Yellowknife a bustling centre

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The area around Yellowknife, on Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, was undisturbed for centuries, with only Dene and Inuit people living a quiet, harmonious existence with nature in the one million square miles of the great territory.

A few trading posts and missions were scattered here and there. Occasionally explorers intruded, some searching for copper or gold, some to find the elusive northwest passage, believed by Europeans to be a route which would allow freer movement between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans than the long trop around South America currently allowed. Samuel Hearne, a Hudson Bay employee, travelled with the Indians of the Yellowknife, or Copper, tribe in the 1770s, exploring their territory and greatly increasing general knowledge of the

north. Sir John Franklin asked Akaitcho, chief of the tribe, to guide him up the Coppermine River to the Arctive Ocean in 1820.

But little else disturbed the traditional meeting place of the Dene, which the busy city of Yellowknife could one day occupy.

Then, in 1934, gold was discovered in the area and the news of the discovery, added to earlier findings of pitchblende at Great Bear Lake, brought an end to the early peaceful existence. Bush planes soon deposited enough people in the area to see a fledgling tent city begin to grow. Development was steady over the next 50 years. Mineral and petroleum exploration and construction of the DEW line (Distant Early Warning) defense system also contributed to development of the area.

Today a modern city of 12,000 people, Yellowknife is linked to the rest of Canada by an efficient highway system and by scheduled and charter flights from its International Airport.

Their territorial government was established at Yellowknife in 1967 and the federal departments involved began transferring responsibilities from Ottawa. Debates in the 24 member

Legislative Assembly are carried on in any of eight languages, as politicians represent Dene of Chipewayan, Dogrib, Slavey, Nahanni, Loucheux and Hare descent, as well as Inuit, interpreters are never far away.

The government is further divided into five regions and decentralization has increased the emphasis on local councils in the regions, which are Inuvik, Kitikmeot, Keewatin, Baffing and Fort Smith, the latter including Yellowknife itself.

While the city is a bustling urban centre, nearby communities offer a more traditional way of life. Deta, a settlement of 130 Dogrib people situated just outside the capital, is a popular tourist stop, with the visitors observing the daily activities of the village and its inhabitants. Lac La Martre to the north has some 350 Dene people, also of Dogrib origin and has an economy based on hunting, fishing and tourism.

The two tiny villages of Snare Lake and Rae Lakes have only a store and rest house, but Dene people in the area live a lifestyle unchanged for many years. Rae, Edzo and Fort Reliance, small Dogrib communities, and Snowdrift, Canada's most northerly Chipewyan settlement are situated on the shores of Great Slave Lake and are involved in fishing and trapping.

Today many Native people in the larger centres are becoming employed in oil and gas exploration, mining and government services. Training programs are available in many fields.