Journeys to the Edge: In the Footsteps of an Anthropologist

Subarctic Ways

Subarctic Ways A Peaceful Setting We had found a serene place to do our work, so far from the bustle of twentieth-century Canada that, unless the radio was on or the mail had just arrived, we gave the outside world scant thought. After all, the Northwest Territories in those days had thirty-one square miles per person . This hideaway of ours was green with spruce, pine, tamarack, birch, aspen, and balsam poplar as far as we could see. Our settlement lay just below the confluence of two large rivers. The smaller of the two flowed in lazily, between high bluffs, from swampy lands to the east; the other was a wide, swift, cold, and turbulent river that rose at the continental divide and drained a sizable area in the northeastern Rockies. Low mountains were visible across the big river, to the west. Behind us, forested lowlands dotted with uncountable fishing lakes and scattered patches of muskeg stretched on and on for hundreds of miles. Like many communities in the north, the settlement we worked in was small and had few resident outsiders. Because our project proved to be quite intense for everyone, and because the people were wonderful about it, I think they have earned a bit of privacy; it seems appropriate to leave the place nameless to help ensure that. The community may have had a tiny population in any given season; that didn’t prevent it from looking extensive and dispersed to a newcomer . It was a mile and a half long, made up of several loose clusters of log cabins and canvas tents, these being separated and spaced by groves 130 of trees. A couple of the most distant cabins were located in forest on the far side of the river. I was unprepared to see tents in use right through the winter; this bore testimony to the toughness of the people—something about which I will say more later. There was also a small nucleus of public buildings that included a Hudson Bay store, a school, police and nursing stations, forestry buildings, a log-built community hall, the settlement manager’s office, and several government houses. Inland from the river, beyond a dense stand of young trees, a grassy firebreak served both in dry summer weather and in snow as the landing strip for bush planes. Most families spent two to nine months of the year away in the bush, so the segment of the population actually present in the settlement was usually well below its theoretical peak. Whole families went to fishing lakes for the summer; many more spent the winter months in trapline cabins and tents. Their comings and goings were timed in accordance with weather conditions: snow, ice, or dry ground was needed for easy movement on land, and open water for travel by river. Perhaps because the Dene appreciated the rewards of living in both settings—town had its social and technological richness, and the bush offered personal freedom—people gave clear signs of anticipating each move eagerly. Anyone having a vacation retreat should be able to understand this; it feels good to get away from congestion and equally rewarding to return to the usual amenities and bustle. I accompanied the young chief to his trapline on his first trip of the winter, setting out on the very day that ice on our smaller river was deemed safe to cross. A scant five miles from the settlement, he stopped, built a fire to heat a frying pan of snow for making tea, grinned at me, and summed up his feelings in two words: “No boss!” Nature’s Plenty Dr.Atkins could have developed his famous low-carb diet in the north woods. Lacking natural sources of carbohydrate, the northern Dene relied mainly on hunted food and let their bodies manufacture whatever carbohydrates they needed from the fat they ate. Even youths could tell you in which months of the year bull moose have the fattiest meat and in which months moose cows do; it is critical to know both. Fresh or dried moose meat could be found in 90 percent of the households on Subarctic Ways 131 any given day, every month of the year, with caribou, bear, and beaver meat to supplement it, or perhaps rabbit meat in a pinch. Fishing for whitefish, lake trout, northern pike, burbot, and sucker was also an activity that...