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Archibald Lang Fleming was born at Greenock, Scotland on September 8, 1883. Upon leaving school, he entered the firm of John Brown and Company, the famous shipbuilders of Clydebank and it was during his years in Glasgow that he became interested in mission work. In 1906, he went to Canada to train at Wycliffe College in Toronto. His interest in the Inuit people and mission work and an appeal from Bishop George Holmes of Moosonee for a young man to work in Baffin Island, led Fleming to establish a mission at Lake Harbour on Baffin Island in 1909. In 1912, Fleming returned to college where he was ordained a deacon in 1912 and a priest in 1913. He returned to Baffin Island in 1916, however, because of ill health was only able to undertake light work. After crossing of the Foxe Peninsula, he was made a member of the Royal Geographic Society. Until his first appointment as archdeacon of the Arctic in 1927, he served first as financial secretary and chaplain to Wycliffe College and then as rector of Old Stone Church in Saint John, New Brunswick. His travels as bishop of the Arctic earned him the title "The Flying Bishop." He was author of "The History of Saint John's Church, Saint John, New Brunswick" (1925) and "Archibald of the Arctic" (1956). He died on May 17, 1953 in Toronto, Ontario.

An annual summer musical event, Folk on the Rocks was first held in 1980 at Yellowknife, NWT. The Festival attracted musicians and performers from across the globe, although the majority were from the North and the rest of Canada. SENT, the Society for the Encouragement of Northern Talent, the non-profit group which organized the festival, recognized that northern musicians need opportunities to develop. Each year a handful of homegrown talent would play the festival. These included Susan Aglukark, Tracey Riley, George Tuccaro, the Komatiks, Pat Braden, Ted Wesley, Jimmy Ekho, Charlie Panagoniak and Lorna Tassoer, John Blondin's Native Theatre Group, Marc Bogan, Night Sun, Attima Hadlari, Leela Gilday, the Gumboots, Small Town Rhino, Terry Cousineau, Frank Cockney, David Gon, Joe Loutchan, Colin Adjun, Richard Lafferty, and various Inuit throat singers and Dene drummers. SENT relied mainly on donations from Northwest Territories' businesses, government agencies, and private individuals to keep the Festival afloat in the early years. Folk on the Rocks went on to become one of the premier stops on the North American festival circuit, attracting worldclass acts along the way. Buffy St. Marie, Valdy, Gordon Downie, Penny Lang, Spirit of the West, Amos Garrett, Willie P. Bennett, Fred Eaglesmith, the Holmes Brothers, Kashtin, Oscar Lopez, Moxy Fruvous, and Utah Phillips have all appeared at Folk on the Rocks.

In the early 1980s, the Dene Community Council of Fort Good Hope established the Dene Language and Historical Research Project to gather oral histories and photographic images in the Fort Good Hope area. The aim was to create a body of research material for scholars, teachers and local residents and possibly for curriculum development. The project, co-coordinated by Cynthia Chambers, was aimed at the creation of oral histories by project workers, the accumulation of historical photographs from private collections and finally the documentation of the collected material through cataloguing. In 1988, the Council underwent a planning process to develop a plan for future community developments.

Fort Norman achieved hamlet status on April 1, 1984.

The Fort Providence Slavey Language Research Project was begun in the early 1980s. It was funded by the Department of Culture & Communications, Government of the Northwest Territories.

In the early 1980s, the community of Fort Resolution began developing programmes dedicated to preserving both the use of the Chipewyan language and the history of their elders. Although a Chipewyan language programme was established in the local school, the community council decided that they needed to record the recollections of their elders before that knowledge was lost forever. The Deninoo (Fort Resolution) Community Council then sought funding from the Local Education Authority and the Government of the Northwest Territories to finance the project. A list of all community residents over the age of 60 was compiled and people over 80 years of age, who were sick, were selected to be interviewed first. Eighteen elders were finally chosen: Harold Balsillie; Philip Buggins; Virginie Beaulieu; Virginie Calumet; Fred Dawson; Isidore Edjericon; Albert Fabien; Caroline Fabien; Joe Fabien; Rose Fabien; Judith Giroux; Pierre Hilaire; Joseph Jerome; Francois King; Mary Louise King; Victor Lafferty; George Sanderson; and Noel Yelle. A questionnaire was designed which was broken down into thirteen modules: Section I: Demography; Section II: Social and family structure; Section III: Spiritual activities; Section IV: Lifestyle; Section V: Alcohol; Section VI: Health; Section VII: Government; Section VIII: The Mission; Section IX: Wage Economy; Section X: Communications; Section XI: Legends, stories, and local wisdom; Section XII: Geography\weather; and Section XIII: Highlights. Each of the interviews was based on the format established in the questionnaire. In the summer of 1984, five interviews were conducted. In 1985, after receiving funding from the Government of the Northwest Territories, a further twelve elders were interviewed. The interviewers were Doris Beck, Mary Rose Boucher, Elizabeth Giroux, Frederick Lafferty and Dora Unka, and the translators were Mary Rose Boucher, Dora Cardinal and Frederick Lafferty. Joe Fabian eventually withdrew his consent for the release of the material gathered during the interviews with him. That material was returned to the Fort Resolution Community Education Council. From the information gathered during the interviews, a book "That's the Way We Lived" was published in 1987.

Fort Resolution achieved settlement status on April 1, 1988.

Fort Simpson was built in 1804 by the Northwest Company. It is the oldest continuously occupied trading post along the Mackenzie River. Fort Simpson obtained hamlet status on January 1, 1973.

In 1947 the first two federally funded schools were opened in Fort McPherson and Tuktoyaktuk. In 1948, the federal school at Fort Smith opened. In that first year, there were five federal schools with approximately 103 pupils in the junior and senior high school grades. By 1958 this number jumped to 576 pupils in 52 federal schools. 1958 was also the year Breynat Hall, the residence for the high school, was established.

The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) established the Fort Smith post in 1874. Fort Smith was the administrative centre of the Mackenzie District until Yellowknife became the Territorial capital in 1967. On April 4, 1963, the Advisory Committee of the Local Improvement District of Fort Smith organized a vote that granted village status to Fort Smith as of January 1964. Town status was obtained as of October 1, 1966, and the Fort Smith Village Council became the Council of the Corporation of the Town of Fort Smith.

Terrence ("Terry") William Stockbridge Foster was born in Birch Hills, Saskatchewan, on May 31, 1946. After he completed his bachelor studies with the University of Saskatchewan, he worked at its Institute for Northern Studies. In 1975 he decided to move his family to to Yellowknife to pursue work with the newly formed territorial government. The Fosters lived in Yellowknife until 2005, whereupon they retired to Kelowna, British Columbia.

During Foster's career with the GNWT (1975-2004), he worked with the Department of Planning and Program Evaluation, the Department of Economic Development and Tourism (and with its later incarnation as Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development), and the Department of the Executive. By the time Foster retired he was Special Advisor to the Cabinet Secretariat.

Rene Fumoleau, O.M.I., was born in France on August 6, 1926. He was ordained a priest in 1952 and came to the Northwest Territories in 1953. He worked with the Dene in Fort Good Hope from 1953 to 1959, in Deline from 1960 to 1968 and then returned to Fort Good Hope between 1968-1969. In 1971, he began historical research on Treaties 8 and 11 which resulted in the publication of "As Long As This Land Shall Last: A History of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, 1870-1939". From 1970 until 1994 he lived in Yellowknife and then moved to the community of Lutselk'e. During his time in the north he was an avid photographer and many of his photographs have been displayed, sold and published. In addition, he produced and directed several films including "I Was Born Here" and "Dene Nation". He was active in the area of storytelling, speaking at numerous national conferences. Rene Fumoleau died August 6, 2019.

Galena Heights Elementary School opened in 1977, originally housing pupils from kindergarten to grade two. Galena Heights Elementary School was expanded in 1980 to host students up to grade five after a fire destroyed the other school in the town; the rebuilt Matonabbee School opened in 1981 for the senior grades. Both schools closed in June 1988 with the closure of the mine and community of Pine Point.

Timothy (Tim) Garrish was born on January 4, 1950, in Oliver, British Columbia (BC). His parents were Arthur Ross Garrish (1915-1996) and Elizabeth Nancy Garrish (nee Grimsditch, 1921-1984). Garrish grew up on an orchard in Oliver, on land that his father had first purchased in 1934. As a child, he spent time doing farm work on the orchard. From age 16 onwards, he worked in fruit packinghouses and sawmills. Garrish graduated from Southern Okanagan Secondary School in Oliver in 1968, then attended the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Simon Fraser University (SFU). During his summer breaks while in university, Garrish held jobs in mining exploration in northern BC.

At age 22, Garrish earned his Commercial Pilot’s License. His first job in aviation was flying for Superior Airways/Severn Enterprises Ltd in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, starting in May 1972. Garrish then moved to Fort Simpson in September 1973 to fly for Arctic Air Ltd. In 1974, Garrish returned to Langley, BC, to earn his Flight Instructor Rating, followed by a stint as a flight instructor on weekends while back at university between January 1975 and December 1976. Garrish graduated from SFU with a Bachelor of General Studies (Economics and Geography) in December 1976.

In 1977, Garrish began doing seasonal (summer) fire suppression work. He started in 1977 working for Wolverine Air Ltd (WAL) in Fort Simpson. Garrish then spent more than four decades doing fire suppression work in the summers, including working for Avalon Aviation (1978-1980) and Conair (1983-2022).

In 1978, Garrish flew for Wolverine Air Ltd (WAL) once again. Flying for WAL in the winters became a constant in his life. In 1988, Garrish became part owner of WAL with Les Dvorak, who had started the firm in 1972. Garrish and Dvorak were co-owners of Wolverine Air until 1993, when they sold the operation to Chris Yarrow. He lived in Fort Simpson until 1995, at which point he relocated first to Canmore, Alberta then back to his home base in Oliver, BC. Garrish’s duties at Wolverine Air included both Chief Pilot and Operations Manager at various times. He continued to work for WAL as a relief Operations Manager/Pilot in Fort Simpson during winters as required until 2010.

In 1981-1982 and 1987-1988, Garrish worked with Pacific Western Airlines (PWA) flying the L-100 Hercules and the Boeing 737. He was based in Edmonton and flew for PWA’s high Arctic operations.

In 1988, Garrish became the Managing Director of Airports North Ltd in Fort Simpson. Airports North Ltd became responsible for the management and operation of the Fort Simpson Island Airport in 1988 and operated it on a ‘user pay’ model. It was one of only a few airports in Canada to be financially self-sustaining, operating without any form of government assistance.

From 1994-2010, Garrish also worked as an aviation consultant with Hemlock Aviation Services.

Tim Garrish continued to fly fire suppression in the summers for Conair until 2022 when he retired after 39 years with them. In total Garrish did 51 years of accident-free commercial flying during his career, including 44 seasons doing aerial fire suppression (16 in Yellowknife). He lives in Oliver, BC, and is currently writing his memoirs of his flying adventures.

Terry Garvin was born on a farm on January 23, 1930, and grew up near Craik, Saskatchewan. In 1951, Garvin joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and was posted to various detachments in northern British Columbia (BC) and Alberta and the southern Northwest Territories (NWT) over the next 13 years. These postings included Prince George and Fort Saint James, BC (1951-1953), Behchoko (Rae) and Yellowknife, NWT (1954-1958), and Fort McMurray, Alberta (1958-1964).

In 1964, Garvin went to university and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. In the following years he worked for various employers in a variety of fields, including community development work for Syncrude Canada Ltd., socio-economic assessment and management for Petro-Canada Inc., and community development work as a consultant for various Indigenous groups. From 1981 to 1983, Garvin worked for the Arctic Pilot Project (Arctic Institute, University of Calgary), and from 1983 to 1985, he worked for the United States Agency for International Development in Indonesia. Upon his return to Canada in 1985, Garvin continued his work as a consultant for Indigenous groups working on community development projects. His work often involved traditional use studies and land use mapping.

Terry Garvin wrote two books, Bush Land People (1992) and Carving Faces, Carving Lives: People of the Boreal Forest (2005). Both books focus mainly on northern Alberta. They are illustrated with photographs Garvin took of the people he met and the places he lived and worked in from the 1950s onward.

Garvin had four children: Linda, Erin, Edmund, and Marleis.

Terry Garvin died on May 23, 2019, at the age of 89.

Emile Gautreau worked for the Canadian Forestry Service in the NWT from 1963 to 1969. He and his wife Evalyn lived in Calgary and Behchoko during this time and spent time in other communities in the NWT. They became friends with local Dene people and with the Grey Nuns and got involved in cultural exchange activities, including promoting Dene crafts to people in Calgary, organizing donations of used clothing to send to the NWT, and organizing a field trip for Dene children to Calgary. Emile received a Canadian Centennial Medal in 1967 for his work with the Dene people.

In September 1841, the Legislature of the Province of Canada (the area that is now the southern parts of Ontario and Quebec) passed a resolution "that a sum not exceeding 1,500 sterling be granted to Her Majesty to defray the probable expense in causing a Geological Survey of the Province to be made." This resolution gave birth the following year to the Geological Survey of Canada (known widely as the Survey or GSC), Canada's first scientific agency and one of its oldest government organizations. The decision to undertake a geological survey was based on the realization that the development of a competitive industrial economy in Canada would depend on a viable mining industry. It was necessary to conduct a geological assessment to determine if Canada had the resource base to support such an industry.

William Edmond Logan was appointed the Survey's first director on April 14, 1841. One of the most important accomplishments of the Survey under Logan was the publication in 1863 of the Geology of Canada, a 983-page book, which represented all of the work the Survey had accomplished up to that date.

By the time of Confederation in 1867, the Geological Survey was widely recognized as the main contributor to the establishment of a viable mining industry in Canada, yet the Survey had performed its job without any funding stability. Finally, the government recognized the Survey's importance, and it was moved from Montreal to the new capital, Ottawa to be closer to other government organizations and Parliament.

With Alfred Selwyn, following in Logan's footsteps, the next surge of exploratory surveys took place in the west and the north. A larger staff was required and with newly secured funding, Selwyn was able to build up his staff from six parties in the field in 1870 to fourteen in 1890. That same year, Parliament passed an act making the Geological Survey a separate department of the government, reporting to the Minister of the Interior. The act also stipulated that scientific officers of the Survey should have post-secondary training in science.

In 1895, after 26 years as Director, George M. Dawson succeeded Selwyn. Dawson was permanently recognized for his contributions to the exploration of northern British Columbia and the Yukon; Dawson City was named in his honour. Dawson died suddenly in 1901 and was replaced by Robert Bell, whose association with the Survey went back to 1857. Under Bell's leadership, increasing attention was paid to the mineral potential of the country; Survey reports of the period looked at nickel and copper deposits, oil field and gold deposits. Albert P. Low succeeded Bell in 1906 and served as Director for 18 months before being struck by severe illness. Low's most significant scientific work was his study of the Labrador Peninsula in 1895-1896 and leading the Canadian Government Expedition to Hudson Bay and the Arctic Islands. On an administrative level, Low oversaw the creation of the Department of Mines in 1907 when the Mines Act was passed by Parliament. The new department included the Geological Survey and the Mines Branch, an organization set up six years earlier to compile mining statistics and publicize opportunities in Canadian mining.

Reginald Brock was Low's successor in 1907 and under his leadership, the Geological Survey became a training ground for the Canadian geoscience community. Special emphasis was given to Precambrian geology and Low also created a separate topographical unit that would prepare the maps needed as a base for geological information. The topographical unit left the Survey in 1947, but remains closely linked as part of Energy, Mines and Resources Canada.

William Collins took over the survey in 1920, under Charles Camsell, the newly appointed head of the Department of Mines. In 1936, the departments of Mines, Interior, Immigration and Colonization and Indian Affairs were amalgamated into a single organization headed by Camsell-the new Department of Mines and Resources. World War II spawned many new technologies that changed the world and placed new demands on the Survey. High priority was given to Survey field and laboratory work related to locating and evaluating uranium. The post-war period also saw, for the first time, the Survey contributing geological information and expertise to aid in the construction of large-scale pubic works projects such as the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Red River floodway around Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 1959, the Survey also established a specialized marine geology research group to accommodate growing interest in Canada's huge offshore area.

In 1966, Parliament created the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources of which the Geological Survey of Canada today is part. The new department carried on the scientific responsibilities of its predecessor, the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, but through its new mandate to plan Canada's energy needs, it was transformed into an important policy-making department. Because of this new focus on energy policy, the Survey became heavily involved in resource appraisal.

From the 1970s to the present, the Survey has been involved in a variety of projects, such as terrain mapping concentrated mainly along the Mackenzie Valley pipeline route, the polar gas corridor of west Hudson Bay and in the Arctic Islands. Results of the Survey were used to evaluate the environmental impact of development in these areas. Other initiatives included the provision of geoscientific information about Canada's ocean resources, involvement in LITHOPROBE, a deep earth study geoscientific research program, a national mapping program and working closely with provinces and territories on a range of geoscience surveys and mapping projects in an effort to stimulate regional economic development.

Joseph Burr Tyrrell was born in Weston, Ontario on November 1, 1858. Following studies at the University of Toronto, Tyrrell received a position with the Geological Survey of Canada. His first field experience came under the tutelage of Dr. A.R.C. Selwyn in the Rocky Mountains. In 1893, Tyrrell led an expedition for the Geological Survey of Canada from Lake Athabasca to Chesterfield Inlet via Selwyn Lake, the Dubawnt River and the Thelon River.