The Elders Speak: Blondin concerned when today's youth forget the value of Elders

As you know, it was not long ago that the north was not developed. It was just after the Second World War that the government started to develop this country. Before that, we, the Dene were in love with the land, we traveled all over the land for game and mostly lived in tents. Therefore, some of the Elders went through hardship in their lives. Let me go back a bit to see what their life looked like, then I will come to the present time.

In the old days our Elders were very valuable people. They acted as leaders for the group, always traveled after game and fur throughout the cold winter and acted as advisory for the group. They moved throughout the country to travel and they talked to the people about their own law and culture to follow up on their own because they know it's important.

Also, they talk about safety laws to make sure young people work according to it in order to work safely and also they were great storytellers, which the young people enjoyed. There were stories passed from generation to generation to keep the Dene heritage story up to date.

History of the Dene stops here because of the changes of lifestyle. The Elders were very important to their children and relatives in daily life, as compared to today. The men Elders would help their married sons or daughters in travel by means of keeping the family, while the son would go trapping or hunting. The Elders would get wood to keep the fire going, others would visit nets for the food and dog food, and still others would visit rabbit snares or visit beaver traps.

Elders would work all the time, whatever they could handle. Women Elders would help keep the baby or get brush, tan hide and break snowshoe. The Elders were always around to help their younger sons and daughters. In the olden days they were really close family to help each other and share. Now, I will touch on what our Elders lifestyle looks like at the present time.

After 1940, the lifestyle of the Dene started changing; it never stopped changing and it's still changing. It affects the Elders very much. The federal government imposed several things to change the Dene way of life. They put several hospitals and nursing stations in the communities, which is good. They build schools in the communities and advise parents that all children have to go to school, which was hard on our people because they no longer could go freely in the bush anymore. Another is the housing in the communities. They have to pay rent. Another is the welfare system, family allowance and old age pension that was bad for the people; they depend on it more. These were all established within maybe five years.

These benefits change the lifestyle of the Dene people completely. Before we had poor stores-almost nothing in the way of can foods or fresh food. The store changed to electricity and has freezers now. We have fresh food, all kinds of sweet stuff come, everybody changed their eating habits, not much wild food to eat in the communities anymore, everything is changed.

No more traveling for game and fur with family anymore; everybody just stays in their own community.

So people start to do new things to manage staying in the community. Some communities make old people stay home and force the Elders to stay there, or some make small houses for them, so they split up the family. They can't stay with their younger ones anymore, the health department won't allow that because there are too many people in one house.

For the first time, Dene handle cash, family allowance and old age pension. In time they start to know how to handle money, little things like this can separate the family.

But still, a lot of Elders are really affected by the change because a lot of them still hold on to their culture shanring, because eating habits change all the children, theylike to eat sweets from the store. They run to their grandparents for money. So, a lot of the Elders are broke all the time.

Another thing is that the Elders suffer fromis to see the younger relations change the way they used to live. Too much idle, no job, no money, too much crime and drinking-it breaks the hearts of the Elders, but they can't do anything about it. So there's problems in the community. This really separates the Elders from the young people. The Elders stay alone, it really changed a lot for them, most of them don't talk English because there was no school in their time, so that's another problem. Life is hard for our Elders today. People don't listen to Elders like they used to, but in time the next generation could get adjusted to the different life so they could get along better.

It is too bad that we separate that way in language. A lot of children talk English, so these small issues separate us. But our Elders must remain in our minds. Every time we get close to them they say we pray for you. It seems that we have no time for our Elders, that's all I have to say.