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Authority record
Hurst, Jack
Person

Jack Knowles Hurst, a captain with the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps, accompanied a 'cat train' loaded with transformers for the Snare River Hydro Dam Project to study the difficulties of winter transport. The transformers were moved from Yellowknife to Snare Lakes in the 1947-1948 season. Corporal W. Mahon and Corporal D.D. Hopkinson, of the RCAF, accompanied Hurst on the 300-mile journey across Great Slave Lake.

Stewart, Sandy
Person

Sandy Stewart was a prospector who worked in northern Alberta and the Yellowknife area between 1936 and 1943. He moved to Yellowknife in 1939 with his wife Hazel and lived on Latham Island. Roy Stewart, son of Hazel and Sandy was born while they were living in Yellowknife. Sandy Stewart was one of the men to discover gold on Norite Bay, Lake Athabasca in January 1937.

Tait, Reginae
Person

Reginae M. Tait was born July 9, 1910 at Watford, Ontario, the daughter of Richard Homer and Lily Mae (nee Williamson) Stapleford. She was educated at London Normal School 1930-31 and at the University of Western Ontario, where she enrolled as an undergraduate focussing on art specialist courses. She married George Tait August 31, 1938, having a son, Gary Tait. Reginae Tait was a teacher/art supervisor at the Gordon McGregor School in Windsor, Ontario (1931-1938). At the same time she was highly active in various endeavours in Windsor including: being President of the Jr. Mary Grant Society (1934-1936), being President of the Women Teachers Federation (1935-1936), as a soloist at the Central United Church (1934-1938) and as an art instructor for summer and evening courses for teachers. Reginae Tait served as Assistant Director of the Anglo-American School in Bogota, Colombia from 1941-1944. She was President of the Bedford Park Home and School Association (1956-1957), Program Chairman of the Toronto Home and School Association (1957-1959), and National President of the I.O.D.E.(1970-1972 - Hononary National Vice-President. 1973-). Reginae Tait had founded the first NWT chapter of the I.O.D.E in Yellowknife previously. The Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire Prize Books for Children of the Far North was organized in 1960 by the National Education Department as a pilot project in eleven schools. Five hundred dollars was assigned for the purchase of books and the Principals of the schools were permitted to make their own selection of books. In 1961, the project was enlarged so that all 56 schools in the Arctic and Mackenzie District received prize books. The books were awarded as prizes for achievement in school subjects, sports, cooperation, good study habits and artistic ability. As a result of being awarded books, the children were asked to write letters to the IODE to thank them for the prizes. A pen pal program emerged that encouraged the children to write and receive letters, as well as improved the writing skills of the children. In her time as I.O.D.E. president, Ms. Tait initiated and completed a project which aided premature babies by raising funds to purchase incubators for all hospitals and nursing stations in the Yukon and NWT. In 1971, she commenced an I.O.D.E. program to help deaf Inuit children. Reginae and George Tait accompanied Commissioner Stuart Hodgson on his 'working journeys' throughout the NWT (1972-1974). In 1974, the Tait's were members of a Franklin Probe expedition to the far north. Ms. Tait received the Queen's Jubilee Medal in 1977.

Marshall, Fraser
Person

John Fraser Marshall was born in Toronto on January 26, 1917.

After graduating from Central Technical High School with a diploma in Aircraft Meachanics in the fall of 1936, he was given the opportunity to got north as the flight engineer for Bill McDonough, a bush pilot based in Yellowknife. Bill McDonough, who flew supplies to prospecting camps located in the Great Slave Lake area wastaking an aircraft from Toronto to Yellowknife.

Fraser Marshall flew in the north from 1938 to 1939. With the onset of World War II, he enlised in the Ferry Command and moved to Montreal, Quebec. He flew missions from Montreal through the war, on routes varying from the North Atlantic runs though Gander over to the United Kingdom to the southern passages through Bermuda and across the Atlantic to North Africa and as far east as Pakistan.

Fraser Marshall passed away in Toronto on January 8, 1978.

Hanson, Sam
Person

Sam Hansen, originally Knut Wiseth, grew up in Norway. He changed his name when he moved to Canada. He moved to Yellowknife in the late 1930s and stayed through most of the 1940s. Prior to moving to Yellowknife he lived in Goldfields, Saskatchewan and in the Great Bear Lake area.

Geological Survey of Canada
Corporate body

In September 1841, the Legislature of the Province of Canada (the area that is now the southern parts of Ontario and Quebec) passed a resolution "that a sum not exceeding 1,500 sterling be granted to Her Majesty to defray the probable expense in causing a Geological Survey of the Province to be made." This resolution gave birth the following year to the Geological Survey of Canada (known widely as the Survey or GSC), Canada's first scientific agency and one of its oldest government organizations. The decision to undertake a geological survey was based on the realization that the development of a competitive industrial economy in Canada would depend on a viable mining industry. It was necessary to conduct a geological assessment to determine if Canada had the resource base to support such an industry.

William Edmond Logan was appointed the Survey's first director on April 14, 1841. One of the most important accomplishments of the Survey under Logan was the publication in 1863 of the Geology of Canada, a 983-page book, which represented all of the work the Survey had accomplished up to that date.

By the time of Confederation in 1867, the Geological Survey was widely recognized as the main contributor to the establishment of a viable mining industry in Canada, yet the Survey had performed its job without any funding stability. Finally, the government recognized the Survey's importance, and it was moved from Montreal to the new capital, Ottawa to be closer to other government organizations and Parliament.

With Alfred Selwyn, following in Logan's footsteps, the next surge of exploratory surveys took place in the west and the north. A larger staff was required and with newly secured funding, Selwyn was able to build up his staff from six parties in the field in 1870 to fourteen in 1890. That same year, Parliament passed an act making the Geological Survey a separate department of the government, reporting to the Minister of the Interior. The act also stipulated that scientific officers of the Survey should have post-secondary training in science.

In 1895, after 26 years as Director, George M. Dawson succeeded Selwyn. Dawson was permanently recognized for his contributions to the exploration of northern British Columbia and the Yukon; Dawson City was named in his honour. Dawson died suddenly in 1901 and was replaced by Robert Bell, whose association with the Survey went back to 1857. Under Bell's leadership, increasing attention was paid to the mineral potential of the country; Survey reports of the period looked at nickel and copper deposits, oil field and gold deposits. Albert P. Low succeeded Bell in 1906 and served as Director for 18 months before being struck by severe illness. Low's most significant scientific work was his study of the Labrador Peninsula in 1895-1896 and leading the Canadian Government Expedition to Hudson Bay and the Arctic Islands. On an administrative level, Low oversaw the creation of the Department of Mines in 1907 when the Mines Act was passed by Parliament. The new department included the Geological Survey and the Mines Branch, an organization set up six years earlier to compile mining statistics and publicize opportunities in Canadian mining.

Reginald Brock was Low's successor in 1907 and under his leadership, the Geological Survey became a training ground for the Canadian geoscience community. Special emphasis was given to Precambrian geology and Low also created a separate topographical unit that would prepare the maps needed as a base for geological information. The topographical unit left the Survey in 1947, but remains closely linked as part of Energy, Mines and Resources Canada.

William Collins took over the survey in 1920, under Charles Camsell, the newly appointed head of the Department of Mines. In 1936, the departments of Mines, Interior, Immigration and Colonization and Indian Affairs were amalgamated into a single organization headed by Camsell-the new Department of Mines and Resources. World War II spawned many new technologies that changed the world and placed new demands on the Survey. High priority was given to Survey field and laboratory work related to locating and evaluating uranium. The post-war period also saw, for the first time, the Survey contributing geological information and expertise to aid in the construction of large-scale pubic works projects such as the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Red River floodway around Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 1959, the Survey also established a specialized marine geology research group to accommodate growing interest in Canada's huge offshore area.

In 1966, Parliament created the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources of which the Geological Survey of Canada today is part. The new department carried on the scientific responsibilities of its predecessor, the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, but through its new mandate to plan Canada's energy needs, it was transformed into an important policy-making department. Because of this new focus on energy policy, the Survey became heavily involved in resource appraisal.

From the 1970s to the present, the Survey has been involved in a variety of projects, such as terrain mapping concentrated mainly along the Mackenzie Valley pipeline route, the polar gas corridor of west Hudson Bay and in the Arctic Islands. Results of the Survey were used to evaluate the environmental impact of development in these areas. Other initiatives included the provision of geoscientific information about Canada's ocean resources, involvement in LITHOPROBE, a deep earth study geoscientific research program, a national mapping program and working closely with provinces and territories on a range of geoscience surveys and mapping projects in an effort to stimulate regional economic development.

Joseph Burr Tyrrell was born in Weston, Ontario on November 1, 1858. Following studies at the University of Toronto, Tyrrell received a position with the Geological Survey of Canada. His first field experience came under the tutelage of Dr. A.R.C. Selwyn in the Rocky Mountains. In 1893, Tyrrell led an expedition for the Geological Survey of Canada from Lake Athabasca to Chesterfield Inlet via Selwyn Lake, the Dubawnt River and the Thelon River.

Busse, Henry
Person

Hans Heinrich Maximilian (Henry) Busse was born in Germany in 1896. A veteran of WWI, he studied agriculture at Bonn University. He was married for a brief period in the 1920s but separated from his wife after a few years, with whom he had one daughter. He immigrated to Canada in 1927 and worked at a number of farms and businesses through western Canada. In 1939 he was interned as an enemy alien as he did not yet have his naturalization papers. Released in 1943, he eventually got work as a pipefitter's helper at Eldorado Mining and Refining at Great Bear Lake, where he joined the photography club, improving on the skills he had learned in the 1930s running a darkroom in an Edmonton stationary store. In July 1947 Busse moved to Yellowknife where, encouraged by Father Gathy, he opened Yellowknife's first commercial photography business, Yellowknife Photo Service. His photographic work received international attention and awards. His pictures also appeared in numerous magazines, including National Geographic, which ran a layout of his colour photographs of northern lights. On September 28 1962, Henry Busse chartered Ken Stockhall's Cessna 185 for a photographic assignment in the Nahanni Valley, joined by Gunther Geortz and Vic Hudon from Giant mine as passengers. The group didn’t return at their scheduled time. Despite a two-month air search, their plane was not discovered until June 1963, crashed in a valley near Cli Lake.

Hunt, Terrance
Person

Dr. Terrance "Terry" Hunt, L.D.S., D.D.S., R.C.S., Eng., was born in England and trained as a dentist. He moved to Canada in 1946 and spent the next two years working for the Grenfell Mission in Labrador. In 1948, he began working for the Department of Health and Welfare and was to remain in their employ until his return to England in 1956. Between 1948 and 1951, he was based in Edmonton and made regular trips into northern communities to provide dental treatment. In 1951, he established a permanent clinic in Aklavik, becoming the first resident dentist in the Northwest Territories. Dr. Hunt's dental practice covered the communities of Aklavik, Tuktoyaktuk, Fort Smith, Fort Resolution, Fort Rae, Wrigley, Fort McPherson, Coppermine, Fort Simpson and Old Crow (Yukon Territory). In 1956, Dr. Hunt returned to England to join his fathers' dental practice in Aldershot. He died in 1975.

Guest, Alma
Person

Information not available.

Evarts, Hal
Person

Hal Evarts was a writer for the "Saturday Evening Post" who travelled down the Mackenzie River while on assignment for the magazine.

Fort Norman (NT)
Corporate body

Fort Norman achieved hamlet status on April 1, 1984.

Snare Lake Band Council
Corporate body

In 1991, the Snare Lake Education Committee formed a subcommittee to develop cultural programming for the children. The Committee wanted to interview elders and record the procedures of seasonal activity for both the men and women of Snare Lake. The photographs and interviews would then be used to develop in Dogrib and English a handbook on seasonal activities. One of the primary aims of the project and the handbook was to "promote, enhance and maintain the Dogrib language." The Education Committee successfully applied to the Government of the Northwest Territories' Cultural Affairs Program for funding to assist the Committee in completing the project.

Carrothers, Winona
Person

Winona Orr Carruthers (nee Orr) began teaching school at Saint Peter's Anglican Mission in Hay River when she was 18 years old. She taught there between 1903 to 1909. The mission was established in 1893 by the Reverend Thomas Jabez Marsh. It contained a boarding school for approximately 40 students from a variety of linguistic groups including Chipewyan, Slavey, Dogrib, Yellowknives, Dunne-za, Mountain Dene and Gwich'in. Approximately ten years later, a church and hospital were added to the boarding school. The Anglican Church received a subsidy from the Federal Government for each student at the mission and by 1906 there were 30 students enrolled in the school. Topics taught at the school included reading, writing, arithmetic, composition, grammer, geography, dictation, literature, history and the Holy Scripture, as well as occasional lessons in the students native languages, both in Syllabics and Roman Orthography.

Corporate body

In 1993, Sandra Dolan co-ordinated an oral history project with Clayton Burke and Dora Unca to record the reminiscences of elders who had lived at the Chipewyan village near Fort Smith. It was anticipated that the recordings would be used in the production of a history of the Salt River settlement. A portion of the funding for this project was derived from the Government of the Northwest Territories Oral Traditions Project.

Magrum, George Frank
Person

George Frank Magrum was born in Ohio on June 12, 1891. He moved to Saskatchewan to homestead land in 1914. In 1915, he married Ann/Elizabeth Brooks of Eton, England (d. July 12, 1957 Camrose AB). They had eight children, Madeline (Toots) (d. 1958), Bill (d. 1973?) John, Jim (d. 1975) and Wade, and Joan, Coleen and Marvel (Wally). George was well known as a barrenland trapper in the NWT after moving north in 1927, spending much of his time trapping near Aylmer Lake. After retiring in 1963, he remained active by taking part in walk-a-thon events to raise money for charity. He also provided noted author Ray Price with an interview which formed the basis of his "Trapper George" manuscript, which was never published. George Magrum died in January 1978.