Renowned graphic artist, Joe Sacco explores the life of the Dene in the Northwest Territories as well as the issues they have experienced over the past decades as a result of colonialism and European influence.
Part 1 offers the insights of Paul Andrew, an elder and former chief of the Tulita who tells about the Dene way of life. He was born when his family were travelling in a moose skin boat. Paul lived on the land, "learning about relationships and connections with the land and the animals." Their day began at dawn and they went to bed with the sunset. Their lives were dictated by their environment and the animals. When the fish ran, they caught fish, when the moose hide was thick, they hunted moose.
A nomadic life meant people had several teams of dogs and travelled light. Children were identified at a young age as to what they might be best at; a leader or a hunter. By the time a child was five, he knew what his role in the community would be. There were no separate roles for men and women; for example, men learned to sew. Everyone had to learn different skills in the event they found themselves alone on the land. Everyone looked at what needed to be done and then acted. Andrew states that although there were times they were hungry, their bodies adapted like the animals did.
From the Europeans they used tents, stoves, guns and knives but he remembers his uncle showing him how to use flint to skin a moose. People were close to one another, marrying into other tribes and meeting with other families in July.
In Part II Shauna and Joe take a red Toyota pickup and travel north along the Mackenzie River Valley to Norman Wells, travelling along winter roads. Shauna lives on an island in Great Slave Lake, in a cabin that is off the grid and knows the people and the region.
The Northwest Territories, with a population of less than forty-five thousand, is the size of France and Spain combined. Shauna tells Joe that the oil and gas industry has had a significant impact on the northern ecosystem and the indigenous peoples, just as the fur trade did previously.
Shauna and Joe are staying with her non-Indigenous friends in Tulit'a in the Sahtu Region where the Great Bear River meets the Mackenzie River. The Dene, whose name means "the people" have a culture rooted in the land. When Paul Andrews lived in the bush, the Dene were referred to as "Indians" and Tulit'a was called Fort Norman.
Shauna tells Joe that fracking, the process of injecting chemicals and water into shale to release the hydrocarbons has divided the community. Douglas Yallee tells him that fracking has led to doubts and increased social issues. But unable to find scientific evidence that fracking harms the environment Douglas acknowledges there have been benefits. In Yellowknife, Darrell Beaulieu, president and CEO of Denendeh Investments, states that while communities want development they do not want the land damaged.
In Part III, Paying the Land, Joe talks with Paul Andrew's cousin, Frederick Andrew who is also Shuhta-ot'ine, Mountain Dene. He explains how he was taught by the elders to be careful on the land after being away for a time and to "pay the land". He talks with Fr. Rene Fumoleau who was born in France but came to Fort Good Hope in 1953 with the Oblates. He learned the language and spent the winters in the bush, travelling from family to family as they trapped animals. He tells Joe that over time, more people began to leave the land and get work.
In Part III, Joe explores the history of the treaties 8 and 11, "negotiated" with the Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Territories. In the 19th Century, Indigenous peoples supplied fur pelts to the Hudson's Bay Company which unknowing to them, had been granted their land. In 1870, their ancestors land was given to the Dominion of Canada. However, when minerals and oil were discovered, Canada sought control of the land, including most of the Northwest Territories, through treaties. The Dene viewed the treaties as "a friendship pact guaranteeing their livelihood -- based on hunting, fishing, and trapping - that in no way prejudiced their relationship to the land."
Through interviews, Joe learns how the Dene began to fight back through court challenges asserting their aboriginal rights to the land. The Paulette Case and the Berger Hearing were just the beginning. The latter challenge saw the Dene begin to reclaim their identity, calling themselves by their true names rather than referring to themselves as "indian". However, what began as a collaborative effort among the various Dene-Metis groups, soon collapsed with the northern-most Dene tribe leaving. After this, some Dene like Stephen Kakfwi and Jim Antoine joined the colonial system to try to enact changes that way. They both served as premier of the Northwest Territories and were able to accomplish some changes.
In Part IV, Our Culture Is Slowly Dying, Joe highlights the Dene's attempts to keep alive their skills that have helped them over generations survive in the bush. Jonas Antoine talks about how the Dene use many modern means of transportation to "get" to the land whereas in the past they were a part of the land. But Gordon Yakeleya remembers the hardships of living off the land when he was younger, compared to being a "wage earner" today. Cecile Raymond also remembers the hardships of bush living. Peter Redvers who has conducted ethnographic research in the Dehcho region states that the shift to living in towns and villages changed the culture of the Dene.This transformation has resulted in a loss of their language, their traditional laws and customs.
In this section, there are interviews with Dene who talk about the problems alcohol has created both in the community at large and within families. Binge drinking and drugs have led to a cycle of physical and sexual abuse. It is at this point that Sacco, through talking with many in the Dene community, details the horrific impacts of Canada's residential school system.
In Part V, Sacco explores the impact on the Dene of becoming more connected to the outside world. He talks with Dolphus Jumbo, chief of the Dehcho region community of Trout Lake, a town of fewer than one hundred people. It is located one hundred kilometers from the Mackenzie Highway.
Trout Lake has always been seen as being least affected by civilization. Dolphus himself is a survivor of the residential schools. In Trout Lake, the old ways lasted until the 1970's when the last family came in from the bush. Slowly, Trout Lake was transformed from the old Dene ways of nomadic life to settling down in a house with a mortgage. Despite his experience with the residential schools, he's not willing to condemn all the priests mainly because of his experience with Father Mary, a French priest who worked in the area for over thirty-five years and who became part of the community, learning the language and eating the food. Dolphus believes that they have to continue the Roman Catholic faith because it's become part of the Dene culture. At the same time, he feels that the community of Trout Lake has not really finding the right balance between modern culture and the old ways.
Jessica Jumbo, Dolphus's daughter explains how the community changed over time with land claims and the problems bred by handouts: self-sufficiency versus dependency on welfare. Trout Lake is very different than it's sister community, Fort Liard which used to be part of the same band. Fort Liard broke away from the Dehcho Process instituting their own land claim, confronting neighbouring Dene
communities (Trout Lake and Nahinni Butte) have made others hate them.Chief Harry Deneron of the Acho Dene Koe First Nation is interested in bringing in the resource extraction industry to remove the social handouts that have devastated his community.
In Part VI, Sacco interviews the younger Dene who are interested in advocating for their communities. Willard Hagen says the government process of pulling people out of the bush to educate them, took away their independence. When the jobs in the resource sector dried up, they turned to welfare. He's interested in promoting the economy but he says they need to determine how to get the benefits without too much impact to the land.
Eugene Boulanger, a Shuhtaot'ine Dene from Tulit'a believes that they must do better, be better men and challenge themselves. He belongs to the group, Dene Nahjo "The Dene Way" whose motto is "land, language, culture - forever." These younger Dene are rediscovering their culture, reclaiming aspects of the way their ancestors lived, pre-contact. This way of life was lost in the generation that attended the residential schools.
Discussion
Paying The Land offers a detailed look into the ongoing Dene efforts in reclaiming their ancestral lands and their identity through interviews with many of the stakeholders in the Dene communities. Accomplished comic artist, Joe Sacco wanted to write about how "resource extraction intersects with indigenous peoples." Eventually he was able to arrange a visit to the Northwest Territories with the help of Shauna Morgan who planned the trip, acted as driver and guide. Sacco made those visits in 2015 and 2016 and after years of writing has produced a truly informative book that explores the effects of colonialism, the residential schools, and resource extraction on the Dene people.
The graphic novel format is often associated with fiction and less serious subject matter. However, Sacco's renowned artistic abilities and his attention to detail, help to make this format the ideal medium to educate and inform readers on the issues of land claims, indigenous identity and governance. He's done an admirable job that he hopes will meet the approval of the indigenous communities he met during his visits.
At times, the stories are truly heartbreaking; the effect of alcoholism in families that leads to physical and sexual violence, suicides and self harm, the children forcibly taken from their large, loving families, the destruction of their beliefs and language.
There are many complex issues highlighted in the book. Today's young Dene leaders are attempting to reclaim their culture and their way of life. But their parents who are the product of the residential school system, have often lost their knowledge of the land and their culture. Some have been able to reclaim it but many have not. So their children are having to turn to the elders, their grandparents and great-grandparents to recover this knowledge. It is not just language skills, but how to cut wood, hunt caribou and moose, how to tan a moose hide, how to live as a community where everyone knows their place and their identity. And in some cases, it can be very difficult because there may be no one in a community who has such skills.
A second issue is the reclaiming of their ancestral lands from government treaties negotiated in bad faith. The process of going through territorial and government organizations is complicated, time consuming and not very successful. Sacco is able to portray the complexity of the process and how it has come to divide communities and Dene nations. Some are now advocating that the Dene do what the Haida have done - simply live on the land and be Dene. It is their land and they have lived there since "time immemorial"
A third issue revolves around what kind of life to live on their land: a return to the bush or working to set up sustainable industries on land that has many natural resources? These are options that no one person or Dene nation necessarily agree on. There are good and bad points to both ways, but one thing is clear from Sacco's many interviews; young people must be steered away from the government handouts and learn to be self-sufficient and to live productive lives without alcohol and drugs. Paying The Land shows that the Dene, like many other Indigenous peoples are still struggling to overcome the inter-generational fallout from the residential system, the loss of their culture and the exploitation of their land by governments and businesses.
Sacco ends by questioning his own culture, one that doesn't consider the land. The Dene practice of paying the land means giving back to the land, respecting it. Near the end of the book, Joe and Shauna visit the Giant Mine, which extracted gold, and in the process produced tons arsenic trioxide. Joe wonders about his own culture, "What is the worldview of a people who mumble no thanks or prayers, who take what they want from the land, who pay it back with arsenic?"
For those looking to understand indigenous issues in Canada's far north, Paying the Land offers considerable insight in a truly engaging format. While Sacco includes many small maps throughout the book, a larger version of the maps showing the region, the different Dene nations and the land claims would have been helpful. Paying The Land is a must-read for those interested in exploring Indigenous issues in Canada's far north. It offers a good starting point to begin learning about these complex issues.
Further reading:
The Canadian Encyclopedia: Comprehensive land Claims: Modern Treaties.
Book Details:
Paying The Land by Joe Sacco
New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Hold and Company 2020
264 pp.
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