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Authority record
Robshaw, Tish
Person

Letitia "Tish" Robshaw (nee Ryan) was born on January 15, 1913 in Chapeau, Quebec. After attending schools in Sudbury, Pembroke and Chapeau, she moved to Yellowknife in September 1954 to begin teaching at St. Patrick School. She remained at St. Patrick School until the summer of 1956 when she moved to Fort Resolution. She married Barry (Robbie) Robshaw, who she met in Yellowknife in 1958.After teaching in Fort Resolution from 1957 to 1960, she then returned to St. Patrick School where she remained until the summer of 1964. In 1964, she returned to Chapeau, Quebec. When they left the north, they moved to Hull, Quebec where they lived until the 1980s. They retired to Victoria, British Columbia but spent summers in Chapeau, Quebec. She died in October 1991.

Corporate body

Until 1964, all Girl Guides of Canada activities in the Northwest Territories were under the jurisdiction of either the Alberta Council that controlled Girl Guide activities in the Western Arctic, or the Quebec Council that oversaw activities in the Franklin and Keewatin Districts. In 1965, after lobbying from Local Guiding Associations within the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, the Girl Guides of Canada organization created the Yukon and Northwest Territories Council, which assumed responsibility for all guiding activities throughout the Northwest Territories and Yukon.

In 1965, there were 64 groups of guides and\or brownies in the Northwest Territories and Yukon with a combined membership of 1,200. In 1966, the Yukon Territory was organized into one division with two districts and the Northwest Territories divided into three divisions: Mackenzie Division, Franklin Division and Keewatin Division. By 1968, the Yukon Division was still organized into two administrative districts, which had a combined membership of 350. The Northwest Territories Division had been sub-divided into eight districts with a combined membership of 1,356. The Northwest Territories districts were: Yellowknife, Great Slave Rapids, Southern Slave, Arctic Circle, Nunakput, Keewatin, Frobisher Bay and Baffin.

In 1974, the Yukon and Northwest Territories Council was divided into two distinct entities, the Yukon Council and the Northwest Territories Council. At that time, the Northwest Territories Council reorganized its districts, creating four new administrative divisions: Great Slave, Eastern Arctic, Midnight Sun and Keewatin. In 1983, the Keewatin Division was renamed the Central Arctic Division. In 1985, the Nunakput Division was created. In 1986, the Northwest Territories Council organized its activities into five administrative divisions: Kivaliq, Midnight Sun, Nunakput, Great Slave Lake and Eastern Arctic. In 1988, the Northwest Territories Council reorganized its divisions again, creating the Eastern Arctic, South Great Slave, North Great Slave, Kivaliq, Midnight Sun and Kitikmeot Divisions. In 1990, the Northwest Territories Council again reorganized its administrative body, creating the following divisions: Eastern Arctic, North Great Slave, South Great Slave, Kitikmeot and Midnight Sun.

Cook, Henry G.
Person

Henry George Cook was born on October 12, 1906 in Walthamstow, England. At the age of 23, he began his studies for the ministry at Huron College and the University of Western Ontario, where he obtained a degree in theology and a Bachelor of Arts degree. Cook met fellow student Opal May Thompson who became his wife on June 4, 1935 in St. Thomas ON. She passed away in 1987. Cook began his ministry in 1935 in the Northwest Territories at Fort Simpson. He later became archdeacon of James Bay and in 1949 became superintendent of the Indian School Administration in Ottawa, which oversaw Anglican residential schools. The position lasted 15 years and in 1963 Cook was consecrated as the first bishop suffragan of the Diocese of the Arctic with responsibilities for the Athabasca district and later the Mackenzie River area district. After his retirement in 1974, he assisted in establishing the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. The centre opened in 1979 and the NWT Archives Reading Room is named in Cook's honour. In 1979, Cook finally retired to Stittsville, Ontario. He died in Ottawa, Ontario on October 18, 1995.

Wood, Raymond (family)
Family

Raymond and Mildred Wood were amateur botanists interested in photographing and collecting flowers indigenous to the Arctic. They made four trips to the north between 1956 and 1959 the first being to Churchill, Manitoba. They also visited Baker Lake, Coppermine and Herschel Island, Yukon. They left Edmonton in June 24, 1959 and after spending several days at the school residence in Aklavik, arrived at Herschel Island on July 2, 1959. During their stay, they lived with the officers stationed at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) detachment. They left Herschel Island on July 17, 1959. The purpose of the trip was to photograph and collect flowers that grew on the island.

White, Wendell
Person

Wendell White's research into Nahanni history began as a classroom social studies project while he was teaching in the village of Nahanni Butte from 1978 to 1980. The project intended to provide the students with knowledge of their Dene traditions and culture. Village elders were recorded telling their stories and answering questions in the classroom. Recordings were also made of interviews outside the classroom. Mr. White collected other materials such as interviews with Euro-Canadian inhabitants of Nahanni, concerning their relation to the local native population. The intention was to turn the completed project over to the Government of the Northwest Territories Department of Education, but this was not pursued due to the size and the cost of the project. In 1984, Wendell White approached Parks Canada with the material. The result was "The Birth of Nahanni--"Nahande Beguli: A local History of the People of Nahanni Butte" by Wendell White, published by Environment Canada, Parks, Ottawa, 1984.

Daws, Velma
Person

Velma Ursula Daws (nee MacDonald) was born in Manitoba in 1926. She attended the Manitoba Normal School for seven years and then spent three years training to be a nurse at Grace Hospital. She graduated as a Registered Nurse in 1959. In 1959, she moved to Inuvik and worked as a teacher at Sir Alexander Mackenzie School until 1971. In 1971, she left the north with her husband, Reginald, who was a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force. After leaving the north in 1971, Velma Daws resumed her nursing career. Velma and her husband retired to Yorkton, Saskatchewan in the late 1980s.

Corporate body

On October 23, 1979, a group of individuals concerned with northern content in the Northwest Territories education system met and established themselves as the Great River Cultural Resources Committee. Committee members felt that the Department of Education was not living up to its responsibilities to have materials on the history and culture of the Dene included in curriculum. This ad hoc body defined its purpose as being "to aid in providing assistance, organization and policy development for community cultural groups." The intent of the group was to encourage groups in the communities to produce information packets on local history which might be utilized by their schools in creating a greater sense of cultural awareness. The last meeting of the Committee appears to have been in 1980.

Fort Resolution (NT)
Corporate body

Fort Resolution achieved settlement status on April 1, 1988.

Coutts, Robert
Person

Robert A. Coutts was born in Elmvale, Ontario in 1896. He worked as a prospector and a miner in the Great Bear Lake region of the Northwest Territories between 1932 and 1934. He spent the remainder of his working life in the mining industry and went on to manage mines in northern Quebec and in the United States. He died in Whitby, Ontario in 1981. His son, Robert C. Coutts, passed away in January 2004.

Corporate body

In the early 1980s, the community of Fort Resolution began developing programmes dedicated to preserving both the use of the Chipewyan language and the history of their elders. Although a Chipewyan language programme was established in the local school, the community council decided that they needed to record the recollections of their elders before that knowledge was lost forever. The Deninoo (Fort Resolution) Community Council then sought funding from the Local Education Authority and the Government of the Northwest Territories to finance the project. A list of all community residents over the age of 60 was compiled and people over 80 years of age, who were sick, were selected to be interviewed first. Eighteen elders were finally chosen: Harold Balsillie; Philip Buggins; Virginie Beaulieu; Virginie Calumet; Fred Dawson; Isidore Edjericon; Albert Fabien; Caroline Fabien; Joe Fabien; Rose Fabien; Judith Giroux; Pierre Hilaire; Joseph Jerome; Francois King; Mary Louise King; Victor Lafferty; George Sanderson; and Noel Yelle. A questionnaire was designed which was broken down into thirteen modules: Section I: Demography; Section II: Social and family structure; Section III: Spiritual activities; Section IV: Lifestyle; Section V: Alcohol; Section VI: Health; Section VII: Government; Section VIII: The Mission; Section IX: Wage Economy; Section X: Communications; Section XI: Legends, stories, and local wisdom; Section XII: Geography\weather; and Section XIII: Highlights. Each of the interviews was based on the format established in the questionnaire. In the summer of 1984, five interviews were conducted. In 1985, after receiving funding from the Government of the Northwest Territories, a further twelve elders were interviewed. The interviewers were Doris Beck, Mary Rose Boucher, Elizabeth Giroux, Frederick Lafferty and Dora Unka, and the translators were Mary Rose Boucher, Dora Cardinal and Frederick Lafferty. Joe Fabian eventually withdrew his consent for the release of the material gathered during the interviews with him. That material was returned to the Fort Resolution Community Education Council. From the information gathered during the interviews, a book "That's the Way We Lived" was published in 1987.

Pelly, David
Person

David Pelly was born on June 19, 1948 in Toronto, Ontario. He obtained his BSc in Math and Physics from Royal Military College and a BA in Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto. He came north in 1977 to travel, which led to contact with and an interest in the people, culture and history of the land. He has visited almost every community in Nunavut, however, his research has concentrated on the Keewatin (Kivalliq) and Kitikmeot Regions. David Pelly received funding from Parks Canada to do an oral history project on the Wager Bay region. He interviewed residents of Chesterfield Inlet, Coral Harbour, Rankin Inlet and Repulse Bay. Between 1995-96, he initiated a project to record oral histories with the elders in Cambridge Bay (Mount Pelly Territorial Park Project).

Jackson, Susan
Person

Susan Jackson (formerly Susan Milligan) moved to Yellowknife in 1965 to work for the federal government. She developed a personal interest in the history of Yellowknife, and in 1983 became the City's coordinator for the 1984 Yellowknife Homecoming, a 50th anniversary celebration of the founding of the community. As a result of gathering materials for this project, she founded the Yellowknife Local History Project. In 1986, Susan moved to Sechelt, British Columbia, with the materials she had collected for the Yellowknife Homecoming and the Yellowknife Local History Project, There she began compiling and editing the materials for a book entitled "Yellowknife, N.W.T.: An Illustrated History." Susan Jackson was an active participant in many community groups and was involved in founding an organization dedicated to establishing a search and rescue operation in the Northwest Territories.

Ayrhart, James
Person

James Ernest "Ernie" Ayrhart was born in Campbellford, Ontario circa 1898. He married Mildred Dale of Brampton, Ontario in 1945. He was a prospector whose first experiences and successes occurred in northern Quebec. He was later convinced to travel to Yellowknife and explore mining possibilities in the Northwest Territories. During his time in Yellowknife, Mr. Ayrhart became distressed by the extreme costs of flying in the north. In an effort to prove that Canadian Pacific Airlines (CPA) was over charging for its services, Mr. Ayrhart purchased a DC3, which he called the Yellowknife Express. Charging about one half the rates of CPA, the Yellowknife Express flew passengers and freight to Grande Prairie, Peace River, Fort Rae, Yellowknife and Norman Wells. Having shown that air travel could be run less expensively, Mr. Ayrhart sold the Yellowknife Express to CPA on the express conditions that their rates be reduced. After leaving the north, Ayrhart returned to Quebec where he again became involved with the mining industry. Ernie Ayrhart passed away in 1993.

Corporate body

The Lac La Martre Community Education Committee is a local, elected body in Wha Ti that determines school policies and directions in relation to the community on matters not directly affected by the Education Act. At the time of this project, the members of the committee were Menton Mantla (Chairman), Jimmy Rabesca, Johnny Nitsiza, Alphonse Simpson, Joe Zoe Fish, and Dora Mantla (Secretary/Treasurer).

La Flair, Jack
Person

Alvin Jack La Flair was born in Ogdensberg, New York on June 14, 1891. He left home in 1906 and found work in Wyoming on sheep and cattle ranches. In 1910, after a trip south to the Panama Canal and back to Ogdensberg, he began to gather horses in Montana and in 1914, he drove his small herd of horses to Alberta and then continued to move North. In the Spring of 1915, Jack and a business partner named Maloote arrived at Fort Smith where they were warned by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to turn back as they had not brought the required year's worth of supplies. Disregarding this warning, LaFlair and his partner continued to paddle up the Liard River and spent that winter trapping and hunting on the South Nahanni. Maloote left the North in the Spring of 1916, however, Jack stayed in the area and eventually reported that he had stayed in the North to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They allowed him to remain in Canada and La Flair became a licenced independent trader in the region. His original store was at the foot of the Splits; he later moved, building a trading post and house on the west side of the Liard just north of the mouth of the South Nahanni. Jack may have been the first trader at this location. To avoid confusion with the North Nahanni, he coined the area "Nahanni Butte". Jack La Flair remained in the area as a permanent resident, trapping and providing for the region as an independent trader until he suffered a heart attack and died while chopping wood on October 17, 1950 and was buried near his cabin. Jack was survived by his common-law wife, Emmerance Paquette and his son Alvin Paquette. His trading post was taken over by Gus Kraus, who ran it until May 1951. Emmerance left the area after Jack's death.

Corporate body

The Yellowknife Toastmistress Club was established in 1968 as a local club (charter No. 1798) in Council 6, Glacier Region of the International Toastmistress Club (ITC). Founder of the Club, Jane McAskill, had previously been a member of the Canadian Summit and Edmonton Toastmistress Clubs and served as the Club’s first President until elections were held in December 1968.

ITC’s objectives, adopted by the local club, included improving members through study, practice in conversation, speech, group leadership, and analytical thinking; fostering a better appreciation of public speaking; and stimulating community service and responsible citizenship. The Club’s elected officers included a President, 1st Vice President, 2nd Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Club Representative, who each held office for a term of six months.

Executive members from 1968 to 1972 included: Margaret Robinson, Jean Hodgkinson, Viama Pohlak, Ruth Smith, Marvel Barton, Judy Zimmerman, Joy Pearson, Didi Woolgar, Trudy Verhappen, Goldie Lowell, Ann deWeerdt, Pat Nikiforow, Christel Kwaterowsky, Cathie Monroe, Jackie Heileson, Ann Campbell, Geneva Richardson, Jo MacQuarrie, Adina Penner, Elaine Kasteel, Margot Koepke, Betty Thomas, Christine Legagneur, and Catherine Lovell.

Until 1972, Club met on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at the Yellowknife Public School. Besides their regular meetings, the Club also hosted occasional dinner meetings, speech contents for their members, and workshops and seminars. During the NWT Centennial Year, they also sponsored trophies for the winners of Centennial Speech Contests at Yellowknife Public School and St. Patrick High School.

By the end of 1973, several members had left the community and the club appears to have almost entirely ceased operations. According to a former member, the remaining members were folded into the local Toastmasters Club.

Inuvik Dene Band Council
Corporate body

Established in 1980, the Inuvik Dene Band Council represented its members as well as other native people who were having difficulties with the law, social development, or housing authorities. Originally financed by the Dene Nation and special fund raising activities, the Inuvik Dene Band sought to establish a program of economic development opportunities. In order to fulfill the designs of this program of economic development East - 3 Denuit Inc. was incorporated on September 3, 1983 and acted as the corporate arm of the Dene Inuvik Band Council.

Spry, Irene
Person

Irene M. Spry (nee Biss) was born in South Africa. She graduated from Cambridge with a degree in economics and political science and did her post-graduate work in social economics at Bryn Mawr. In 1935, she traveled to the north to study electrical development. Her travels took her to Cameron Bay on Great Bear Lake, Aklavik, Fort Yukon, Dawson City and down the coast to Vancouver. She lectured in economics at the University of Toronto and retired in Ottawa, Ontario.

Rysgaard, George
Person

Dr. George Nelson Rysgaard was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 28, 1917. He received an undergraduate degree in science from the Hamline University and graduated with an M.S. from Michigan State in 1941. From 1941 to 1946, Rysgaard served in the U.S. Army. After his military service, he entered medical school, interned at the Minneapolis General Hospital and maintained a private practice in Northfield, Minnesota from 1951 until his retirement in 1985. Dr. Rysgaard has held a life-long interest in natural history. During his college years, he was an assistant at the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum of Natural History. In 1937, he helped establish the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union. Following his graduation from Hamline University, Rysgaard continued to work at the Bell Museum teaching programs in ornithology and mammalogy. Rysgaard made four trips to the Northwest Territories: Great Bear Lake and Tree River in 1966, Colville Lake in 1968, Victoria Island in 1969 and the Thelon River in 1970. Although the trips were primarily recreational, Dr. Rysgaard also recorded his interest in the natural history of the areas with slide and film.

Day, Harry
Person

Harry L. Day, born on July 4, 1880, entered Wycliffe College in Toronto in 1905 in preparation for the Anglican ministry. In 1907, he married Elizabeth Albinia Marshall and together they traveled to Fort Simpson. Between 1907 and 1909, Harry and Elizabeth Day assisted Archdeacon J.B. Lucas, the Anglican minister responsible for Fort Liard, Fort Norman and Fort Wrigley. In 1909, Day was appointed to St. Saviour's Anglican parish in Vermilion, Alberta, where he spent the next two years. In 1911, the Days settled outside of Elk Point, Alberta to homestead. Harry Day remained there until his death on July 21, 1964.