criteria. She also said that Van Dam had moved the cabin to comply with the Yellowknife Watershed Development Area Regulations.

The judge denied the government's request for eviction in this case but granted the government the ability to reapply once the minister reviews the process set out under the Unauthorized Occupancy Project.