Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to read a quote from an elder. “When a community does something together, that community is very happy, jubilant, connected and unified. …(inaudible)…” Larry Atkin, Chipewya.
The Aboriginal people have always been able to adapt. If the hunting changed, we found new hunting grounds. If the earth changed, we moved to a better place. If the river changed course, we followed the river. But with every change, we kept our Aboriginal values and culture and our spirituality. Our culture and our spirituality have always been our strength. Our culture and our spirituality taught us to live in harmony. We must change with the times, but we must maintain our culture and spirituality and always live in harmony.
Last week I had the pleasure of viewing very old footage that was taken in 1957 or so with some of the Members from the Assembly here. It was a film of the Sahtu Shuhagot’ine people. Jean Michea had that film and he came up to the Northwest Territories in 1957 to study the oil development in Norman Wells. Apparently this young fellow at the time went with the Shuhagot’ine to the mountains and to the Keele River with his camera and shot some footage of the Mountain Indians. In 1995 Tom Andrew began the fishing task of finding this footage. This is 25 minutes of early life in Yellowknife and Norman Wells and in the mountains and Tulita. The Shuhagot’ine people in Tulita saw this film and they were jam packed and they were very happy.
We saw the film, a truly emotional picture for me as I saw some people I remembered in the film. I’d like to thank this gentleman, Chris Fletcher, for helping in being the key and for bringing this film back to the Northwest Territories.
From moose skin boats to jet boats, we in the Sahtu are still the same inside. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
