Those words were the beginning of a commitment by Chief Monfwi that the Tlicho (Dogrib) people would honour their commitment to the land, and to Treaty 11. That was in 1921. August 2005 marked a momentous occasion for the Tlicho. In a ground-breaking move, they gained the power to govern themselves. Up Here associate editor Sam Toman was at the historical gathering.
Dallas WahShee stands by the shore of a calm Great Slave Lake watching the last threads of fireworks fall towards the black water. The ten-year-old knows something big is going on. He is standing within earshot of hundreds of people who have congregated in Behchoko (Rae), Northwest Territories. For some, it is their first time watching fireworks. For all, it is the first time the Tlicho people are being given the power to govern themselves.
The Tlicho Agreement was over a decade in the making. It is the defining political breakthrough for a people who have been fighting for institutional autonomy for close to a century. Most of the people are here to witness the completion of the Agreement.
But the gathering is also more than a political event – it’s a celebration of friends, family and food. It’s the savouring of a historical moment, and a chance to enjoy all of the cultural traditions the Agreements is meant to protect.
WahShee began to get hint of this important event a few weeks earlier. His parents, and most of the adults from Gameti (Rae Lakes), had slipped away for the evening to attend a meeting at the school. Feeling restless with curiosity, he hopped on his bike and peddled to the school to find out what could be so important. “I went behind the school and I heard the people talking.” WahShee recalls. “So I climbed up and looked through the air vent and saw all of the people talking.” WahShee’s parents and community leaders were discussing their trip to Rae for the first sitting of the Tlicho Assembly.
People came to Rae, the largest of the four main Tlicho communities, from all corners of Canada in the days leading up to the gathering. Some drove in from Yellowknife; some flew from southern cities like Ottawa and Vancouver; others came by canoe from Tlicho communities like Gameti, Whati and Wekweti.
Chief Archie Wetrade of Gameti travelled with that group by canoe. “We left Saturday from Rae Lakes with 42 youth in five canoes,” he says. “We gathered people from Rae Lakes, Snare Lake and Whati. When it was all over, we had over 60 canoes. When we approached Rae there were almost a thousand people waiting for us.”
For Wetrade, the moment was the culmination of a decade of planning and dreaming. He’s dressed in a beaded hide vest, sunglasses, with a heaping plate of bannock, salad and caribou ribs in hand. “This is a big day for all the Tlicho nation,” he says. “All of the leaders worked very hard on this and it was history in the making. A lot of the kids you see here today, they will have to go down that trail one day, and I am proud of that.”
It’s a trail that goes through uncharted territory. The Tlicho Agreement grants a precedent-setting level of autonomy for aboriginal groups in the NWT. There is no map to follow, and no mistakes to learn from – a fact that makes some people here cautiously optimistic. “I really don’t know what this agreement will do for the community in 50 years,” says Theresa Mantla, a resident of Rae.
“The elders in the communities need to talk to the kids and get them the training they need,” Mantla says. “Without that training there will be a huge loss.” She adds with a hint of a smile: “But hey, I danced all last night, woke up extra early this morning to make two pots of stew and bannock. I just want to help out the gathering. I just love seeing people I haven’t seen in a long time. Tonight I’m going to feast, go home to rest and change, then dance all night again.”
Blue and white with a splash of red. This is the new flag of the self-governed Tlicho people. It unfurls with a snap as a group of youth sing Oh Canada in Tlicho. “A lot of artists have put a lot of work into the flag,” Wetrade says proudly. “It means many things. The sun, the land and the river and the four tipis represent the four Tlicho communities. When Chief Monfwi spoke in 1921, he said: ‘As long as the sun rises and river flows and does not flow backward, everything will be okay.’”
With the flag rippling high above the crowd, it’s hard not to have a feeling of pride in what has been accomplished with the Tlicho Agreement. It bodes well for the future of the Tlicho people, something that is not lost on the youth at the gathering.
“Hopefully this will help us get better plumbing and better schools,” says 13-year-old Vanita Zoe, a Rae resident working with a group of young people documenting the event on video. “I think maybe nothing will change right away. But over time, things will get a lot better.”
A lanky teenage boy leaning up against a stack of canoes doesn’t just think things will improve; he knows they will. Why? “Because I’m going be a chief one day,” he says smirking confidently.
Walking away, he refuses to give his name or any clues to his identity other than that he was part of the party that canoed in from Gameti. “Trust me man, everyone is going to know my name soon enough.”
Tlicho self-government explained
On August 4, 2005 members of the Tlicho first nation watched the Tlicho government take power at its inaugural assembly in Behchoko. The product of nearly a decade of negotiations between the Dogrib Treaty 11 Council, the government of Canada and the government of the Northwest Territories, establishment of the Tlicho government launches a new era of self-determination. For the first time since their ancestors signed a treaty with Canada in 1921, the Tlicho have been given the power to govern themselves.
The Tlicho First Nation is comprised of about 3,000 Tlicho people who live mostly in four communities Northeast of the NWT capital Yellowknife: Behchoko (Rae-Edzo); Whati (Lac La Martre); Gameti (Rae Lakes); Wekweti (Snare Lake). One of five Dene Indian groups in the NWT, the Tlicho nation is the third to finalize a land claim agreement, and the first to negotiate a combined land claim and self-government agreement.
Modern negotiations began in the 1970s when the federal government agreed to negotiate one comprehensive claim for all five Dene groups in the NWT. When that claim fell apart in 1990, the Dene began to pursue regional claims. The Tlicho submitted a regional claim in 1992. In 1997, as a result of changes in the federal mandate, self-government provisions were included in the Tlicho claim.
The Tlicho Land Claims and Self-Government Agreement breaks new political ground. The Tlicho (tribal) government has surface and subsurface ownership of 39,000 square kilometres surrounding the four Tlicho communities, and authority over Tlicho citizens. The new government will receive about $100-million from the federal government, as well as an annual share of resource royalties from development in the Mackenzie Valley. Land use fees and resource royalties from Tlicho lands provide other sources of revenue. The Tlicho will also receive some $152–million as compensation under the land claims portion of the agreement, but that money will be used to pay off negotiations loans, then set up in a Heritage Fund which can’t be used to operate the government.
The Tlicho government has jurisdiction over many of the programs and services that have historically been administered by the Government of the Northwest Territories, including education, child and family services, training, social assistance and social housing.
It may also set up its own justice system (excluding criminal matters covered by the Canadian Criminal Code). For the time being, however, many of these services will continue to be provided by the GNWT under an Intergovernmental Services Agreement. In addition to managing Tlicho lands, the new government sits on co-management boards that manage resources and wildlife in the much larger area of Wek’eezhii which covers most of the traditional Tlicho lands.
The tribal government is linked to community governments that replace the previous band councils in each of the four Tlicho communities. These new councils comprising of a chief and councillors have municipal-type powers. They are public, rather than tribal, governments. The chief and two councillors from each community, as well as a separately elected grand chief, form a 13-member Tlicho Assembly, the law-making body of the Tlicho government. The grand chief and four community chiefs, in turn, form the Chiefs Executive Council to administer the day-to-day business.
In September Tlicho voters elected George Mackenzie as the first grand chief of their new government, a position he will hold for a term of four years.
The finalization of the Tlicho lands Claims and Self-Government Agreement, and the election of a grand chief, is considered the culmination of a process that began in 1921 when the venerated Chief Monfwi signed Treaty 11 on behalf of the Tlicho of the North Slave. The latest agreement fulfills the land entitlement provisions of the historic treaty, which remained unfulfilled for more than three-quarters of a century, and also recognizes that the Tlicho had never intended to give up their right to govern themselves when they signed Treaty 11.
