Mary Craig Murphy was born in [Dawson City] Yukon, in 1909/1910. She was a graduate of Toronto General Hospital School of Nursing, and in the early part of her career worked at Fort William and northern Ontario mining communities. She served as a volunteer in the Red Cross Corps in Scotland during WWII. Mary Murphy arrived in Yellowknife on November 29, 1947 to assume the position of matron nurse at the new Yellowknife Red Cross Hospital. Her duties included hospital administration as well as nursing supervision. Within the community, Mary was active in the Daughters of the Midnight Sun and the Trinity Anglican Church. She resigned from her position at the hospital in spring of 1959 and left Yellowknife on July 23, 1959. She nursed in Burlington, Ontario in the 1960s and moved to New Westminster BC to be close to her siblings in the late 1960s. Mary died in New Westminster, BC on December 20, 1969. As a memorial to her legacy in Yellowknife, the seniors care home that opened in Yellowknife in early 1970 was named the Mary Murphy Seniors Home.
Captain Lewis Royal Morton was born on January 18, 1883 in the County of Morton, Ontario. He joined the Northern Transportation Company (NTCL) in 1907. He served as port skipper for the NTCL and was skipper on the "Radium King," "Radium Queen" and for the Hudson's Bay Company boat the "Mackenzie River." His service with the Northern Transportation Company was broken only by a four-year service as a Lance Corporal in the Royal Engineers during World War I. Over the years he worked for the Hudson's Bay Company, Northern Transportation Company Ltd. and the McGinnis Fish Company. He assisted in the building of many barges and boats, such as the "Porphyry," "George Askew" and "The Great Bear." He also assisted in the designs for the "Radium Gilbert" and the "Yellowknife." He traveled virtually every mile of waterway in the northwest, from the lower Peace River to the Mackenzie Delta. Captain Morton died in Surrey, British Columbia in 1980.
Frank Morrison was a prospector who lived and worked in the Great Slave Lake area. He staked claims in and around Yellowknife, Fort Resolution and Rocher River.
Larry Moline worked at Con Mine during the 1930s.
Jean Milne grew up in Magog, Quebec. Her father’s interest in sports meant that she learned to ski, skate, and icefish. Her mother taught her to knit, embroider, and smock at a young age and her grandmother taught her crochet and needlepoint. She later branched into a variety of related handcrafts, including macrame, tie-dyeing, batik, and resist dyeing eggs. While in Inuvik, Jean became a founding member of the NWT Crafts Council.
Jean attended school in Magog, followed by McGill University in Montreal, studying primarily botany and microbiology, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1969. After graduation, she worked for McGill in a single-employee virology laboratory at the Montreal Children's Hospital.
On the lookout for other employment, she visited Indian and Northern Affairs in Ottawa, where she met and was hired by Dick Hill for a summer project. Dick, who just happened to be in Ottawa as well, was head of the Inuvik Research Lab and Mayor of Inuvik. Moving to Inuvik in 1970, Jean worked at the Research Lab and was housed in the very basic accommodation of “Wanigan A,” located behind the Lab. Finding the project parameters unclear and herself unprepared to approach the environmental issues in the Mackenzie Delta, Jean resigned in June 1970 and went to work as a waitress at the Eskimo Inn for the rest of the summer, returning to Montreal and another hospital lab job that fall.
Jean spent her summer holiday in Inuvik in 1971 and returned to Inuvik in spring of 1972, finding work at the CN telephone exchange as a Single Side Band radio and long distance telephone operator.
Leaving again in fall 1972, Jean returned in spring 1976, and lived with Ted Curtis, often with his mother Peggy, who worked for the TEST Ski Program. Jean worked one summer in the office at NTCL, most of 1978 at the Inuvik Sewing Centre, and fall/winter 1978-79 for the Inuvik Ski Club under the auspices of the TEST ski program grooming trails and instructing students. In between, she also worked as a casual clerk for the GNWT and labourer for Otto Binder doing housing repairs. She left Inuvik (and Ted) in the fall of 1979. Jean worked as a cook for Milan Carnogursky and Carn Construction on a couple of jobs over the next year: the ferry landing project in Arctic Red River (Tsiigehtchic) (October-November 1979) and the airport runway project in Sachs Harbour (May-September 1980).
After doing some travelling, Jean finally settled in Vancouver in late 1981 and remains living there. Her partner, John Crawford, passed away May 18, 2020.
A.K. "Lex" Miller was born in northern Alberta and grew up in Edmonton. After graduating from high school, he joined the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), in order to earn money for university. He was hired by the Mackenzie River Transport Company, a division of the HBC, and worked as a checker and stenographer during the summers of 1940 to 1942. Following World War II, he returned to Edmonton to become a Chartered Accountant. Among his clients were the towns of Hay River and Fort Smith. In 1987, Miller was the spokesperson for the One Canada Party, a Conservative fringe group of the 1970s.
At the founding conference of the Native Council of Canada in March, 1972, sixteen Metis from the Northwest Territories established a steering committee with the aim of forming a Metis interest group in the Northwest Territories. The Metis Association of the Northwest Territories headquarters was established in Hay River in April, 1972. The Association's membership at that time numbered 7700. After a period of financial instability, the Metis Association moved to Yellowknife in late-1973 better able to meet its administrative and program requirements established at the first annual General Assembly held earlier that year. The original focus of the Association was on self-help programs at the community level, as well as the development of leadership among northern Metis. After the move to Yellowknife, the focus shifted to establishing Metis title to land and resources, gradually aligning themselves with the Indian Brotherhood of the NWT. Programs run by the Association helped to repair homes in the Western Arctic, raise awareness of drug and alcohol issues in the communities, and as part of its cultural program, produce a history of the Metis entitled "Our Metis Heritage" in 1976. At this time, the Metis Association also managed the health claims of its members. Although not negotiating land claims directly, the Metis Association provided administrative support to the Indian Brotherhood of the NWT and some of its members sat on the Joint Dene Land Claims Negotiating Committee alongside the Indian Brotherhood (later called the Dene Nation). In 1988, the Metis Heritage Association was formed from the existing Metis Association, handling cultural affairs of the Metis of the NWT. The Metis Association of the NWT changed its name to the Metis Nation in the early 1990s. The Metis Nation closed its Yellowknife head office in the summer of 2001.
In 1972, a representative of the Metis Association of the NWT spent several weeks at the Public Archives of Canada looking for documentation related to Indigenous land claims. The results of this research were kept at the Association's headquarters in Yellowknife and proved helpful when inquiries were made about Metis history. A secondary result of this research was the acknowledgement that other vital documents were likely to be available in other archival repositories across Canada. In 1975, the Metis Association of the NWT, with the help of funding from a variety of sources, began the Metis History Project. This project assembled a collection of photocopies, printed books, photographs and oral history recordings related to the history of the Metis in the Northwest Territories. At the 1988 Annual General Assembly delegates approved the creation of the Metis Heritage Association as a cultural arm with charitable organization status. In 1992, the Metis Heritage Association carried out a further series of interviews with elders. The interviews were to form the basis of a book on Metis history in the NWT. In 2001 the Metis Nation and Metis Heritage Association ceased operations and their remaining materials were donated to the NWT Archives.
Heather Metcalfe was born on August 9, 1978 in Portage La Prairie. In 1995, she was a grade eleven student at a high school in Yellowknife. During the summer of 1995, Metcalfe attended a science camp sponsored by the Department of Renewable Resources. The camp had 11 students and 3 instructors. Candidates for the camp were selected because of marks and teacher recommendations. The purpose of the camp was to introduce students to biological, earth and social sciences. All students were required to complete one project for a Career and Technology credit. Working under the supervision of Tom Andrews, a sub arctic archaeologist for the Culture and Heritage Division of the Government of the Northwest Territories, Metcalfe successfully completed a project to record Dogrib traditional place names.
Curtis Leroy Merrill was born in St. Thomas, Ontario, on April 20, 1917. He graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a Bachelor of Arts in Geology, and was a pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. Merrill took part in two Canadian Expeditions to the Arctic Islands, and was a member of the 1949 Foxe Basin Expedition.
In 1952, Merrill began working for the Defense Research Board. In 1954, he was seconded to the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources to head a survey team which was sent to the Mackenzie Delta to find a location suitable for a new town site to replace Aklavik. The survey crew commenced work in March 1954 and focused their efforts upon three possible locations, the Husky site located at Husky Channel, East 3 and East 4. East 3, which was renamed Inuvik in 1957, was eventually chosen as the location of the new town site. Merrill led the project until 1956 when he was appointed District Administrator of the Mackenzie District and was transferred to Fort Smith. Merrill was transferred to Ottawa in 1963.
Curtis married Mary and they had six children: David, Bill, Robert (Bob), Greg, and Janice. After being transferred to Ottawa, the family lived near Wakefield, Quebec, and then along the Gatineau River. Curtis Merrill retired from the federal government in the late 1970s. In the mid to late 1990s, Curtis and Mary moved to Deep River, Ontario. Curtis Merrill died on September 22, 2010.
John "Jock" Murray McMeekan was born on January 3, 1903 in London, England and raised in Scotland. He studied romance languages and geology at London University for two years before immigrating to Canada. Between the years 1925 and 1935, he traveled across Canada writing and editing for various newspapers and prospecting for mining operations. In 1935, he arrived in Yellowknife and was employed by Burwash Yellowknife Mines to do prospecting, geological work and mapping. In 1940, Jock McMeekan started publishing the "Yellowknife Blade" which he published sporadically until 1953. In 1953, he moved to Uranium City in Saskatchewan and began publishing the "Uranium Era", which ran until 1960. He restarted the "Yellowknife Blade" in 1960, but stopped publishing it when he became associated with the "Mackenzie Press" in Hay River in 1962. He remained with the "Mackenzie Press" for only a short period and in 1963, he began publishing "The Hay River Optimist", which ran until his death on September 16, 1963. Jock's interest in prospecting and the mining industry is reflected in a number of his activities including his help in establishing the Prospectors Association and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio series "The Prospector Speaks" which aired between 1960 and 1962.
Mildred Itasca Hall was born in Iowa on October 23, 1899 and emigrated with her family to Olds, Alberta. She studied at the University of Alberta and became a schoolteacher. She moved to Yellowknife in 1938, and became the first public school teacher in the Northwest Territories. She married Jock McMeekan in 1941 and worked with him in the printing and publishing of the "Yellowknife Blade". She and Jock were devoted naturalists and loved to explore the land around Yellowknife. Mildred was intent on using whatever nature provided, picking berries and preserving food in the root cellar for the winter. Mildred also worked to publish her husband's works after his death, but died May 4, 1974 in Victoria B.C. before the project was completed. A former employee Gladys McCurdy Gould completed Mildred's work and published "Jock McMeekan's Yellowknife Blade" in 1984.
In 1948, Jock and Mildred accepted responsibility for raising Mildred's five-year-old niece, Hélène. Hélène (previously Giles, Henderson) Acikahte currently lives in Edmonton.