Brown Bern Will - End-of-earth people the Arctic Sahtu Dene

Copyright Bern Will Brown, 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press and Parks Canada. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Editor: Laura Harris

Copy-Editors: Ivan Gaetz and Jane Gibson

Design: Courtney Horner

Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Brown, Bern Will, 1920-, author

End-of-earth people / Bern Will Brown ; foreword by Norman

Yakeleya.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-4597-2267-5

1. Bearlake Indians--Northwest Territories--History. 2. Bearlake

Indians--Northwest Territories--Social life and customs. I. Title.

E99.B376B76 2014 971.92004972 C2013-907429-5

C2013-907430-9

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.

Visit us at: Dundurn.com
@dundurnpress
Pinterest.com/dundurnpress
Facebook.com/dundurnpress

• Foreword
  Bern Will Brown Among the Sahtu: An Appreciation
  by Norman Yakeleya
• Editorial Introduction and Reflection
  by Ivan Gaetz
• One
  What is Known of Sahtu Dene History
• Two
  Images of the People
• Three
  The Sahtu Dene Character
• Four
  Language Complexities and Challenges
• Five
  Dwellings: Saplings, Skins, and Spruce
• Six
  Staying Warm in the Frozen North
• Seven
  Food: The Raw and the Cooked
• Eight
  Cycles and Struggles of Life: Hunting and Trapping
• Nine
  Fish: The Staff of Life
• Ten
  Form and Function: Sahtu Dene Womens Crafts
• Eleven
  Sahtu Dene Crafts and Tool Making
• Twelve
  Daily Routines and Social Practices
• Thirteen
  Beliefs: Superstitions, Taboos, and Orthodox Religion
• Fourteen
  Recent Concerns and Perspectives
• Afterword
  Perspectives of Charles Arnold
• Appendix A
  Profile of the Sahtu Dene and Mtis Comprehensive
  Land Claim Agreement of 1993 by Ivan Gaetz
• Appendix B
  Annotated Bibliography: Published Books by Bern Will Brown

Bern Will Brown Among the Sahtu:
An Appreciation

The aboriginal people of the Sahtu regions were first called the Hareskin when Sir Alexander Mackenzie ventured north through the Great Bear Lake area in 1789. There he met people who dressed entirely in snowshoe hare skins and who had lived there for thousands of years. The Sahtu Dene knew no boundaries, but their traditional territory extended across Great Bear Lake, north through the Colville Lake area and west into the Mackenzie Mountains. By the time Bern Will Brown arrived in Tulita, known then as Fort Norman, the aboriginal lifestyle was still based on trapping and subsistence harvest, but life was quickly beginning to change.

Few people are as well-positioned as Bern Will Brown to describe the changes to the northern way of life over the past sixty years. Born in 1920 in Rochester, New York, Bern has served the people of the North as a Roman Catholic priest, church builder, carpenter, pilot, trapper, artist, author, and photographer since 1948. His willingness to learn from and live among the aboriginal people won him lasting respect and his helpful, resourceful nature enhanced his role as a leader. He has learned the Slavey language, and still lives with his wife, Margaret, in Colville Lake, the community he helped establish in 1962. His books and visual art reveal his keen observations of the northern world.

Bern witnessed the arrival of the snowmobiles, which replaced dog teams; the days of schooners and York boats giving way to the jet age, and the transition from months of waiting for mail to instantaneous digital communication. He comments with wisdom and compassion on the climate of dependence on government welfare, its origins in the residential school system, and the resulting disintegration of families and life on the land. He also captures the resilience of the Dene and Mtis, our rich and enduring traditions, the landmarks of our physical and spiritual territory, and our powerful connection to the land. Berns devotion to the people of the Sahtu is evident in all his work. End-of-Earth People: The Arctic Sahtu Dene is his latest contribution to a valuable record of the North that continues to change as we move further into the twenty-first century.

I invite readers everywhere to pick up this book and travel with the Sahtu people through the timeless, magical world of Bern Will Brown. Happy reading!

Thanks, Bern!