The Indian Claims Commission has slammed the federal government's failure to protect the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation from the destructive effects of a British Columbia hydro dam. Athabasca Chipewyan natives lost their traditional livelihood after B.C. Hydro's W.A.C. Bennett Dam opened in northeast B.C. in 1968, drying up the delta reserve they relied on near Fort Chipewyan in northeast Alberta for hunting, fishing and trapping. Band members have since turned to welfare. [Jim Prentice] said Ottawa agreed in 1899 under Treaty 8 to give natives permanent access to hunting. It set aside Chipewyan Indian Reserve 201 in 1935 for that use.