Confrontation in Norman Wells Three weeks after the General Assembly ended, the Yellowknife newspaper, News of the North, published the draft of the Dene Declaration that had been discussed. It came with a stinging critique by the newspaper's publisher, Colin Alexander, who called it "... a draft plan of action for a war of liberation." The article was picked up by the newspaper in Inuvik, The Drum. There the publisher, Tom Butters, aired his opinion that the Dene Declaration had been written by a 'white' theoretical revolutionary. "The objectives are general and vague and the prose loosely structured from the Maoist, Communist lexicon, ie. creating democratic and egalitarian organizations..." The news about the Dene Declaration upset many non-Dene citizens who feared that the growing unrest might weaken the dominant role of industry and government in the communities. Days after the newspapers published their opinions, Judge Berger arrived in Norman Wells. The community had a decades-long history with the petroleum industry. Raymond Yakeleya recalls that his grandfather had seen oil seeping onto his land. "If you picked up a rock from one of the houses and threw it, the rock would land where the oil was seeping up. The Elders wanted to see what properties oil had so they'd take a little cup of oil and pour it on the fire and the fire would come up. So for many generations, our people knew about this oil." In the early 1900s, the family took a pail of the oil to the Bishop and authorized him to send it south to be analyzed. It went to Pittsburgh, where they discovered that the oil was of very high quality. But the report was never sent back to the family. "All of a sudden we saw geologists staking claims around our grandparents' houses," says Raymond. "They sent a drill rig down in 1919. My grandparents came back home one day and these white men were occupying their homes. They drilled and went down 700 feet and hit the main pool of oil." Very quickly, Norman Wells developed into a white man's town. Imperial Oil built huge oil storage tanks along the bank of the river. A pipeline followed. During World War II one of the large tanks burst, and oil flooded into the river. Thousands of ducks died. By mid-century, Norman Wells was divided between Dene families and newcomers from the south. The company store was only open to those who worked for Imperial Oil and the rule was rigorously enforced. In the 1960s, when two young Dene men from the community of Tulita drowned in a boating accident near Norman Wells, residents of Tulita travelled fifty miles downriver to search for their bodies. After a week, they ran out of food. The Chief asked the store in Norman Wells to sell food to the search party, but the manager refused. The bitterness is still palpable. Excerpted from Against the Odds: The Indigenous Justice Cases of Thomas R. Berger by Drew Ann Wake, Thomas R. Berger, Michael Jackson, Jean Teillet, Dalee Sambo Dorough All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
