Posted: Apr 30, 2021 1:28 PM CT | Last Updated: April 30 Thomas Berger at the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa. Berger died on Wednesday at age 88.(Cheryl Kawaja/CBC) Humble, an active listener, a "legal scalpel" — these are but a few of the ways First Nations leaders and environmentalists in Yukon are remembering the late Thomas Berger. Berger's work spans the North and British Columbia — work First Nations leaders say helped advance Indigenous land claims and the rights therein. He was a former judge for the B.C. Supreme Court, an NDP politician and a lawyer. In Yukon, he is perhaps most well-known for representing First Nations and environmental organizations in their fight to protect the Peel watershed, a vast expanse of wilderness in northeastern Yukon with important cultural and ecological ties, along with leading an inquiry in the 1970s into a pipeline project in the Mackenzie Valley, which Berger recommended be delayed.