SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Muriel Betsina's Ndilo yard was busy with video cameras, radio and newspaper reporters on Nov. 5.

The protest was her response to her son being told he'd have to remove his trailer from the property so public housing could be built.

Muriel Betsina and her son, Norman Betsina, are facing off with Yellowknives Dene band council over a property in Ndilo. - Aaron Beswick/NNSL photo

What followed is a tale of homes - how badly they're needed in Ndilo and what half an acre of thin soil can mean to a family. The result was Betsina staring down the Yellowknives Dene band council.

"I don't care if they come in here with a grader, they'll have to run me over," said Betsina. "This is our land."

On Tuesday, Yellowknives Dene chief executive officer John Carter was looking at a letter of apology to Betsina.

"Obviously there was a lack of consulting - we thought the housing corporation was going to do the consulting and they thought we were," said Carter. "We know there are hurt feelings here and we are going to try and find a compromise."

Carter has to find land for six housing units in Ndilo and eight in Dettah, worth about $300,000 each and paid for by the housing corporation. It means homes, on a rent to own basis, for more than 50 people in communities that haven't seen housing construction in more than five years.

"We're desperately short of affordable housing," said Carter.

Because developing new areas is costly, the council has turned to infilling existing lots. One of those lots was Betsina's, which has been in her family since her father moved into a house built on it by the federal government in 1959. But two years in a little house was too much for Eliza Blondin, who convinced her husband, Edward, that they should head back into the bush.

They turned the home over to Muriel and her husband Frank Betsina in 1961. This was before the band council or electricity came to Ndilo. While Betsina never had a deed to the bit of earth, it's where she raised children and smoked caribou, it's where she keeps memories of being a young bride.

"In those days you heard nothing but laughter, if you went fishing you brought it to your neighbours ... they were happy times."

Nine years ago the band council granted a permit to occupy the land to one of Betsina's daughters. There was no time limit to develop the land on the permit - new permits demand development within two years. There are sheds, an old smokehouse and a trailer on the property now.

At a Monday night meeting, the Yellowknives Dene band council decided to seek a compromise with Betsina by offering the unit to be built on her property to one of her relatives.

"The housing corporation are prepared to be very flexible here and so are we," said Carter.

The units are part of a plan to make people less dependent on government support. However, Carter added, the corporation is willing to change the classification of the new unit to public housing if that option is chosen by Betsina.

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