Current FFG magazine has an article on Marten trapping in Quebec. Mentions a line which north of the line is indigenous only. I know are members in NW Canada have some sort of exclusive use of the area around them.
Can you Canadians educate us on this?

Every province/territory is probably a bit different. In Manitoba, anything north is all RTL operated by natives & white. I believe there’s blocks around the northern communities that anyone without a RTL can trap. Just so they have somewhere to set some steel.
The area in red is all open trapping area, the rest of those boundaries are further cut up into RTLs, this is an old map though.

What is circled in red is a small area

The gwichin settlement area is broken in up into blocks of crown land and private land as well as our main primary use areas and secondary use areas in the Yukon. We have Special harvesting areas closed to development such as our geese hunting and moose hunting areas along the mackenzie river. We have surface and subsurface rights so we have a say in the decision making for any resource extraction with stipulations for local hiring. Basically it all gives us control over our own resources and a say in what goes on within the region. Crown land is open to resident hunters but private land requires written permission. Nearly the entire region is taken in terms of traplines. No RTLs but an understanding of who's familys camp and traplines are located in Different areas with a good bit of respect and space given. Co management is the term used to describe our way of coming up with quotas, seasons, etc with all proponents in one room to come up with the best solutions. We will hear recommendations from federal, territorial and local government organizations to decide what is the best course of action for anything that comes up but what I like the most is the amount of weight the word of the harvesters like myself holds. We're the eyes and ears on the ground so a lot of attention is given to what we are seeing and hearing on the land. I could go on forever but that might give a brief explanation on the workings of the region. Long story short we have exclusive hunting fishing and trapping rights to most of the settlement area. This is a big change from years ago when we were told what we can and can't do within our part of the world. Back then even if we seen overpopulations of animals the decisions were still made in city offices in Ottawa as to what we could legally do. One of the reasons most political decisions on the federal level don't apply to us and the reason our future as the original inhabitants of the region is set up to ensure that the land based lifestyle we live will continue with our best interests protected for future generations of harvesters such as my son his son and all the future McLeod's to come.

Interesting. I'm a Canadian citizen (all Haida are since we came from an island in present day Canada about 2,000 years ago to what's now POW island) but other than driving through I've never spent any time in Canada and I was curious how that worked. We have native corporations that own and manage the land the US government decided we could have back in the day, and we usually have a village. Some tribes fared better than others on that deal (makes me wish we had oil in SE Alaska lol)

That’s the open trapping area. It’s full of private and crown land that anybody can trap, except the RTL holders unless they get a special license. The open area has a little tighter restrictions than the RTLs.

What does RTL, stand for? Very interesting discussion!

Registered Trap Line. The line holder has the exclusive rights to trap it and build a few little shack on it. Usually handed down to a family member that’s very familiar with the line or to the helper, but sometimes not. There’s been some heated battles over them. Recently an outsider tried to get one thinking it’ll be his moose hunting territory, he live 3 provinces away…lol. An open area licence is $10 & RTL is $15. My buddy had one for a couple years when he took an 2 year temp position up north, and said he paid $100, not sure what that’s about. I’m thinking he got a helpers licence and the old man who hadn’t trapped it for 10 years showed him on a map where to go. He brought home some marten though.

Registered Trapline = RTL
Provinces can have different names for same thing, Alberta if RFMA : Registered Fur Management Area
In Alberta a person can “own” more than one in province
In British Columbia, this is the same BUT they need to be bordering each other
I trapped a Manitoba community trapline years ago - was working in a gold mine there, got my MB trapping course (moved from another province) and took advantage of oppurtunity. Great Marten, Mink and Otter country ,,, with other furbearers . Endless water…

Trapping in northern Manitoba musta been kinda boring compared to that country! Nice pics!

It was Bissett ; MB - Cdn Shield but actuaally quite far south. Nice country as well