Sahtu

The Sahtú are a Dene First Nations people of the Northwest Territories of Canada, living around Great Bear Lake and along the middle Mackenzie River. Their name comes from Sahtú, the Dene name for Great Bear Lake, the largest lake entirely within Canada. Outsiders long called them the North Slavey, and one of their groups was known in English as the Hare or Hareskin Indians.

The Sahtú are several closely related but distinct Dene communities. The K'ahsho Got'ine, once called the Hareskin Dene, centre on Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake; the Sahtúot'ine, or Bear Lake Dene, are based at Délı̨nę, near where the Bear River leaves the lake; and the Shita Got'ine, or Mountain Dene, have joined the Willow Lake Dene at Tulít'a, formerly Fort Norman. The English name "Hareskin" reflects a rendering of a Dene name about rabbit skins, while the people also call themselves Ɂehdzo Got'ı̨ne, "trap people". Métis families, descended from unions between Dene and fur traders, live in all of the region's communities.

Within living memory many Sahtú families moved with the seasons, following fish and game in a hard northern environment. One of the earliest written descriptions of Sahtú life comes from the journal of Alexander Mackenzie, who travelled down the river later named after him to the Arctic Ocean in 1789. Many people still hunt, fish and trap for part of their food, and smoke meat and fish in traditional lodges.

The twentieth century brought outside industry. Norman Wells was founded in 1920 to work the only producing oilfield in Canada's territories, and during the Second World War the United States Army built the Canol pipeline from it, which operated for less than a year. On the east side of Great Bear Lake, the Eldorado Mine at Port Radium produced uranium for the Manhattan Project, and Dene men from Délı̨nę were hired to carry the ore by barge and portage, often in cloth sacks, without being told of the risks. Délı̨nę residents believe the exposure caused cancers and early deaths; a Canadian government report disputed the scale of the harm. Peter Blow's 1999 documentary Village of Widows recorded the community's experience.

The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry recommended delaying pipeline building until Indigenous land claims were settled. In 1993 the Sahtu Dene Council signed the Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement, which defines today's Sahtu Region and gives its Dene and Métis people collective ownership of 41,437 square kilometres. Building on it, Délı̨nę negotiated a self-government agreement, and on 1 September 2016 the Délı̨nę Got'ı̨nę Government took over the roles of the former band, land corporation and community council, a structure unique in the territory.

The Sahtú speak North Slavey, an Athabaskan language with Hare, Bear Lake and Mountain dialects and around 800 speakers. North Slavey and South Slavey are official languages of the Northwest Territories. The region's five communities are Colville Lake, Fort Good Hope, Délı̨nę, Tulít'a and Norman Wells, and no all-weather road yet links them to the rest of Canada. Well-known Sahtú people include Stephen Kakfwi, ninth Premier of the Northwest Territories, and Ethel Blondin-Andrew, a former Member of Parliament for the Western Arctic.

The maps label this territory "Sahtu" and draw it in 1700 and 1715, an approximate outline around Great Bear Lake. On the 1783 map the area is shown within Rupert's Land; related pages cover the neighbouring Gwich'in, with whom many Délı̨nę families have kinship ties, and the Métis.