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INUVIK
Dene National Chief Bill Erasmus's message was clear at the 43rd Dene National Assembly - the Dene Nation must work together to ensure things are done right when it comes to devolution and land agreements.

Dene National Chief Bill Erasmus addresses the Dene National Assembly held in Inuvik last week.- Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo

The annual meeting, which ran from July 8 to 11, marked the first time such an assembly had been held in Inuvik since 1989.

"It's very constructive (to be here)," Erasmus said. "A lot of things have changed and developed since and we're excited to be here."

Since the last assembly, held in Whati, much has changed on the road to the devolution of lands and resources from the federal government to the territorial government.

In September, the Gwich'in Tribal Council signed the Devolution Agreement-in-Principle and in May, the Tlicho Government signed on. Last month, the final Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement was signed by the federal, territorial and aboriginal governments who had previously signed the agreement-in-principle. By next April, the agreement will fully take effect.

The Dehcho First Nations and the Akaitcho First Nation are the two remaining groups in the NWT who have not signed on, and Erasmus said in the end, devolution won't take place unless all the chiefs agree.

"One chief in this room, even one individual, has the power to stop that. We're attached to the land as individuals, then by communities, then by regions, then as a nation. That's what people have to understand. Unless you do it in the right way, it doesn't happen," he said.

"Never have we all been sitting in the same room and talking from the same interest with a collective view in mind so that this really benefits the North.

"If you have different agendas, it doesn't work. If you look at any of the agreements in the North, if people are opposed to them, it doesn't work. It's very simple. We have to take the time to explain it, and we have to take the time for people to understand it, and then say they support it. It takes very little to stop things. We're not about stopping things, we're about doing things right."

Erasmus also pointed to resource-based issues as another priority. He said

claims to coastal and continental shelf rights and ownership could be one of the next big items to be settled by national and international law.

"The United Nations is going to make a determination on who actually owns that," he said.

"They're going to go 300 miles out into the Beaufort. We don't want to be in the dispute, since we believe we've settled that in 1921 (in a treaty with Great Britain). It's Dene jurisdiction, and that's what the Canadian population needs to understand. We the Dene have more authority than the Canadian government. Those treaties protect Canadian citizens, along with those of the Dene First Nation.

"Those are huge issues, and how does all of that play out. We're not here for window dressing, and we're not here to oppose things. We're here because this is our home and we're concerned about the future."

K'atlodeeche First Nation Chief Roy Fabien was one of the primary advocates arguing for a renaissance of Dene culture. He said he and his colleagues were embarking on a campaign to pay people with traditional Dene skills to pass such skills along as an additional form of education for youth.

"For us, it's been a long struggle because we're losing our language and our culture," he said following an impassioned address to the assembly on July 10. "What's happening in our community is that everything is going in a different direction. Maybe other areas have been more successful in making the transition from Dene to modern times. For us, it's been a true struggle."

Fabian said his people have "lost the capacity" to live off the land through cultural oppression. That leaves his young people with a foot in both worlds, but unable to fully integrate in either one, he added.

"At the same time, we need to create balance in both worlds, where we can be Dene people and be able to go out on the land whenever we want and to function in this world ... We need to balance this thing so that our people can rise up, so that our participation in the modern world will be strong. That's why I'm willing now to pay our people to teach our culture. We pay teachers to teach our people to be something else, and they're not even doing it successfully."

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