Salt from the salt plains of Wood Buffalo National Park/NWT Tourism

An Indigenous entrepreneur has gone public with Parks Canada’s demand that she stop harvesting salt from her homelands in what’s now Wood Buffalo National Park.

Melissa Daniels — who runs the small skincare company Naidié Nezu (“Good Medicine” in the Dene language) and goes by the handle @DeneLegalEagle — Tweeted that Parks Canada “restricts Indigenous rights to the point of extinguishment.”

The Fort Smith, Northwest Territories woman shared a March 21 letter from park warden Natasha Moore who noted that her Borealis Bath Blend is said to include “salt from our local salt flats” but that “removal of salt and any other natural objects from the park is prohibited.”

“Naidie Nezu is respected for its use of handpicked botanicals,” Moore noted. “However, we ask that salt from the park stay in the park, and not be sold as an ingredient in the bath blend of other products.”

The salt plains in Wood Buffalo National Park/Parks Canada, S. Irwin

Daniels Tweted: “My ancestors have lived in this area for thousands of years & Parks states I’m no longer allowed to harvest salt on my homelands even though this is the only place I’m able to find it. #reconciliation.”

Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) put out a statement encouraging Canadians to buy the products.

“The Dëne have resided in what’s now called Wood Buffalo National Park for at least 11,000 years,” he wrote. “We have a treaty, signed with the Crown that guarantees access and use of this territory.” But ACFN members have been denied access and use of the territory, he said, and the hope has been to “resolve this historic injustice” before the park’s 100th anniversary later this year.

Adam called the Parks Canada letter to Daniels “yet another reminder that Canada is still in the very early days of reconciliation.”

His statement included a comment from Daniels who said: “I am (in) no way, shape or form a threat to the ecology integrity of our homelands and having Parks Canada imply otherwise is insulting to me, our nation, our ancestors and the land itself. As such, I will continue to harvest salt because like my ancestors, the land sustains me & I refuse to let the land-based relationships we have nurtured for our future generations be extinguished by Parks Canada’s continued legacy of colonial wrongdoings.”

Canada’s largest national park spans the Northwest Territories and Alberta and protects free-roaming bison herds.