Fort Resolution (Aug 27/01) - Federal and territorial governments met with residents of Fort Resolution last week to clarify and update maps of the settlement, to ease the process of land selection for negotiating First Nations.

At the request of the South Slave Metis Tribal Council (SSMTC), representatives from Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA), Natural Resources Canada and DIAND met with residents to discuss land administration, applications, identification and mapping of the community.

The technical working group identified many lands which were occupied by "unauthorized users."

An unauthorized user is someone who occupies commissioner's lands without a legal tenure arrangement. There were 23 unauthorized users in the community, but many were identified during the meeting.

Land claims advisor Chris Hewitt of MACA said the community meeting was well attended and sorted out many questions about occupied lands in the community.

"When you get to the community level, you hear more of the personal, public issues," Hewitt said. "There are some land administration issues that MACA and the community need to focus on."

Many residents complained that they had applications which were years old, but they still had not had them processed. Hewitt said there are any number of reasons for the delays.

"It could be that MACA is waiting for a signature and they are in the process of contacting people on the list."

He said in many of the applications, it's just a case of getting more information from the applicant.

Since there are overlap issues with the Akaitcho First Nations and the SSMTC, lands needed to be identified to facilitate land selections when the talks reach that stage.

Gary Bailey, community negotiator for the Fort Resolution Metis, said the meeting cleared up many concerns held by residents.

"We got a good start on things here," Bailey said. "Our big concern here was all these unauthorized users. If they're really unauthorized, maybe the MACA employee didn't get the information sent in to head office."

"We understand the process now," Bailey said. "We have some unauthorized users and we have to figure out how they became unauthorized."

There may be another land workshop held in Fort Resolution this winter, but other South Slave communities have been working together with MACA to update maps.

"Fort Smith has had workshop meetings already," Hewitt said. "Hay River has been worked on this summer as well."

"It's all in the process of negotiations and it's moving along."