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April 26, 1991

The boundary dispute between Inuit and Dene threatened to kill the dream of Nunavut. But a boundary proposal made by John Parker, a former NWT Commissioner broke the impasse.

Siddon accepts boundary compromise

JIM BELL
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — One of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of Nunavut might soon be removed.

Northern Affairs Minister Tom Siddon announced last Friday that he has accepted a special advisor's recommendation on a boundary to divide the Nunavut land claim settlement area from the various regional Dene-Metis claim areas.

If that proposal is accepted by the Tungavik Federation of Nunavut, it will form the western boundary of the Nunavut settlement area and supply one of the essential pieces needed to complete TFN's land claim negotiations.

If accepted, the land claims boundary will almost certainly be proposed by TFN and the Government of the Northwest Territories as a boundary to divide Nunavut from a new western territory.

Its acceptance by TFN would also make a territorial-wide plebiscite on a division boundary a virtual certainty. That plebsicite would be held either this year or in 1992.

John Parker, the affable former Commissioner of the Northwest Territories appointed last January to find a solution to the long-standing dispute, told Nunatsiaq News this week that his proposal is fairly close to a "final offer" made by TFN to the Dene/Metis in 1989.

He said the boundary recommendation accepted by Siddon won't make everyone happy. "I realized that it wasn't going to be possible for everyone to like it. If everybody on one side of the dispute liked it, then everyone on the other side would consider it unfair."

But Parker said it represents the best possible compromise.

Apart from giving the Dene and Metis a bit more of the Thelon Game Sanctuary, he said it differs very little from TFN's 1989 final offer.

The Thelon Game Sanctuary, which straddles the tree-line in the western section of the Keewatin, has been fought over by Inuit and Dene during the boundary dispute. The sanctuary hasn't been used much by either group in recent years, Parker said in his report to Siddon.

When it became a game sanctuary in 1927, hunting there was denied to both Inuit and Dene. While some hunting has taken place there since, Parker said normal patterns were never continued.

In his report to Siddon, Parker recommended giving a large sector in the south-west end of the sanctuary to the Dene, while the northern and eastern sections would be put in the Nunavut settlement area.

As for the unresolved issue of Contwoyto Lake, about 300 kilometres southeast of Coppermine, Parker recommended the Dene be given a "window" on the lake to reflect its traditional importance to the Dogrib people.

Parker's boundary line cuts cross Fry Inlet, an arm of Contwoyto Lake, making it part of Dene territory. The rest of Contwoyto Lake would remain in the Nunavut settlement area.

He said access to mineral resources in the Contwoyto Lake area was not a factor in the boundary dispute. Lupin Mine, a valuable gold-producing property south of Coppermine, will stay on the Inuit side of the boundary.

Parker also said he made a small adjustment in a section of the boundary line just northwest of Contwoyto Lake to give Inuit water access to Itchen Lake.

Siddon's special advisor had no recommendations to make about a third bone of contention between Dene and Inuit, which involves claims to the southern Keewatin by Chipewyan bands from Northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Dene Nation has been supporting those Chipewyan claims.

But Parker noted that Chipewyan from Manitoba and Saskatchewan already have hunting, fishing and trapping rights in the NWT, and that the territorial government has made provisions for them in its wildlife regulations.

He did advise, though, that negotiations on overlapping land use continue between Dene/Metis, the Inuit, and the Chipewyan of the provinces. "The satisfactory and meaningful implementation of claims settlements will depend upon the continued sharing of the recources of the land, and the recognition that the boundary is not intended to be a barrier to ongoing relationships," Parker warned in his report.

The unresolved land claims boundary dispute didn't receive much public attention until 1987, when it became a serious impediment to division of the Northwest Territories and the creation of Nunavut.

In January of that year, constitutional negotiators from the eastern and western NWT meeting in Iqaluit agreed that the line dividing tht two land claim areas would also be used as a political boundary between Nunavut and a new western territory.

In 1986, Inuit and Dene/Metis negotiators had come up with an agreement-in-principle on a land claims boundary. But after the signing of the Iqaluit agreement, Dene chiefs refused to ratify the 1986 land claims boundary and progress towards division of the NWT ground to a halt.

The land claims boundary squabble has continued ever since.

In January of this year, Siddon appointed Parker as a special advisor and gave him the job of finding a compromise between the two sides. Although the Dene-Metis final land claim agreement has fallen apart, the Inuit agreement cannot go forward unless a boundary is set.

As well, recent agreements between TFN and GNWT reaffirm the use of the land claim boundary as a political boundary between the two territories. They have also agreed that a plebisicite among territorial residents should be held to ratify it.

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