Deline, Northwest Territories
|
Great Bear Lake, NWT, Canada |
Délįne ("bear river") (formerly known as
Fort Franklin until
1 June,
1993) is a community on the western shore of
Great Bear Lake, in the
Northwest Territories,
Canada. It is located at , 544 km northwest of
Yellowknife.
Délįne (pronounced "DE-le-nay") has a population of 536 people (2001
Census), mainly
Sahtu Dene people speaking
North Slavey. Deline means "where the waters flow", a reference to the headwaters of the Great Bear River, Sahtu De.
The area became prominent when
pitchblende was discovered at the Eldorado Mine, some 250 km away, on the eastern shore, at
Port Radium. During
World War II, the Canadian government took over the mine and began to produce
uranium for the then-secret
American nuclear bomb project. The village, became a permanent settlement in 1952, with the building of a school.
The
Dene from Délįne, who were conscripted as ore carriers, were not informed about the risks of
radioactivity or how to protect themselves. Most of those men who participated began to die of
cancer in the 1960s.
According to oral history, while canoeing on Great Bear Lake in the early part of the 20th century, a Délįne elder reached a precipice where he had a vision of a great city burning, of people who comported First Nations features enduring great suffering. According to tradition, this precipice is where uranium was later discovered.
*
Welcome to Délįne*
Village of Widows* John Price, "Our own atomic victims,"
Victoria Times-Colonist
