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Ulric Joseph Octave 'Spud' Arsenault was born in Wellington, Prince Edward Island on April 21, 1899, the son of Gertrude (nee Cormier) and Joseph Felix Arsenault, who was an Acadian businessman and member of the PEI Legislative Assembly. His childhood was spent in Wellington PEI, Minnesota, Quebec City and Summerside PEI.

At the age of 16 he enlisted with the armed forces in World War One and served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the 105th, 26th, and 13th Battalions and was wounded in action in Amiens, France. He was discharged in 1919.

After farming and working on railways in Wellington PEI, he moved to western Canada in 1921, working on railways in Fort McMurray Alberta ca. 1921-1922, and for the Alberta Forestry Service as a fire ranger ca. 1922-1928. In the winters he had a cabin and trapline on the Athabasca River. In 1928 he began prospecting and mining with various companies including Dominion Explorers (1929), Eldorado Company (1931-1934), Althona (1935), Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company (1938), Ruth Mine (winter 1941/42), and Frances Lake, Yukon (1943-1944).

In 1945 Arsenault returned to the Yellowknife area to work as an independent prosepector, and staked some lapsed claims that he'd originally staked for Consolidated Mining, now the Spartan (Arsenault) group of claims. Working with friend Bill MacDonald this group of claims was purchased by Beaulieu Yellowknife Mines for $100,000 and 250,000 shares in a new mining company to be named Spud Arsenault Mines Ltd. Arsenault's story became a media sensation, but the collapse of the fraudulent Beaulieu Yellowknife Mines meant that the Spud Arsenault Mines project never materialized.

Despite prospecting again in Yellowknife in 1946 and 1976, Arsenault moved to Edmonton where he lived in semi-retirement for approximately ten years, and then moved to Vancouver Island.

Ulric 'Spud' Arsenault died in Victoria, B.C. on June 10, 1981 at the age of 82. His remains were buried in St. Paul's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Summerside, PEI.

James Ernest "Ernie" Ayrhart was born in Campbellford, Ontario circa 1898. He married Mildred Dale of Brampton, Ontario in 1945. He was a prospector whose first experiences and successes occurred in northern Quebec. He was later convinced to travel to Yellowknife and explore mining possibilities in the Northwest Territories. During his time in Yellowknife, Mr. Ayrhart became distressed by the extreme costs of flying in the north. In an effort to prove that Canadian Pacific Airlines (CPA) was over charging for its services, Mr. Ayrhart purchased a DC3, which he called the Yellowknife Express. Charging about one half the rates of CPA, the Yellowknife Express flew passengers and freight to Grande Prairie, Peace River, Fort Rae, Yellowknife and Norman Wells. Having shown that air travel could be run less expensively, Mr. Ayrhart sold the Yellowknife Express to CPA on the express conditions that their rates be reduced. After leaving the north, Ayrhart returned to Quebec where he again became involved with the mining industry. Ernie Ayrhart passed away in 1993.

Richard Henry Baines was born August 29, 1892 in Wiltshire, England. He immigrated to Canada ca. 1910 and married Eva Manning Lewington. The couple had two children, Geoffrey and Richard Francis. Baines appears to have been employed by International Harvester for a number of years. In 1938, he conducted a study on methods of transportation for International Harvester Ltd. of Edmonton. For this study, Baines traveled to Goldfields, Saskatchewan, northern Alberta, Fort Smith, Fort Resolution, Yellowknife, Port Radium and Coppermine (Kugluktuk). During World War II, he lived in Fort St. John and was involved in the construction of the Alaska Highway in the United States Engineering Department. He died November 10, 1972.

Cyril John Baker, also known as "Yellowknife Johnny" was born in 1902 in England. He attended a technical college in Bristol, England and then went to Cambridge where he earned his degree in general engineering in 1926. He came to Canada after receiving his degree and his first job was with Noranda Mines in Quebec. He went to Great Bear Lake in 1932 and in 1933, he traveled from Great Bear Lake to Great Slave Lake. In the fall of 1933, Baker along with his partner, Herb Dixon, made the first discovery of gold about 30 miles up from the mouth of the Yellowknife River. Baker participated in many prospecting activities and staked the Rich claim, which later became Giant Mine. In 1938, he left the north and joined the British Army. He died on November 24, 1996 at the age of 94.

Claire Barnabe was born on November 13, 1940 in Eastview (now Vanier), Ontario. She attended Our Lady of the Presentation in Overbrook for elementary school and Eastview High School in Vanier for secondary school. Claire was a member of the religious order of Holy Cross for four years. She attended Ottawa Teachers' College and obtained a permanent Ontario Teachers' Certificate. She taught at an elementary school in Alexandria, Ontario, Iona Academy in St. Raphael’s West, Ontario, for the Catholic School Board in Montreal, and for the Separate School Board in Ottawa before moving north.

In 1965, she accepted a teaching position at Fort Franklin (now Deline), where she worked until 1967. During her time in Deline, she was also Secretary of the Community Club. In 1968, after spending a year in the south and touring Europe, Claire returned to the north to work as a teacher in Fort Providence. She was also President of the Community Club there and Chairman of the NWT Centennial Planning Committee for Fort Providence.

In 1969, she left her teaching position in Fort Providence and moved to Norman Wells where she worked at the Mackenzie Mountain Lodge. She moved back to Fort Providence later that year to work for Alex Arychuk, also in the hotel business. In the 1970 Territorial election, she ran as a candidate for the Lower Mackenzie riding. Following her defeat in the election, she applied to work as a Settlement Manager.

In May 1971, she accepted the position of settlement manager in Port Burwell on Killinek Island, where she remained until May 1973. After a very brief time as Settlement Manager at Large for the Baffin Region, she became the Settlement Manager at Repulse Bay (now Naujaat, Nunavut). Also in 1973, she was appointed to be a member of the NWT Historical Advisory Board. In 1974, Claire returned to Norman Wells as Settlement Manager there. She ran in the 1975 Territorial election and the 1976 by-election for the riding of Mackenzie Great Bear, but was defeated both times.

She took leave from the GNWT in 1976 to work on a Master’s degree in Public Administration at Carleton University, Ottawa. In 1978, she joined Bud Drury’s office as a policy analyst. She ran again in the 1979 Territorial election for the riding of Yellowknife Centre and was again defeated. Claire remained in the north for many more years, before retiring to the south.

G.H.U. "Terk" Bayly was born in 1917. He married Fay (nee Anderson) in 1944 and they had a daughter named Ann, and two sons, Richard and John. "Terk" was a pilot with the 413 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force (R.C.A.F.) during World War II. After the war, he completed his studies in Forestry and spent most of his career with the Ontario Department of Lands and Forestry, where he was Deputy Minster of the department for many years. Later he held many senior positions with the Ontario provincial government, including the position of Secretary of the Management Board of Cabinet. After his retirement, he served as Chairman of the Ontario Heritage Foundation and the Niagara Escarpment Commission. He was an avid canoeist and in the summer of 1973, Jim and Jane Bayly, Eric and Pamela Morse, and Angus Scott accompanied him for a canoe trip down the Hanbury and Thelon Rivers. He was also a glider pilot and instructor and operated a farm and woodlot. Until shortly before his death, he chaired the Blue Mountain Watershed Trust. He died on June 9, 1998 at his farm in Meaford, Ontario.

John U. Bayly was born on April 20, 1945 in Toronto, Ontario. He has enjoyed a long and varied career in the North and worked as both a Crown Attorney and private counsel in the communities of Kuujjuarapik or Great Whale River (Quebec), Rankin Inlet, Inuvik and Yellowknife. He was the founding partner of what later became Bayly Williams where he practiced between 1983-2000. Between 1984 and May 1985, Mr. Bayly chaired the NWT government's Task Force on Spousal Assault. Between 1981-1987, he served as Counsel and Negotiator for the Dene/Metis Land Claim Agreement-in-Principle. He served as the first Executive Director for the Legal Services Board of the NWT and was responsible for the delivery of legal aid public legal education and services throughout the NWT. In 1990, John U. Bayly was retained as Inquiry Counsel for a Judicial Inquiry into the conduct of Judge R.M. Bourassa (the Bourassa Inquiry). The inquiry was established following public outcry to remarks attributed to Judge Bourassa in a 1989 Edmonton Journal article suggesting that sexual assault among northern natives was less violent than in the south. Mr. Bayly was also a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Public Complaints Commission for 12 years and he has represented a variety of aboriginal peoples organizations, including the Dene Nation, Committee for Original People's Entitlement (COPE), Inuit Tapirisat and Nunavut Tungavik Incorporated (NTI). Before there was a Law Society of the Northwest Territories, Mr. Bayly was the president of the NWT Bar Association for two years. He has been an active member of the Law Society of the Northwest Territories since 1978 and for 21 years he was the Chairman of its Discipline Committee. He is also a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Law Society of Nunavut, the Canadian Bar Association and a director of the International Commission on Folk Law and Legal Pluralism. He is a past chairman of the Denendeh Conservation Board (1988-1991), a past member of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (1988-1991) and the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee (1986-1989). Mr. Bayly served for seven years as the Chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of the Arctic. In March 2000, he was appointed to the position of Principal Secretary for the Government of the Northwest Territories. John Bayly died in Yellowknife February 17, 2004.

Bear Exploration and Radium Limited (BEAR) was incorporated as an Ontario company on June 6, 1932 to finance development of the Contact Lake Mine in the Echo Bay region of Great Bear Lake. The backers of BEAR were an Ontario mining interest represented by William Wright and Harry Oaks. Contact Lake Mine was purchased by BEAR in 1932 and produced silver and a small amount of uranium before shutting down in 1939. The property was later sold, although BEAR retained shares in the International Uranium Mining Company, which had purchased it.
BEAR established a presence in the Yellowknife area in 1933 when their employees C. J. Baker and Herb Dixon discovered free gold and staked the Quyta group of claims. BEAR established a subsidiary, Yellowknife Gold Mines Ltd. to develop the claims and several other subsidiaries in the following years to deal with other groups of claims. BEAR, together with Howey Gold Mines Limited, incorporated Giant Yellowknife Gold Mines Limited in 1937. Frobisher Explorations, a subsidiary of Ventures Limited, assumed management control over Giant Yellowknife Gold Mines in 1943. According to a 1944 report on BEAR, they were “a holding company engaged in the acquisition, promotion, financing and exploration of mining prospects in the Northwest Territories.”

BEAR continued to have numerous interests and associated companies, besides Giant, in the Northwest Territories, specifically the Yellowknife area, including International Uranium Mining Co., Yellowrex Mines Limited, Atlas Yellowknife Mines Ltd., Redpointe Gold Mines Ltd., Fort Rae Gold Mines Ltd., Neptune Yellowknife Gold Mines, Yellowknife Gold Mines Ltd., Admiral Yellowknife Mines Ltd., Moher Yellowknife Gold Mines, and Rich Group Yellowknife Mines. Around 1944, there was enough activity in Yellowknife that BEAR constructed a staff house on Lot 8, Block 1 (now 3612 Pilots Lane). N. H. C. (Hugh) Fraser and his family moved into the house when he became BEAR’s Manager of operations in the Northwest Territories in July 1946. At that time, BEAR remained headquarted in Toronto, Ontario with H.R. Swanson as President, Ralph Pielsticker as Vice-President, Carl Pielsticker as Treasurer and Director, C.A. Gardiner as Secretary, and G. D. Fairley and J.M. Brewis as directors. Several of these men also served on the boards of BEAR’s associated companies.

Hugh Fraser had worked in the Northwest Territories in the late-1930s as a geologist with the Territories Exploration Company and later Camlaren Mines and Thompson-Lundmark Gold Mines. In 1941, he was transferred by Frobisher Exploration Company to eastern Ontario, but returned to the Northwest Territories in 1944 and was in charge of Frobisher’s activities in Yellowknife until being hired by BEAR in 1946. Fraser continued consulting activities with Giant Yellowknife and Frobisher Exploration after being hired by BEAR. Fraser appears to have moved to Toronto in 1948.

BEAR became less active in the north in the years following, and the Yellowknife house was sol d to John Anderson-Thomson in 1948. He continued to do some work for them into the 1950s. Little is known of their later activities outside of the Territories, however, they underwent name changes, incorporating as Yellowknife Bear Mines Limited in Ontario in 1948, changing their name to Yellowknife Bear Resources Incorporated in 1981, and merging with Rayrock Resources, becoming Rayrock Yellowknife Resources Incorporated, in 1986, and then reverting to the name Rayrock Resources in 1998.

In 1939, S. Hansen travelled towards the Beaulieu River District and staked the NORMA group of claims that would eventually lead to the discovery of the Beaulieu Mine. Immediately following the staking, Norma Tungsten and Gold Mines Ltd. formed to work on the claims and retrieved approximately 15 tons of ore from two pits. Beaulieu Yellowknife Gold Mines Ltd. formed in 1945 and took over the operations on the NORMA claims. In 1945, the construction of a mine site was underway. Between May and July 1947, a compartment shaft was sunk and a mill was quickly erected along with major camp buildings. Despite the initial promising reports of the vein size and grade, it was discovered that the claims were exaggerated. In 1947, A.D. Hellens, an engineer was hired to accurately assess the ore reserves. He reported on 1200 tons in reserve which was only enough to last the mine 2 weeks. The ore was mined during the summer months of 1948 and the Beaulieu Mining operation folded in chaos and bankruptcy at the end of 1948.

Maurice Beauregard was born in 1912 in Roxton Falls, Quebec. He was ordained as an Oblate Priest on June 29, 1941. He came to the Northwest Territories in 1942 and his first assignment was in Fort Norman. He ministered to the communities of Norman Wells, Camp Canol and Fort Norman until 1947. From 1947 to 1949, he was the Superior-Administrator in Aklavik, although he also provided services to the people of Arctic Red River. While in these postings, Father Beauregard learned to speak English and Hare, a dialect of North Slavey. In 1949, he returned to south eastern Canada for medical reasons. He returned in 1952 to serve in Yellowknife where he participated in projects such as the building of Saint Patrick's Church. From 1963 to 1969, he served in Fort Smith. In 1969, he was transferred to Fort McMurray where he remained until 1981 when he was transferred to Edmonton. Father Beauregard died on May 3, 1998.

James M. Bird was born in Scotland in 1920 and immigrated to Saskatchewan with his family in 1927. In October 1937, James Bird moved to Yellowknife to join his father, Robert Bird, who was working as a medical officer at the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada Ltd. (Con Mine). James was hired as a general labourer at the mine, but after working in a variety of areas became a qualified miner. In February 1941, James joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, serving in Italy, Corsica, Malta and North Africa. At the end of World War II, he returned to Canada to pursue his studies at McGill University. Upon graduating from McGill he joined the Royal Canadian Navy and spent the next 17 years as a naval officer.

In the 1920s, A.N. Blake opened an independent trading post in Fort McPherson. Blake kept a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) ledger of 'Indian Accounts' for native traders who dealt with him. Blake may have had special trading arrangements with the Hudson's Bay Company, where traders brought furs to him and received chits to exchange at the HBC post for specified goods. Blake's post closed in 1935.

George Blondin was born at Horton Lake, north of Great Bear Lake, in May 1922, the son of Edward Blondin. In his early years George worked as a guide for surveyors on the Canol Pipeline project, and at Port Radium as well as a woodcutter, trapper and hunter. He later moved his family to the Yellowknife region and worked for Giant Mine. He served as Chief of the Deline (Fort Franklin) Band and as Vice President of the Dene Nation. He worked with the Dene Cultural Institute and wrote for northern newspapers, sharing political opinions and traditional stories, for which he was well known. George wrote several books on the Sahtu Dene, traditional medicine, and traditional stories, including 'When the World was New' (1990), 'Yamoria the Law Maker' (1997), and 'Trail of the Spirit: The Mysteries of Dene Medicine Power Revealed' (2006). In 1990, George Blondin was awarded the Ross Charles Award for Native journalism, and in 2003 he was appointed a Member of Order of Canada for his work towards preserving the heritage of his people. George Blondin was married to Julie Blondin and had seven children: Evelyn, Ted, John, Tina, Georgina (Gina), Bertha and Walter (died in infancy). George died in 2008.

John Blondin was born in Deline (Fort Franklin), Northwest Territories on March 6, 1959 to George and Julie Blondin. His family moved to Yellowknife in the early 1960s where John attended school. After his graduation, John traveled to Wales to attend Atlantic College. Upon his return to Canada, he completed a degree in linguistics at the University of Montreal. John was active in the theatre and art communities. He founded the Native Theatre Group and directed several productions of the "Association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife" (French Cultural Association). Much of his theatrical work focused on the telling of Dene legends, many of which he learned from his father, noted Elder, writer and storyteller George Blondin. He also performed in original Native theatrical and dance performances in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. He did not formally study photography, however, he enjoyed it as a hobby. He died on April 27, 1996 at the age of 37.