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Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services
Residents believe soiled land and cancer are the legacy of Port Radium, the site of a uranium mine called Eldorado, which churned out the radioactive metal from the 1930s until the 1940s. The mine was near Cameron Bay on Great Bear Lake, about 250 kilometres northeast of Tulita.
The community wants compensation and the uranium cleaned up.
"We are in the midst of gathering more information (about the uranium in and around the community)," said Jimmy Mendo, vice-president of the land corporation. "We feel the federal government is responsible."
The community hired a lawyer in November to begin negotiations with the federal government. The two sides have met.
Vancouver-based lawyer Mike Carroll said he believe uranium caused the high cancer rates residents say afflict the community.
"In my mind there is no doubt it's connected," said Carroll, who will begin talks with the Ottawa soon. He plans to seek compensation for families affected by cancer and develop a partnership for a cleanup similar to what was done in Deline, where many uranium miner lived.
Last fall an atomic waste management organization travelled to Tulita and continued to clean up ore left over from 1992 and piled up near the airport under a plastic tarp and dirt.
Glenn Case, manager of engineering for the low-level radiation management office that conducted the cleanup, said a strategy to deal with the piled uranium is in the works.
There are no storage facilities in Canada," he said.
The office is an arm of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and receives direction from Natural Resources Canada. It was established in 1982 to clean up the uranium shipping trail from Port Radium to Port Hope, Ont., on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, from where uranium was shipped to the United States.
When Port Radium was in operation, Tulita was used as a depot for uranium because of its place near the intersection of the Mackenzie and the Great Bear River. When the mine shut down, people built homes along the banks of the Mackenzie where the uranium depots once stood.
Eldorado opened in 1932 and produced radium, which was used for cancer treatments.
Uranium was discarded as a byproduct, until the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb during Second World War created a need. It was scooped from the bay and shipped down the rivers to Fort McMurray, Alta., and sent by rail to Fort Hope, Ont.
Gordon Yakeleya, president of the Tulita land corporation, believes uranium contributed to the deaths of members of his family. He said his father built a log cabin in the area and died from cancer when Yakalea was still young.
Yakeleya said his mother died from stomach cancer six years ago and his 26-year-old son died from lung cancer last year.
"It's in the dust by the banks," said Yakeleya. "We played in it as children because the dust was really fine."
He said he wants solid answers to his gut feeling.
Sometime between 1943 and 1944, Tulita elder Victor Menacho loaded gunny sacks full of uranium onto barges for four months at the Bennett field portage, 30 kilometres east of Tulita on the Great Bear River.
Menacho said darkish powder seeped through the burlap sacks and stained his clothes. "When it got on coins it turned them black."
Menacho said many of his friends who worked with him died from cancer.
Yakeleya said Bennett field was once a traditional gathering place full of berries and a great fishing spot.
It's all poisoned now, he said.
"It should be cleaned up they should compensate the people," said Menacho. "They never told the people what they were handling and we lost a lot of elders."
