On March 21 1974, Mr. Justice T.R. Berger was appointed by the government of Canada to conduct an inquiry and report on the terms and conditions that ought to be imposed on a proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline. Berger's first action was to visit communities up and down the Mackenzie River and over the mountains to the Yukon Territory, in order to meet the people whose lives he was going to inquire into. It was a 10,000-mile trip by helicopter, canoe, jet and bush plane that took Berger to Tuktoyaktuk, Aklavik, Fort McPherson and almost all of the 27 communities that would be affected in some way by the proposed pipeline. The inquiry commenced with preliminary hearings in Yellowknife, Inuvik, Whitehorse and Ottawa in April and May 1974. The formal hearings began in March 1975 and lasted until November 1976. Community hearings were also held in the Northwest Territories and almost all of the provinces between April 1975 and August 1976. Mr. Justice Berger's report was submitted to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in 1977.
The Mackenzie Regional Health Service (MRHS) was a health organization created in 1988, providing public health services to Northwest Territories residents in the Deh Cho, North Slave, Tlicho and South Slave regions. Health units operating under the Service included the Fort Providence health centre, Fort Liard health centre, Fort Wrigley health centre, Fort Simpson hospital, Fort Simpson public health clinic, Hay River Public health unit, Fort Resolution health centre, Lac La Martre (Wha Ti) health centre, Rae Lakes (Gameti) health centre, Snowdrift (Lutsel K'e) health centre, Yellowknife Public Health unit and the Rae-Edzo (Behchoko) health centre, as well as lay dispensers in Trout Lake, Nahanni Butte, Kakisa, Jean Marie River, and Dettah. Headquartered in Yellowknife, the Service was enacted with a board governance model, however it was only ever managed by a public administrator as trustee. It reported to the Territorial Hospital Insurance Services (THIS) Board on matters of funding and service delivery, and received administrative and coordinating support from the Department of Health.
Reporting to the Public Administrator, the MRHS was led by an Executive Director. Divisions included Finance and Administration, Personnel Services, Nursing Administration (regional health services), Medical Travel, and Environmental Health.
The Mackenzie Regional Health Service was discontinued as an organization with changes to the Territorial Hospital Insurance Services Act and the Medical Care Act, and the creation of the Department of Health and Social Services in 1997. New regional health boards and authorities, including the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority (DHSSA), the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority (YHSSA), and the Deninu Community Health and Social Services Board assumed management of health units previously under the MRHS.
Construction of the Mackenzie Highway system began in 1946. Work on the highway from the Alberta boundary to Hay River was completed in 1948.
Ann arrived in Yellowknife in January 1990 by way of Edmonton and brought with her experience working in film and video as a film festival coordinator although she had no educational background in the field. Finding work with Yellowknife Films and later CBC TV she gained hands on experience in the industry. In the early 1990s there were a number of people and companies in the NWT in the film/TV/ video industry but there was no one really doing “art” projects.
With a lot of confidence (or the exuberance of youth) and faith that if you start something others will help, Ann created a script, raised a little bit of money through the NWT Arts Fund and got a lot of very kind people to help realize this little film.
“The Road to Rae” is an ode to road movies crossed with a hommage to drive-ins! Of course in the north neither exist like they do in southern Canada. Drive-ins don’t work well as it is too bright up here in the summer time for them. Road movies usually are lengthy plant drives on paved highways whereas The Road to Rae captures the state of the highway in the 1990s just as the last of the gravel section was replaced with asphalt. Before then driving the highway was a risky undertaking.
It was quite a grueling experience making the film and at times rather dangerous as not all the traffic stopped while filming on the highway! Thankfully no humans or animals were hurt.
The Road to Rae screened in Yellowknife, on CBC North and at several Canadian festivals winning a Special Jury prize at the Yorktown Short Film Festival,
Ann continued making art films for another decade. She helped make the videos for several theatre projects with Tracy Riley (Nunsence and Confessions of the Cabin Dweller) and edited a singing group “Aurora and the Boring Alices” and their hilarious evening on stage in Yellowknife. Ann was instrumental in founding Western Arctic Moving Pictures (WAMP) and securing the initial funding to get them started. Ann still lives in Yellowknife.
Nancy Oestreich Lurie was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on January 29, 1924, the only child of Carl Ralph Oestreich and Rayline Danielson Oestreich. Her father served on the engineering faculty at the University of Wisconsin and also volunteered at the Milwaukee Public Museum and engendered Nancy's early interest in anthropology and museology. Lurie received her Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology and sociology from the University of Wisconsin in 1945, her Masters from the University of Chicago in 1947 and went on to receive her PhD from Northwestern University in 1952.
Lurie's fieldwork included work with the Wisconsin Winnebagos during her undergraduate studies. She focused her research on culture change and on teaching white society respect and fairness toward Aboriginal peoples, and this would persist as a theme in her professional work. The Winnebagos continued to be research partners through her career.
Lurie's doctoral work at Northwestern University from 1948-1952 compared culture change in the Wisconsin and Nebraska Winnebagos and combined ethnohistorical research with fieldwork. At Northwestern she met and then married Edward Lurie in 1951; they divorced amicably in 1963.
Between 1954-1957, Lurie worked as an expert witness on seven cases for the United States Indian Claims Commission and in 1957, she began teaching applied anthropology at the University of Michigan, where she obtained a tenure-tracked position in 1961. Between 1961-1962 Lurie also served as Sol Tax's assistant in the American Indian Chicago Conference, which involved ninety tribes gathering to draft the Declaration of Indian Purpose, later presented to President John F. Kennedy. Lurie's work with Sol Tax and his 'action anthropology' methodology gave her a national profile.
Starting in 1959, Lurie conducted fieldwork in the Northwest Territories with fellow Chicago graduate student June Helm. Together they worked with the Tłı̨chǫ, making trips to Behchokǫ̀ (Rae) and Wha Ti (Lac La Martre) in 1959, 1962 and 1967.
In 1963, Lurie joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as associate professor, where her first major task was establishing a Masters program with a certificate option in museology in collaboration with the Milwaukee Public Museum. She was promoted to professor three years later and was department chair from 1967-1970, when she helped to establish a doctoral program in anthropology. In 1972, Lurie fulfilled a childhood aspiration and became curator and head of the anthropology section of the Milwaukee Public Museum, where she worked until her retirement in 1993. She continued to serve as a volunteer there until 2015.
Throughout her career, Lurie was committed to the four-field tradition of anthropology in teaching and museum work. The emphasis in her own specialty of cultural anthropology was on community consultation, local control of development plans, respect for her consultants, training Native American scholars and educating mainstream society to respect Native American person and traditions. Her many honours and accomplishments include being a Fullbright-Hays lecturer at the University of Aarhus, Denmark from 1965-1966, and President of the American Anthropological Association in 1982.
In retirement, Lurie lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She passed away on May 13, 2017.
Alexander Halley Low was born March 29,1892 in Kensington, London, England, the son of Alexander Graham Low and Annie Halley. He received a Master of Arts degree from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and studied geology at the Royal School of Mines, London. He served in World War I, mostly in Ireland.
Around 1914, Alexander went on an oil prospecting trip in the Northwest Territories with Dr. T. O. Bosworth. Following the War, he returned to the Northwest Territories as an oil prospector in the Great Slave Slake region for the Imperial Oil Company. While there, he was approached by Bishop James R. Lucas to teach at the St. Peter's Mission (Residential) School in Hay River ca. 1918-19. In the early 1920s he continued oil exploration in the Fort Norman (now Tulita) area of the Northwest Territories with Mackenzie River Oil Ltd.
Alexander also did some oil prospecting in Peru and was a member of the Royal Geographical Society. He married Dorothy Lindesay Gregory in 1933 and had two children, Jean Mary Lindesay Low and Alexander John Stewart Low. Alexander Halley Low died July 2, 1974 in Ferring, Sussex, England.
Laura (McLeod) Loutitt was born March 2, 1904 in Fort Nelson. She was the oldest child to parents Fred and Margaret (Firth) McLeod, and the oldest of 12 siblings. She attended the Hay River Anglican Mission for 8 years before moving briefly to Fort Providence, and then to Fort Smith for work. She married Colin Loutitt of Fort Chipewyan on September 26, 1926, with whom she had 10 children: Elmer, Ernest (Ernie), Mavis, Shirley, John, Sandy, Freddy, Roy, Allan, and Jack.
In her earlier years, she worked aboard the HBC ship Distributor. Upon her marriage in 1926, she moved to Fort Chipewyan for four years, before returning to Fort Smith in 1930. She worked as cook for the NTCL Company, working seasonally aboard the boats for about 10 years, including the Radium King, Porphyry, Diesel 8, and the Richard E. She also worked for the RCMP as cook for 31 years overall, beginning early in her career, and then resuming again in 1960 for 17 years. In between, she cooked for pilots and passengers for the PWA.
Loutitt raised her children in between and during these jobs. In the off season, she worked as cook at local hotels, and later running her own café. She died in May 1990.
E.T. “Ted” Lonergan and his wife Vera arrived in Yellowknife from Box Mine in Goldfields, Saskatchewan. Prior to working at Box Mine, Ted worked in the oil sands. He was a carpenter by trade and had his own construction company. In Yellowknife, he was a miner and shift worker at Con Mine.
The Lonergans remained in Yellowknife until 1943, when Ted joined the Royal Canadian Navy. After the war, he returned to Yellowknife and went to work at Giant Mine. He left Yellowknife in the early 1950s.
In the mid-1980s, he was living in Vancouver and working as a Project Supervisor and Coordinator at Placer Development Limited.
Paul Lloyd was born in England on July 28, 1886, and came to Canada in 1906. He homesteaded near Vermilion, Alberta until 1929 when he became a homestead inspector, tax collector, and assessor for Provincial Municipal Affairs in Edmonton. Upon receiving a request for a 'loan' of an assessor, Mr. Lloyd travelled to the Northwest Territories in 1949, to assess property in Yellowknife.
Edward Lloyd was born in 1874 in Kenley England. He grew up at Bosherston and educated at Bedford. In 1897, he left a job in England to live in Canada. He travelled extensively across the country including a trip (ca. 1897-1899) from Edmonton, to Hay River via the Peace and Hay Rivers, down the Mackenzie River through communities such as Wrigley and Fort Good Hope to Fort McPherson, across the Yukon to Old Crow and on to Alaska. He eventually settled at Courtney, B.C. He was married and had at least one son. Edward Lloyd died in 1956.
In October of 1966 Terrence (Terry) Lines moved his family from Athabasca, Alberta to Yellowknife to begin work with the Territorial Government as a Game Officer with the Fish and Wildlife Service. His office was in Old Town. He was also involved with the Young Campers Association and taught youth how to set traps, set camps and construct shelters in the wilderness.
In 1968 Terry Lines was sent to Hay River with his family to perform Game Officer duties. He was employed here for only one year.
In 1969 Terry Lines was promoted to Region Superintendent of Fish and Widlife and moved his family to Fort Smith. During this time he was responsible for the high Arctic area. Terry flew up to the northern communities on a regular basis and enjoyed the time spent interacting with the Inuit culture and their way of life.
During Terry's seven years in Fort Smith he received many awared and plaques from the Government, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the RCMP for his services. He retired in the autumn of 1976 at the age of 47.
Ole Lindberg moved to Canada from Sweden in 1910 and traveled west across Canada by working on the railway. He moved north from Edmonton in search of gold. Ole met Anna in 1921 and spent one winter living with her family. Eventually Ole and Anna married and had four children. Ole did some prospecting with men such as Dick Turner and Albert Faille, however he was primarily a trapper. In the 1940s, Ole began operating a barge to haul freight on the Mackenzie and Liard Rivers. Edwin Lindberg was born on June 16, 1929 near Blackstone. The family was forced to leave the Nahanni region in 1950 because of the tuberculosis epidemic. Ole and one of Edwin's brothers died during the epidemic and Edwin spent eight years in hospital in Edmonton. Following his release from hospital Edwin worked briefly at a power plant in Fort Simpson. He soon left that job and returned to the work of hauling freight on the Mackenzie River. In 1963, Edwin married Susan, a nurse in Fort Simpson and they lived on a tugboat until 1970. Edwin continued to run the freight business until 1978, when he and Susan returned to the Liard River and Nahanni Butte region. They were visited by many people and decided to turn their home into a lodge for tourists.
Echo Lidster was born in 1916 in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1942, she graduated from the University of British Columbia with a B.A. in Agriculture. From 1942 until 1957, she worked for the federal Department of Agriculture in British Columbia. In 1957, she attended Cornell University and obtained an M.A. in Community Education and Sociology. She was awarded a Ph.D. in Adult Education in 1963. In August 1967, the Federal Government, with funding from Canada Mortgage and Housing (CMHC), appointed Miss Lidster as their Housing Education Officer for the Western Arctic. Her duties entailed locating and training indigenous northerners to deliver federally designed programmes to people in the communities. These programmes related to the building of southern-style housing in the north, the upkeep and maintenance of the housing and domestic programmes designed to improve health and personal hygiene. From 1967 until 1970, Miss Lidster lived in Hay River. In 1970, she was promoted and given responsibility for delivering the Housing Education Programme throughout the Northwest Territories. In 1971, the grant from CMHC ran out; Miss Lidster was appointed Supervisor of Adult Education Programmes in the Northwest Territories and was given the responsibility for developing Adult Education Programmes in the north. Her duties entailed establishing community colleges, developing adult literacy programmes and hiring instructors to teach in the communities. She wrote a number of reports on adult education in the north and published a report "Some Aspects of Community Adult Education 1967-1985." In 1975, Miss Lidster left the north for an extended vacation. In 1976, she returned to Hay River where she worked as an Adult Educator until 1980. While living in Hay River, she was very active in community activities and helped establish the first community radio station there. In 1980, she moved to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory where she worked as an Adult Educator until 1981, at which point she retired and moved to Vancouver.