by Arthur Milnes
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (Oct 17/97) - Heading back south. That's what a southern-based company granted a mineral-exploration permit by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is said to have done late last week near Fort Providence.

The permit, issued to a Jane Lind, according to DIAND, provoked a negative response from Deh Gah Got'ie Dene Council in Fort Providence.

Though hotly denied by DIAND, the Fort Providence First Nation's leadership said the permit was issued without local consultation.

During the weekend of Oct. 4, a party from Fort Providence, led by Chief Joachim Bonnetrouge, camped out on the lands and undertook traditional activities as a way of showing opposition to the permit.

Contacted Monday, Chief Bonnetrouge says the company packed up and headed home last Thursday.

There was no contact between the two groups, he said.

"The eight of us went up there (near the Horn River) and set up camp," he said. "(We) started doing some exploring ourselves.... Last Thursday, the (company staff) were in the midst of dismantling their camp."

"What we set out to do was to create a presence and we've done that and we started building a cabin there."

Bonnetrouge also said that elders in the party helped begin the work of identifying spiritual sites on lands which claimed by the First Nation. And the mobilization helped the Deh Gah Got'ie Dene reinforce the northern boundary to the lands they have long claimed, the chief said.

In the future, however, Bonnetrouge said a different sort of plan needs to be in place across the region.

"In our community and region we need to develop some sort of contingency plan (aimed at) expressing our interests and protecting the land," he said. "We need a plan so if we need to do that again, the money and resources will be there."

Last week, DIAND's director of operations, Floyd Adlem, said the lack of land, resource and self-government agreements in the Deh Cho is forcing his department to deal with such applications under existing regulations and policies.