Treaty 8 signatory ignored

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As the 100th anniversary of the northern adhesion to Treaty 8 approaches, a small group of people who believe they represent what remains of one of the treaty's original signatories is trying to re-establish what it claims is a distinct Indigenous nation that was intentionally dispersed and almost destroyed by the federal government.

Hay River resident Barbara Beck, a social worker by trade, is leading a political campaign to have the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs formally recognize her people - the Yellowknifes of Taltson River. She has spent the last five years researching her people's history and pushing federal and Treaty 8 authorities to undo the historical harm inflicted on the Yellowknifes.

There were two parts to Treaty 8. The first part applied mainly to the area south of the 60th parallel and was completed in 1899. Its centennial was marked by a ceremony last month in north-central Alberta that was attended by Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart.

In 1900, the northern adhesion, (which covered land in what is now the Northwest Territories), involving four additional signatories, was completed. Historical records uncovered by Beck reveal that her people, a distinct ethnic group separate from the Dogribs, Crees, Dene and other nations which signed the treaty, were represented at the treaty signing by their chief, Akitcho.

The Yellowknifes, also called the Copper Indians, had their own community at the time of the signing of the treaty, Beck said, but when the community's school burned down in 1958, the people were forced to move to a variety of nearby communities so their children could attend school. Beck claims federal officials, for reasons she doesn't understand and can't get anyone in government to explain, allowed the Yellowknife members to be absorbed into their new bands. That allowed the other bands to take over control and title of Yellowknife traditional lands and left the Yellowknife people without a voice or an identity.

"It's like, you buy a house and you go away for a while and when you come back someone's living in your house and using your name. How would you feel?" she asked.

Beck says the current Treaty 8 political leadership is aware that one of the rightful parties to the treaty has been wrongfully phased out, but they aren't anxious to take any action to correct the situation that would upset the status quo.

Historians have already uncovered many examples of carelessness and corruption on the part of the federal treaty commissioners who were dispatched from Ottawa to get Native people to sign treaties in western Canada in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In most cases, the government wanted to have agreements covering lands that contained resources or that were needed to complete the railroad across the prairies.

Two academics who have taken an interest in the Yellowknife people say Beck's arguments have a certain amount of merit.

Dr. C. Stuart Houston, a retired professor of radiology at the University of Saskatchewan, wrote three books about the ill-fated Franklin expedition, led by Sir John Franklin who perished on King William Island along with his crew in 1848. Houston said Beck's research into her people's history has been "intense and studious."

"Barbara has really done her homework," he said. "It's been in the government's interest to downplay Barbara's side of it, but most of what she says rings pretty true."

While some of the history of the Indigenous peoples of the region is almost impossible to verify, Houston said, there's no doubt in his mind that the Yellowknifes are not, as some anthropologists have concluded, extinct.

"That's just nonsense," he said. "There are people in the region who are direct descendants of the Yellowknife people who assisted the Franklin expedition."

University of Alberta Associate Professor of Native Studies, Patricia McCormack, did research and wrote a report for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs in 1997 thatdealt with the competing claims of various Indigenous peoples in the region. She told Windspeaker she could not divulge the contents of her report due to a confidentiality agreement she made with the government, but she was willing to talk in general terms about the issue.

"There actually was a band at the turn of the century called the Yellowknifes," she said. "I guess the contemporary question is: 'Are they gone or have they lived on in the form of this other group?'"

McCormack backed up Beck's contention that Indian and Northern Affairs did in fact keep a Yellowknife "A" and a Yellowknife "B" band list, a fact that supports the claim there was either a split within the Yellowknife people or the bureaucratic creation of a second, artificial entity.

Most serious researchers into the history of treaties note the treaties were negotiated by a government that fully expected the Indigenous peoples would soon assimilate into the mainstream. Beck suspects the department's actions in not protecting and respecting the identity of her people is a result of the government's ulterior motive of absorbing the Indigenous peoples, thereby undermining and destroying the Yellowknifes' claim to sovereignty over the land.

Beck vows to continue fighting. She'll be in attendance when the centennial of the Treaty 8 northern adhesion is celebrated next year, pressuring federal and Native leaders to recognize her people's claim to the land.

A call to Northwest Territory Regional Director General for Indian and Northern Affairs, Robert Overvold, to get the government's position on this matter, was not returned by press time.