Parker's Notch

Coordinates: 69°50′N 113°25′W / 69.833°N 113.417°W / 69.833; -113.417

The map of Canada was most recently modified with the creation of Nunavut in 1999. This new territory was created by dividing the existing Northwest Territories (NWT) into two parts. The boundary between the two territories was established through a long and sometimes difficult negotiation primarily between the Aboriginal groups of the two future territories. Traditional land use was a major criterion for decisions about where the line should be drawn, and in some areas where both Dene and Inuit peoples had lived or hunted, the negotiation process was extremely complex.

Northwest of where?

The shape of the NWT has often been determined by people far from the North. The NWT was formed as a territory in 1869 when the Government of Canada purchased the North-Western Territory (Northwest of Central Canada) and Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company under the terms of the Rupert's Land Act 1868 for £300,000 British pounds. ^[1] and officially became part of Canada on July 15, 1870. The Arctic Archipelago was added in 1880, greatly expanding the area now called simply 'The Northwest Territories'. These territories were northwest of the central part of Canada, where the federal government had its home, and northwest of the previous Hudson's Bay Company's holdings. Large portions of these Northwest Territories were subsequently removed to create the provinces of Manitoba (1870), Saskatchewan (1905) and Alberta (1905); the Yukon Territory (1898); and to add to the areas of Manitoba (1880, 1912), Ontario (1912) and Quebec (1912). The most recent change to the map of the NWT occurred in 1999 with the establishment of Nunavut out of the eastern half of the NWT. For perhaps the first time, the people who live in this part of the world had a significant say in the establishment of this latest change of border.

Drawing a line on a map

On current maps of Canada, the border between the NWT and Nunavut travels down the 110th meridian west longitude from the North Pole to the central part of Victoria Island. From that point on there are several changes of direction in the line as it jogs its way toward the Manitoba–Saskatchewan border, which forms the border's southern end. There are many forces which determined exactly where this border ended up. Here we will explore a few of them.

The northern border—Inuvialuit settlement

The Inuvialuit are a group of Aboriginal people found along the shores of the Beaufort Sea (including the current communities of Sachs Harbour, Ulukhaktok, Paulatuk, Tuktoyaktuk, Inuvik and Akalavik). The Inuvialuit had never signed a treaty with the Crown. A group consisting of elders and younger Inuvialuit established an organization called the Committee for the Original People's Entitlement (COPE) to resolve the matter. In 1974, acting as a collective voice for the Inuvialuit, COPE entered into negotiations with the Crown.

After ten years of negotiations, representatives of the Crown and the Inuvialuit signed the "[Inuvialuit Final Agreement http://www.irc.inuvialuit.com/about/finalagreement.html]" or "IFA" June 5, 1984. It was the first comprehensive land claim agreement signed north of the 60th parallel and only the second in Canada at that time. The act of Parliament that implemented this agreement takes precedent over other acts inconsistent with it. The act was also protected under the Canadian Constitution in that it cannot be changed by Parliament without the approval of the Inuvialuit.

In the IFA, the Inuvialuit agreed to give up their exclusive use of their ancestral lands in exchange for certain other guaranteed rights from the Crown. The rights came in three forms: land, wildlife management and money.

The Inuvialuit would have legal control over their land (see map) with ownership of 91,000 square kilometres (35,000 sq mi) of land including 13,000 square kilometres (5,000 sq mi) with subsurface rights to oil, gas and minerals. Furthermore, the Inuvialuit established the right to hunt and harvest anywhere in the claim area, particularly as primary harvesters on certain lands known to be rich in wildlife. They also secured the responsibility for ensuring good wildlife management, becoming part of a wildlife management team with the government. With the Inuvialuit Final Agreement in 1984, the first, major part of the border we are exploring in this article was determined.

One of the more interesting pieces in this border is the 'notch' on the east-west line on Victoria Island. This notch contains Quunnguq Lake, a traditional hunting and fishing location for the people of Ulukhaktok, and was explicitly included in the IFA to protect access to this area for these people. It is an intriguing detail of the border, and gives insight to the kinds of influences which shaped the negotiations.

Once we move off the Arctic Islands we find ourselves on the mainland and begin following the border south and then west. From west of Bluenose Lake the border roughly follows the treeline in a southeasterly direction. Things get interesting around Contwoyto Lake, and that is where a whole other set of influences come into play.

As the Inuvialuit Agreement was evolving, a larger discussion of whether the Northwest Territories itself could ever meet the needs of its diverse, and dispersed, population as one huge entity was emerging. The issue of 'division' of the NWT into two territories began to move into the public arena.

As it existed prior to 1999, the NWT was a territory with a primarily (85%) Inuit eastern area and a Dene, Inuvialuit, Metis and non-Aboriginal western area. Together this territory covered 3,293,020 km² (1,271,440 sq mi)—almost one-third of the total land area of Canada—with a population of about 62,000 people. Encompassing three time zones and with the largest community in the eastern NWT (Iqaluit) closer to Montreal than to the NWT capital of Yellowknife, it was a challenging political entity to administer. How this might best be done had been discussed as far back as 1905, but took on increasing urgency in the 1960s with the Carrothers Commission.

Carrothers Commission

This Commission, led by Fred Carrothers, made recommendations which moved the NWT towards a form of responsible government that involved the citizens of the NWT as the primary decision-makers (as opposed to the previously Ottawa-appointed government that had existed for many years). One of the members of the Carrothers Commission was John Parker, of whom we will speak more later. Dividing this territory into two more cohesive pieces, while not one of the Commissions recommendations, began to gather momentum soon after its report was tabled in 1966.

The former Commissioner of the NWT who was tasked with proposing the final boundary between Nunavut and the NWT that would be acceptable to all groups involved in the border negotiations. It was a daunting task, and one that Parker was perhaps uniquely equipped to undertake.

In 1980, a Unity Committee was formed by what was now called the Legislative Assembly of the NWT to explore the options for improving the government of the existing territory. It turned out that there was more support for division of the territory than for decentralization. The 'unity' committee ended up recommending 'division' instead. In 1982 the Assembly created the Constitutional Alliance and recommended a prebiscite on division. On April 14, 1982, a territory-wide plebiscite was held: 56% of those voting were in favour of division, 44% opposed. However only 52% of voters turned out—and there was much more support for division in the eastern part of the NWT than in the west.

The Constitutional Alliance then formed the Western Constitutional Forum and the Nunavut Constitutional Forum, and serious discussions on a possible division of the NWT began. These discussions primarily involved the Inuit and Dene leaders of the territory, and their discussions focused on traditional land use by the various Aboriginal groups as the primary means of determining where any possible border would be drawn.

By late in 1986, representatives from the Tungavik Federation of Nunavut from the Inuit side, and a group of Dene-Metis leaders from the Western side reached a consensus on where a potential NWT–Nunavut boundary from the southern end of the Inuvialuit claim area to the Manitoba–Saskatchewan border might run, and in January 1987 their proposal was presented at meetings in Iqaluit. This was called the ‘Iqaluit Agreement’. While there was general agreement on where the line might go, disagreement emerged in two areas: Contwoyto Lake and the Thelon River. In both areas Dene leaders felt too much had been ceded to the Nunavut side. The Iqaluit Agreement was never ratified.

Stephen Kakfwi, later to become the Premier of the NWT, was part of the negotiations of the boundary line. Of the border discussions, Kakfwi said, 'We negotiated the longest border in the world, and succeeded'.^{[citation needed]}

The map is not the place

The NWT today covers an expanse of 1.17 million square kilometres encompassing 33 communities. As of July 2007, there were 42,637 people living in the territory, approximately half of whom are Aboriginal. There are seven Aboriginal groups included within this population, and there are 11 official languages in the territory. This makes for a complex tapestry of traditional lands and languages which is part of the story we are exploring. In such a large area, with communities from 60° north latitude all the way to just shy of 72°, there is a huge range of climate, geography and wildlife to be found. On average, the temperature in Yellowknife (capital city) is −25 degrees Celsius in January and 16 degrees Celsius in July.

Mining is alive and well in the territory. With two diamond mines in production and the possibility of a Mackenzie Valley pipeline in the not-so-distant future, mineral and petroleum development is continuing to be a cornerstone of the territory's economy. Tourism is also a large part of the economy in the NWT. Its northern lights are famous around the world, and adventure tourism has brought many sport enthusiasts to visit the land of the midnight sun.

On the political front, the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly has 19 members and functions in much the same way as a provincial legislature. However, in the NWT there are no political parties at the territorial government level. The NWT operates under the consensus system of government which means that all Members of the Legislative Assembly are elected as independents in their constituencies.

References

1. ^ Final Report of the French Constitutional Drafting Committee, Rupert's Land and North-Western Territory - Enactment No. 3

Parker, John. 1996. Arctic Power: The Path to Responsible Government in Canada’s North. Peterborough: The Cider Press.