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Bern Will Brown was born in Rochester, New York in 1920 and came north in 1948 as a priest with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. In his first fourteen years in the north, he worked in a variety of locations, including Fort Norman (Tulita); Fort Franklin (Deline); Goldfields, Saskatchewan; Fort Chipewyan, Alberta; Aklavik; Fort McMurray, Alberta; and Nahanni Butte.

In 1962 Father Brown was sent to Colville Lake, only a short distance north of the Arctic Circle, in the traditional homeland of the Hareskin (North Slavey) Dene. On the shore of the lake he planned and built a log church, “Our Lady of the Snows”, in what was soon a growing community of log buildings. In 1971, he left the priesthood and married Margaret Steen of Inuvik; the couple remained in Colville Lake and continued to be active members of the community.

In addition to his regular duties, Father Brown performed routine medical work and dentistry and has been a fire warden, dogcatcher, storekeeper, postmaster, and newspaper editor. He was also a prolific artist, creating many paintings and photographs, and published five books. Bern and Margaret Brown built and operated the Colville Lake Lodge as well as a small museum and art gallery.

Bern Will Brown died on July 4, 2014 at the age of 94.

Francis (Frank) Leo Buckley was born on November 9, 1893 in Seattle, Washington. In the summer of 1938, Frank and his wife Viola, daughter Patricia (Patsy) and son Harold (Timmy) moved from Peace River, Alberta to Yellowknife. Mr. Buckley made the journey by transporting two scows loaded with gasoline belonging to Peace River Airways, traveling down Peace River and Slave River, and finally crossing Great Slave Lake. During this trip the scows also brought up a cow and two horses (Prince and Pal), the first horses to arrive in Yellowknife. Between 1938-1940, Mr. Buckley worked hauling wood on land and freighting lumber across Great Slave Lake from the saw mill near Hay River owned by M. MacDonald and Bobbie Porritt. In 1942, Mr. Buckley returned with his family to his wife's hometown of Wetaskiwin, Alberta. Mr. Buckley continued to do occasional freighting work in the north until 1950.

George Clinton Buffum was born August 13, 1896, in Table Grove, Illinois, United States. His family later moved to Teulon, Manitoba. George lied about his age and joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and then served with the Canadian military in World War I. Sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s, he moved to Behchoko (formerly Fort Rae).

By 1934, Buffum was the manager of the Northern Traders Ltd. trading post. This trading post, which had been purchased from Hislop and Nagle in 1912, operated in Behchoko until 1938. Upon its closure, Buffum went to work for or with James ‘Jim’ Darwish, an independent trader based in Behchoko since 1925.

George Buffum married Louise Evelyn (born 1908, birth surname unknown) on July 8, 1934, in Behchoko. George and Louise met when she had been a nurse for George's ailing father. Louise and George corresponded for a few years before Louise moved to Behchoko and they were married.

The Buffum home often served as a stop over for many pilots and their passengers and consequently the Buffums were well known by many of the northern bush pilots.

George and Louise’s daughter Marylyn "Lyn" G. Buffum (married name Marylyn Orchuk, later Marylyn Orchuk-Payne) was born in Edmonton on January 28, 1936. Louise and Lyn stayed in the south until the summer of 1937, when they moved back to Behchoko.

George Buffum ran the trading post after Jim Darwish moved to Edmonton in 1941. At some point between 1938 and 1944, Buffum and Darwish became business partners. Buffum then became the sole proprietor of the trading post following Darwish’s death in 1944. Buffum continued to operate the trading post in Behchoko until his departure from the community.

The Buffum family moved south in 1946 because of George’s concerns for Lyn’s education. In 1947, Buffum rented the trading post and his former house to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development for the department to operate a Day School and provide a furnished teacher’s residence. In 1948, Buffum sold his property, including chattels, to the same federal department.

George Buffum continued to visit the north in the summers until approximately 1951 or 1952.

George Clinton Buffum died September 18, 1968. Louise Evelyn Buffum died in 1979. Marylyn ‘Lyn’ Orchuk-Payne died July 26, 2019.

Hans Heinrich Maximilian (Henry) Busse was born in Germany in 1896. A veteran of WWI, he studied agriculture at Bonn University. He was married for a brief period in the 1920s but separated from his wife after a few years, with whom he had one daughter. He immigrated to Canada in 1927 and worked at a number of farms and businesses through western Canada. In 1939 he was interned as an enemy alien as he did not yet have his naturalization papers. Released in 1943, he eventually got work as a pipefitter's helper at Eldorado Mining and Refining at Great Bear Lake, where he joined the photography club, improving on the skills he had learned in the 1930s running a darkroom in an Edmonton stationary store. In July 1947 Busse moved to Yellowknife where, encouraged by Father Gathy, he opened Yellowknife's first commercial photography business, Yellowknife Photo Service. His photographic work received international attention and awards. His pictures also appeared in numerous magazines, including National Geographic, which ran a layout of his colour photographs of northern lights. On September 28 1962, Henry Busse chartered Ken Stockhall's Cessna 185 for a photographic assignment in the Nahanni Valley, joined by Gunther Geortz and Vic Hudon from Giant mine as passengers. The group didn’t return at their scheduled time. Despite a two-month air search, their plane was not discovered until June 1963, crashed in a valley near Cli Lake.

Norman W. Byrne was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario on February 17, 1912. Although he had first travelled to the NWT with his father, who was a prospector, and his brother Jerry in 1932, he returned to McGill to complete his studies. In 1936 after graduating from McGill University with a degree in Mining Engineering, he moved to Gold Fields (Uranium City) and later to Outpost Island where he worked as a Mine Engineer. In 1940, with the closure of the mine at Outpost Island, Byrne moved to Whitehorse where he worked on the Canol Pipeline. In 1945 Byrne moved to Yellowknife and was asked to survey the Discovery claims. Byrne was so impressed with the claim that he, along with his father and brother, purchased it. Mining work then began at the Discovery Mines Limited property and on February 10, 1950 the first gold brick was poured. After the first 17 years of operation, over $35 million had been extracted from the Discovery Mines Limited claim.

Despite Byrne's involvement with the Discovery claims, he continued to work as a consultant
Mining Engineer. He was also involved in developing Rayrock Mines Limited, Northland Mines Limited and Tundra Mines Limited. In 1964 Byrne began a second career as a real estate developer in Yellowknife and his company constructed many houses and apartment buildings in the town. He was a strong supporter of the lobby group working to have the capital city of the NWT established at Yellowknife rather than at Fort Smith. He was also actively involved in many community organisations in Yellowknife and was a vocal advocate of the establishment of a separate Catholic school system in the community.
He was the chairman of the Separate School Board from its inception in 1951 until his death on November 14, 1973.

In 1965, on the recommendation of the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, the Committee of the Privy Council, via Order in Council 1005, established the Advisory Commission on the Development of Government in the Northwest Territories. The Commission headed by A.W.R. Carrothers, was commonly referred to as the Carrothers' Commission. The mandate of the Commission was to consider the political development of the Northwest Territories and to advise the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources via a report. In 1966, after holding hearings in northern communities, the three-member commission recommended that the issue of dividing the Northwest Territories be further examined in 10 years.

From 1905 to 1967, the administration of the Northwest Territories had been the responsibility of several different federal departments. In 1922, a Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch was organized in the Department of the Interior to be responsible for the administration of the northern territories. In 1936, when the Department of the Interior was abolished, the Branch was transferred to the Department of Mines and Resources, where it became the Bureau of Northwest Territories and Yukon Affairs in the Lands, Parks and Forests Branch. From 1947 to 1959, the functions of the Bureau underwent a series of name and department changes: Northwest Territories and Yukon Service, 1947-1950; Northern Administrations Service, 1950-1951; Northern Administration and Lands Branch, 1951-1959; and Northern Administration Branch, 1959-1968.