Yellowknife (Oct 16/06) - "She said, 'I want it back.'"

Though laughter pealed through the small entourage of elders and curators, there was a certain tension in the air, about 150 years in the making.

People from around the North look at We Live Securely by the Land, a display of Dene artifacts at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, in Yellowknife, on loan from the National Museums of Scotland. - Adam Johnson/NNSL photo

Behchoko's Mary Zoe-Chocolate was translating for a group of elders as they explored We Live Securely by the Land, an exhibit of 19th-century Dene artifacts from the National Museums of Scotland at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife.

"It just makes me feel proud, like butterflies in my stomach," she said of the exhibit.

The pieces came from traders who had visited Fort Rae, and other locations around the North, including Lutsel K'e and Wekweeti, more than 150 years ago.

The pieces have been preserved on the other side of the Atlantic ever since.

They included full summer and winter outfits, made with caribou and moose hides, as well as drinking tubes, pipes and other articles of daily Dene life, all incredibly well-preserved.

"It's very impressive that people did this kind of work with their hands," said Tlicho grand chief George Mackenzie as he examined the exhibits. "I'm glad so many people came out to see them."

Margaret Mackenzie a Dogrib translator who lives in Yellowknife, said she had been anticipating the exhibit.

"It's my culture, my people," she said.

"I wanted to see what shape it was in after (150 years)."

Meanwhile, the elders moved briskly from exhibit to exhibit, offering insights and the odd joke about the displays while also joking with their guide, curator Tom Andrews.

Andrews said the exhibit would be in place until December 2007.

He said the museum planned to send the exhibits to their communities of origin around the NWT in the spring.

The elders admired photography projected on the back wall of the exhibit.

Zoe-Chocolate reflected on what the exhibit meant to her.

She said she was raised on the land near Rae, and was allowed to live a more-or-less traditional life.

She learned to sew, a skill that she only started to pick up once she left that life.

"It makes me proud that I grew up that way," she said of the exhibit.

Looking off at the elders brought a smile to her face.

"They're happy," she said. "It brings them joy."