Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
In the early 1980s, the community of Fort Resolution began developing programmes dedicated to preserving both the use of the Chipewyan language and the history of their elders. Although a Chipewyan language programme was established in the local school, the community council decided that they needed to record the recollections of their elders before that knowledge was lost forever. The Deninoo (Fort Resolution) Community Council then sought funding from the Local Education Authority and the Government of the Northwest Territories to finance the project. A list of all community residents over the age of 60 was compiled and people over 80 years of age, who were sick, were selected to be interviewed first. Eighteen elders were finally chosen: Harold Balsillie; Philip Buggins; Virginie Beaulieu; Virginie Calumet; Fred Dawson; Isidore Edjericon; Albert Fabien; Caroline Fabien; Joe Fabien; Rose Fabien; Judith Giroux; Pierre Hilaire; Joseph Jerome; Francois King; Mary Louise King; Victor Lafferty; George Sanderson; and Noel Yelle. A questionnaire was designed which was broken down into thirteen modules: Section I: Demography; Section II: Social and family structure; Section III: Spiritual activities; Section IV: Lifestyle; Section V: Alcohol; Section VI: Health; Section VII: Government; Section VIII: The Mission; Section IX: Wage Economy; Section X: Communications; Section XI: Legends, stories, and local wisdom; Section XII: Geography\weather; and Section XIII: Highlights. Each of the interviews was based on the format established in the questionnaire. In the summer of 1984, five interviews were conducted. In 1985, after receiving funding from the Government of the Northwest Territories, a further twelve elders were interviewed. The interviewers were Doris Beck, Mary Rose Boucher, Elizabeth Giroux, Frederick Lafferty and Dora Unka, and the translators were Mary Rose Boucher, Dora Cardinal and Frederick Lafferty. Joe Fabian eventually withdrew his consent for the release of the material gathered during the interviews with him. That material was returned to the Fort Resolution Community Education Council. From the information gathered during the interviews, a book "That's the Way We Lived" was published in 1987.