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This fonds consists of one DAT audio cassette and 5 cm of textual material. The DAT audio cassette contains a recording of Dr. Cass in early 1980, dictating letters for her secretary. She discusses her health and her recent trip to Brazil with the International Society of Geographic Opthalmology. The textual material consists of transcripts that contain Dr. Cass' personal observations on the Gwich'in. These observations were made in 1959. Her recollections cover such topics as puberty, religious beliefs, burial customs, personal hygiene, marriage, music and dancing. She has also recorded many of the Gwich'in stories and legends that were related to her by such individuals as Paul Bonnetplume (Aklavik), Annie McPherson (Fort McPherson), Peter Lord (Old Crow, Yukon), Lazarus Sittichinli, Peter Moses and Edward Snowshoe. Although many of the legends relate to medicine men, Dr. Cass also recounts stories about the Willow Man, the Ungrateful Indian, Sakeethuck the "Trickster," the Crow Who Lost His Beak, the Lazy Boy, three stories about Bushmen [Hare and Slavey Indians] and a two hour saga about two brothers as told to her by Edward Snowshoe. The remaining textual material consists of reports written by Dr. Elizabeth Cass. The reports examine blindness and eye problems amongst children and adults in the Northwest Territories. There are charts and graphs included in the reports.

This fonds consists of one photocopy of a typed manuscript written by Gwendoline Tremain-Runyard between 1976 and 1988 and 89 copy negatives that were reproduced from an album compiled by Lottie Tremain, during her stay in the Northwest Territories between 1914 and 1919. The photographs document the three Anglican Missions that Reverend W.S. Tremain worked at: Fort Norman, Fort Simpson, and Hay River. The images relate primarily to the mission buildings in each community, and the staff and pupils of St. Peter's Anglican Residential School at Hay River. Some photographs depict Anglican missionaries who visited these communities. In addition, there are images of the "S.S. Mackenzie River", and some of canoes, scows, mooseskin boats, and tugs that plied the Mackenzie River. There are also some images of Dene camps. The manuscript gives a brief history of her family, however, Gwendoline has advised the NWT Archives that later research has made her aware of inaccuracies in that history.

This fonds consists of approximately 15,538 photographs in various formats such as slides, prints and negatives, approximately 37 cm of text, 2 DAT audio cassettes, 25 audio reels, 6 films, 3 BetaCam videocassettes, 43 posters, 12 drawings and 2 maps. The photographic material dates between the late 1950s to 1995 and contains images of various communities and daily life of the Dene people of the North and South Slave regions. Eighteen photographs of Fort Good Hope collected by the donor likely date from the 1920s. By media type, there are roughly 10,700 colour slides, 1800 b/w negatives and 3000 colour negatives. The fonds also includes one colour print of Rene sitting on his snowmobile, which was later donated to the Collections section of the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. The textual material consists of the unedited, penultimate draft of the manuscript for "As Long As This Land Shall Last: A History of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, 1870-1939," which contains more detail than the published text. Also included are two transcripts of interviews conducted between Rene Fumoleau and Paul Vaudrack, a Gwich'in man. The first, a 25 page (3 mm) transcript of an interview conducted in French in 1955, concerns the Gwich'in equivalent of the Yamoria legend. The second, from October 1968 and typewritten in English, depicts Gwich'in life in the early-twentieth century. This manuscript discusses the influence of the English language, residential schools, and the outbreaks of influenza at that time. The bulk of the textual material are copies of court proceedings from the Benoit et.al. v. R. case of the late 1990s relating to Treaty 8 and a copy of the thesis dissertation by Marine Le Puloch entitled 'Le Traite no. 8 au Canada, beneficiaires et exclus' (1999), also relating to Treaty 8. There are 25 audio reels and 2 DAT audiocassettes that contain audio from "My Country, My People," "I Was Born Here" and "Dene Nation." In addition, the sound recordings contain music from "Our Land, Our Life," drum music from Fort Good Hope recorded in the 1957, Dene songs, Hareskin language and messages from the people of Fort Good Hope to friends and relatives in the hospital in Aklavik. There are 3 copies of the film entitled "Dene Nation" and 3 copies of the film "I Was Born Here", one of which is in French, entitled "Mon pays est ma vie". There are also 3 corresponding archival master BetaCam videocassettes for the films. The remaining material consists of 43 posters and 2 maps that date between 1977-1985. The posters relate to Native Rights, land claims, and Native Organizations such as the Dene Nation. There are also two maps entitled Canada's First People's and Centennial Map of the Northwest Territories. The fonds includes transcripts from eight interviews condcuted by Jane Kenny in 1984 with elders from Deline and documents related to the first two meetings of the Thebacha Association in 1967.

This fonds consists of 14 audio cassettes and 2 VHS videocassettes containing interviews with elders that resulted from the Snare Lake Education Committee's efforts to gather information for a handbook on cultural programming for use in the school. The elders interviewed during February 1992 were: Harry Kodzin, Margaret Lafferty, Marie Simpson, Jimmy Kodzin, Rosa Fish, Celine Wanazah, Rosa Pea'a, Alexis Arrowmaker, Madeline Judas, Louis Whane, Joe Pea'a, Roger Arrowmaker, Leonard Fish, Charlie Eyakfwo and Joe Dryneck. Activities and topics discussed include: Easter in the past, survival in the bush, making camp, Tlicho (Dogrib) food preparation, Tlicho (Dogrib) social life and customs, hunting and butchering caribou, traditional tools and constructing a drum. Some interviews with John Pea'a on cultural inclusion and religious instruction were conducted in 1989 and collected for this project.

This fonds consists of 163 photographs (47 colour and 11 black and white copy negatives and 105 copy colour transparencies), 111 maps and map fragments and 20 cm of textual material. The 58 copy negatives and Simmons's journal document the construction of a mooseskin boat and its use. The boat was constructed between May 22 and 28, 1968, on the Gravel (Keele) River and taken down to Fort Norman (Tulita). People identified in the images include George and Vivian Pelissey, Gabe Etchinelle, Madeline Karcaji, Fred Andrew, and Jonas McCauley. The 105 colour transparencies date from 1967 through 1980 and depicts aboriginal life in the Mackenzie Mountain region including: caribou hunting, work on a moose hide boat, drying meat, fishing, camps, and Simmons's work with Dall's Sheep. The images includes views of the Moose Horn (Mountain) River, Caribou Flats by the Gravel River, Drum (Wrigley) Lake, and Punk Mountain. Included in the images are views of Gabriel Etchinelle, Jonas McCauley, Vivian McCauley, George Pelissey, Perry Linton, Leon Andrew, Jimmy Mendo, Maurice Mento, Cecile Hatchelle, Madeline Karkagie, Stella Mendo, Joe Blondin, David Yallee, Alfred Lennie and Gordon Yakelaya.

Also included in this fonds are a handwritten and typed English translation of the French article "Les Chitra-Gottineke" by Jean Michea, published in the National Museum of Canada Bulletin No. 190, "Contributions to Anthropology, Part II", 1960. Muriel Cooper, wife of Steve Cooper, Park Warden at Nahanni Butte, did the translation. The 111 maps and map fragments feature communities, lakes, rivers, canyons and mountain ranges from Fort Simpson up to the Mackenzie Delta region, and including the Yukon - NWT border. The field notes that accompany the maps include a 32 page typewritten gazetteer, as well as the handwritten notes for the gazetteer. There are also handwritten lists recording information about traditional place names of features in the Mackenzie Mountains. Simmons informants included Gabriel Etchinelle, Madeline Karkagie, George Pellissey, Vivian McCauley,and Maurice and Stella Mendo. The place names were written in a 'folk' phonetic form but a few are written by the elders are in syllabics. Files include research notes, field notes, drafts of papers and correspondence related to his studies of Dall's sheep in the Mackenzie Mountains in the 1970s, and correspondence with anthropologists such as Beryl Gillespie.

This fonds consists of materials related to a project undertaken by the Lac La Martre Senior Room for the 1978 Explore Our Northern Heritage competition. Under the guidance of elders from the Lac La Martre Community Education Council, the students made a bush canoe and a caribou skin jacket and documented the process for the competition. The material in this fonds consists of 1 cm of textual material, 31 photographs, 1 DAT audiocassette, two original master audio cassettes, two 8mm films and 1 Betacam videocassette. The textual material and the photographs (:0005 - :0035) are part of a book created by the students entitled "Picture Book on Making a Bush Canoe." The DAT audiocassette contains a recording of Francis Moosenose interviewing Joe Zoe Fish on "How to make a Bush Canoe (:0001) and a recording of Eva Nitsiza's interview with her mother Dora on "How to Make a Fancy Caribou Jacket" (:0002). The original two audiocassettes were reformatted to DAT in 1993. The DAT audiocassette is now the archival master. There are two 8mm films and one Betacam copy of the films, which is the archival master. The films document "Making a Bush Canoe" (:0003); "Making a Fancy Caribou Jacket" (:0004).

This material was generated by field work conducted by Beryl Gillespie, an anthropologist who visited the communities of Detah, Rae, Yellowknife, Fort Norman (Tulita) and Fort Franklin (Deline) between 1968 and 1972. The photographs, slides and negatives depict the people she interviewed and the communities that she visited. The textual material consists of field notes containing information and stories collected from the following families: Clement, Lennie, Andrew, Norwegian, Wright, Naedzo, Gladue, Karkagie, Gully, Sangris, Thomas, Abel, Potfighter, Crapeau, Drygeese, Fishbone, Blondin, Bruno, Martin, Mackenzie, Liske, Tobie, Betsina, Charlo, Baillargeon, Hetchile, Vital, Pochat, Yakeleya, Bernard, Mendo, Yukon and Etchinele. The two audio cassettes appear to be taped stories told by Gabriel Etchinele and Fred Andrew. Both stories are in Slavey. The first story was told by Gabriel Etchinele on October 18, 1972 and is the story about Dendejule. The English translation by Stella Mendo is available in the field notes. The second audio cassette contains a story told by Fred Andrew on October 25, 1972 about the Ehbaotine and Mountain Indian Conflict. The English translation by Laura Yakelaya is available in the field notes.

This fonds consists of 96 copy photographs and slides taken by Bill Stewart of the Mooseskin Boat Project in 1981. The photographs were selected out of 180 of Bill Stewart's photographs. The images include the different phases of the boat under construction, the people involved in the project and views of the boat's trip from the point of construction at the head of the Keele River to Fort Norman.

This fonds consists of 10 DAT audio cassettes, 24 audio cassettes and 2 cm of textual material. The original 24 audiocassettes were copied to DAT in December 1995; the DAT audiocassettes now constitute the archival masters. The recordings are of Dene elders and other residents of the Nahanni area. The textual material includes correspondence and some transcribed material from the project. People interviewed include Elsie Marcellais, George Matou, Charlie Yohin, Harry Tesou, Joe Koniseta, Ted Trindell, Laura Vital and Philip Howard.

This fonds consists of 296 reel to reels (original masters) and 678 audio cassettes (original masters) copied to 661 sound CDs (RedBook Audio format - Archival Masters), which contain approximately 1013 oral history recordings and 1.2 meters of transcriptions from the Committee for Original People's Entitlement (COPE). The sound CDs constitute the archival masters. These recordings are in Inuvialuktun, Gwich'in and North Slavey and contain life stories of elders as well as traditional legends. Many of the recordings are part of CBC broadcast programming.

This fonds consists of three letters written by Poole Field to Jack La Flair and one letter written to a member of the Geological Survey of Canada. The letters relate stories of the customs and beliefs of the Mountain Dene and Field's trips in the Nahanni region.

The fonds consists of 353 sound cassettes (items :0001 to :0353) generated during interviews with 17 elders; 19 black and white negatives (items :0354 to :0372); 20 cm of textual material consisting of English transcripts of the interviews (box\file 1-8 to 1-18 and 2-1 to 2-6); and other textual materials related to the planning, funding, and administration of the project (box\file 1-1 to 1-7). The fonds has been divided into four series: 1) sound recordings; 2) administration files; 3) transcripts; 4) negatives. The 181 sound cassettes are in Chipewyan and the remaining 172, (which are verbatim translations of the original Chipewyan cassettes) are in English. Subjects covered in the interviews include Chipewyan stories and legends, spiritual beliefs, traditional medicines, child-rearing, child birth, attitudes to alcohol, family histories, hunting and fishing techniques, traditional forms of self-government, attitudes toward southern forms of government, the Roman Catholic Church and the Residential School in Fort Resolution. The photographs depict the staff and pupils of the Roman Catholic Mission School in Fort Resolution, and elders in the community - some of whom were interviewed during the project. The fonds also contains a copy of the questionnaire, which was used as a basis for each interview and a copy of the publication "That's the Way We Lived."

The images are copies of photographs that June Helm took while working as an anthropologist with the Tłı̨chǫ people in Rae (Behchokǫ̀) and Whatı̀ between 1959-1970. The original negatives can be found in accession N-2004-020, items 0001 through 0654.

Records relate to June Helm’s work as an anthropologist and her study of the Tłı̨chǫ people in the Northwest Territories. The material includes the following: various Oblate and Anglican mission records of deaths, births, mission histories and priest diaries from Fort Good Hope, Fort Norman (Tulita), Fort Franklin (Délı̨nę), Fort Simpson, Wrigley and Rae (Behchokǫ̀); several notebooks containing hand copied Liber Animarum (genealogical data copied in 1958) of Fort Good Hope; several published articles, field notes, correspondence and draft papers related to the reproductivity of the Fort Good Hope Dene; published articles, correspondence and notes related to northern infanticide; correspondence and documents concerning the requirement in the contract between the National Museum of Canada and field ethnologists that all recorded findings of field work be deposited in the museum; material related to Dene leadership and Camarade de Mandeville; letters from Jean Marie River; field data related to Tłı̨chǫ leaders and leadership in Rae and Dettah and correspondence from S. Rushforth related to Prophets (Tłı̨chǫ) and power.

The records include notes related to the production of the Helm and Lurie monograph on the Dogrib [Tłı̨chǫ] Hand Game and a copy of Arctic Archaeology, Number 2, 1981, which featured June Helm's article on "Dogrib Folk History" and included photographs of John Alden Mason. In addition, there is correspondence to and from June Helm regarding her northern research, letters to and from anthropologist G.E. (Jim) Smith, as well as copies of his obituary and eulogy delivered at his funeral. Furthermore, there is correspondence, critiques and essays submitted to and from June Helm related to the research and published material of Colin Yerbury.

Records include field data collected between 1950-1960 on Dene Kinship Terminology of the Hare [Sahtu Dene], Dogrib [Tłı̨chǫ], Slavey [Dehcho Dene] and Chipewyan [Dëne Sųłıné]. Research was conducted at Fort Good Hope, Rae (Behchokǫ), Whatı̀, Dettah, Jean Marie River, Fort Simpson and at the Camsell Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta. In addition, there is correspondence related to the fieldwork and kinship research conducted at Whatı̀, Tłı̨chǫ kinship protocols, kinship terms, and an article on kinship, which appeared in American Anthropologist. There are also several steno pads, which include genealogical data from O.M.I. (Oblates of Mary Immaculate) records at Rae, and ethnological notes from the 1960s. There are also punch cards with notes related to the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and results from Rorschach Inkblot tests conducted in Rae and Whatı̀. The remaining records include approximately twenty psychological projective test records, including the Thematic Apperception Test and Rorschach Inkblot Test, which were conducted at Whatı̀ in 1960, as well as loose notes from the psychological projective tests. Included in this material is the draft analysis by George A. DeVos of the University of California at Berkeley and draft personality sketches done by June Helm based upon the field observations of herself and Nancy O. Lurie between 1959-1960.

The majority of the material consists of Teresa Carterette's field notes on research conducted at Jean Marie River dated from 1951-1952, copies of June Helm's field notes on the Tłı̨chǫ dated from 1969-1970, bundles of field slips containing brief notes on fieldwork conducted in Jean Marie River between 1951-1952, correspondence to and from residents of the Northwest Territories dated 1990-1995 and copies of several articles by June Helm that appeared in anthropology and scholarly journals. This series of published papers includes the following: Remarks on the Methodology of Band Composition Analysis, The Nature of Dogrib [Tłı̨chǫ] Socioterritorial Groups, Contemporary Folk Beliefs of a Slave Indian [Dehcho Dene] Band (Journal of American Folklore), Variations in Personality and Ego Identification within a Slave Indian [Dehcho Dene] Kin-Community by June Helm, G.A. DeVos, Teresa Carterette; several photocopied articles written by Helm that appeared in Arctic Anthropology (1981, vol. 1 and 1993, vol 2); Arctic (June 1983); Anthropologie (1963); American Ethnologist (May 1980); copy of Chapter 9 which she contributed to book “Political Organization of Native North Americans", Ernest L. Schusky, Editor; Chapter 7 from “Long-Term Field Research in Social Anthropology”, Epilogue entitled “Women’s Work, Women’s Art” for book “Out of the North”, “On Responsible Scholarship on Culture Contact in the Mackenzie Basin" (Current Anthropology, Vol. 19, No. 1 March 1978); and “Tales from the Dogribs [Tłı̨chǫ]”, June Helm and Vital Thomas.

The material dates between 1880-1971. This material includes copies of Department of Indian Affairs Annual Reports from 1880-1968; copies of treaty reports and general information about Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, copies of Royal Canadian Mounted Police patrol reports from the Mackenzie and Athabasca Districts (1919-1921); copies of relief policies; Band Rolls from the Yellowknife Agency (1959-1961), and Mackenzie District (1971), and a household survey conducted at Lac La Martre (Whatı̀) in 1959. In addition, there is a copy of an article written by Bishop Breynat called the "Blackest Blot" which appeared in the Toronto Star in the 1930s, several articles related to the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches in the Northwest Territories, and miscellaneous articles related to game laws and restrictions, land reserves and disease. The maps indicate the location of missions in the Mackenzie/Athabasca regions circa 1800s.

The images were taken primarily during June Helm's field work in 1951-1952 and the 1960s. They mainly document community life and field work in Jean Marie River in 1951, 1952, and 1959, and community life and travel in Rae (Behchokǫ̀) and Whatı̀ (then Lac La Martre) in 1959 and the 1960s. June Helm's research assistants Teresa Carterette (1951-1952) and Nancy O. Lurie (1959, 1962, 1967) also figure in the images, as does Helm's first husband Richard "Scotty" MacNeish. Activities depicted include travel by boat and canoe, dogsledding, fixing fish nets, aerial photographs of communities, hunting, hand games and feasts.