"Where Time Began..."

                          NOGAP ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT
                                 DOCUMENTARY
                                       
		    Directed & Edited: Lori J. Schroeder
		  Written and Produced: Jean-Luc Pilon
		     
                        C.M.C. AUDIO VISUAL PRODUCTIONS  



Narrator: Canada's North; a land that inspires and demands
respect. A land of great beauty; fragile yet eternal. A land
which holds untold wealth locked tightly in its grip. It is an
environment where time takes on a different meaning; where day
and night can become minutes or months......the place, so the
elders tell us, where time began.

Narrator: Time, has brought dreams of great profit. Beneath the
surface of the Beaufort Sea and along its coastal reaches, lie
vast pools of oil and huge pockets of natural gas. But the people
who live on this land acted together, raising their voices
against plans to build pipelines, highways and tanker routes.

Narrator: Their protests were heard.

Justice Thomas Berger: "And I want it understood that though the
opinions of white northerners who've told me what they think the
Native people want, are important. And though the views of social
scientists who've told me what the Native people want, are
important. The most important opinions of all are those expressed
at the community hearings by the Native peoples themselves.
That's why those hearings were held; so that we would know, at
last."

Narrator: Justice Thomas Berger recommended a ten year moratorium
on the construction of a pipeline along the Mackenzie River
Valley.

Narrator: The people across the North united in this historic
debate for one simple reason: almost nothing was known about the
potentially devasting effects of large-scale development on the
delicate web of life in this unspoiled natural environment. 

Narrator: Even less could be said about the human costs that
would arise from oil and gas megaprojects. 

Narrator: One of the results of this discussion was the Beaufort
Sea Environmental Assessment Review Panel, which recommended the
funding of a long-term research project: NOGAP. The Northern Oil
and Gas Action Plan would collect basic information concerning
the environmental risk of large scale developments.

Narrator: This research would take place primarily in the lower
Mackenzie Valley and along the coastal reaches of the Canadian
Beaufort Sea. In the early phase of the programme, it even
included research in Lancaster Sound, site of a probable tanker
route.

Narrator: Not only was the threat to the natural environment
recognized, but the impact on the human environment, and the
archaeological heritage of these vast regions was acknowledged as
well.

Narrator: Archaeological research in other parts of the North had
shown that the passage of thousands of years made the evidence of
the past difficult enough to find, let alone to understand.

Narrator: The grinding of bulldozers over the thin soil of the
Mackenzie Valley, the coastal areas of the Beaufort Sea region,
and even Lancaster Sound far to the northeast, would completely
wipe out important parts of the histories of these areas, erasing
the legacies of untold generations who, through skill, cunning
and a capacity to overcome considerable hardship, made these
remote lands their home. 

Narrator: Plans to develop Beaufort Sea oil and gas resources,
and transport them to markets involved three government
jurisdictions; those of the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and
the Canadian federal government.

Narrator: Within each, there are specific agencies responsible
for archaeological heritage matters. It was agreed that they
would undertake activities within the NOGAP areas that reflected
their respective strengths and orientations. This saw the Prince
of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife assume
responsibility for the training of local people in archaeological
field methods and oral history collection techniques. 

Chuck Arnold (Director, Prince of Wales Northern Heritage
Center): "We thought that it would probably be appropriate for us
to come in and exercise responsibilities for involving northern
people. In effect by giving training opportunities to local
people so they could participate in archaeological programmes and
later on in oral history research as well. Now we took the
approach right from the start that we were not there to train
archaeologists. We were there to train people in useful skills
that could be employed in doing archaeological research. But
there is a lot of cross-over to other kinds of research and other
kinds of employment opportunities; so that people who had gone
through the archaeological training programmes could then be
usefully employed in biological research, renewable resource
research, geological research." 

"Eight years that we've been doing archaeological work in the
NOGAP area, we've trained something on the order of 30 or 32
people. We made a conscious effort not to draw everybody from the
same area. Certainly the majority of the people came from the
area in which the archaeological sites are situated.  So that
when we were working in the outer Delta, most of the people came
from Tuktoyaktuk, Inuvik, Aklavik. And when we were working in
the Mackenzie Valley, then people came from Fort Norman, Fort
Franklin, Norman Wells, these general areas. But we tried to
bring in people from far afield as well."

Elisa Hart (Researcher, Prince of Wale Northern Heritage Center):
"In terms of method, I distinguish between oral history and oral
traditions, in that oral history is getting the history of
someone's life or the history of a people. Oral traditions would
be asking about specific aspects of traditional life.  A very
important part of this project was looking at what other roles
are there for people in archaeological research beyond that of
field crew on excavation or survey. I think people may be more
interested in participating in archaeological research on a more
long-term basis if they have some independence as well. And if
some training is available so that they can do the oral tradition
component in conjunction with an archaeological project; that's a
very rewarding thing to do."

Narrator: In Yukon, the Heritage Branch, expanded its interests
in the historic remains of the Yukon Coastal area. In addition to
documenting historic resources, both Inuvialuit and European,
along the North Yukon, the Branch focused its activities on
picturesque Herschel Island, just off the coast.

Max Friesen (Ph.D. student, McGill University): "My work focussed
on the history of the Inuvialuit; very specifically on Herschel
Island. Now Herschel Island is extremely important for a number
of reasons. One of the reasons is historic. It was a centre of
trade and commerce throughout the prehistoric period as well as
the historic period after Europeans, Canadians and Americans
began to frequent the area.  But another reason that its
important is that its about the only early site on the Yukon
North Slope that has been preserved. And the reason is that
erosion has been fearce throughout the North Slope; the entire
coastline is receeding at quite a rapid rate. But Herschel Island
has two unique sand spits which are actually building up, so
instead of eroding, they are growing. And the Inuvialuit happened
to build their villages on these spits, so they have been
preserved. So there's actually a record of about a thousand years
of Inuvialuit history on Herschel Island, which is really
unparalleled anywhere else in the whole Mackenzie Delta Region."

Narrator: At the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the
Archaeological Survey of Canada became responsible for
undertaking studies into the prehistory of the NOGAP regions. The
staff was expanded, adding even more specialists in Arctic and
Subarctic archaeology, and the result, in 1985, was the creation
of the NOGAP Archaeology Project, under the jurisdiction of the
Museum. 

Jean-Luc Pilon (Archaeologist, CMC): "Before the Archaeological
Survey of Canada became involved in NOGAP, we already had a
research function in Northern Canada. We had a number of
archaeologists who worked in the Northwest Territories and in the
Yukon.  We also had a division that took care of salvage
archaeology; that is, whenever there were pressing needs for
excavation of sites that were threatened by developments, they
would act. In 1985, the current chairman of the Salvage
Archaeology Project, Jacques Cinq-Mars, who actually put together
the submissions and the project, he headed up the programme and
he hired two archaeologists; one a Subarctic specialist, myself,
and Raymond LeBlanc, an Arctic specialist. So we came in to begin
orienting the research within the NOGAP areas. We also had a
research assistant, Jane Dale, and a secretary to help us out."

"The magnitude of the work that we had to do, the area to cover
physically was much much too large for the small number of people
that we did have, who were attached to the NOGAP Archaeology
Project here at the Museum. So we did draw on university-based
researchers; we drew on the expertise of consultants in specific
areas; we also employed local people in a number of capacities in
carrying out our fieldwork."

Narrator: The challenge facing the NOGAP Archaeology Project was
imposing to say the least. Together, the lower Mackenzie Valley
and the Beaufort Sea region represent thousands of square
kilometres of land. Only sporadic archaeological reseach had
taken place there over the 50 years which preceeded NOGAP. 

Narrator: That work provided only a thin basis for beginning the
task of understanding the secrets of the centuries. With the goal
of providing land managers with better insights into the nature
of the archaeological resources, as well as ways of protecting
them from the harmful effects of development, the NOGAP
archaeologists began their work in 1985 with a two-pronged
strategy. 

Narrator: The first part of this plan consisted of finding as
many new archaeological sites inside certain sub-areas as
possible. Archaeological site survey is the search for places
used for a variety of human activities in the past. Simple
enough, but many of the objects left behind, centuries ago, have
all but disappeared with the passage of time, or they have become
buried beneath the ground. 

Narrator: With such large areas to work in, archaeologists turned
to a number of different sources of information which might help
narrow the focus of their search.

Narrator: Geologists were able to identify features of the
landscape which might have been used at different times in the
past. By studying aerial photographs, Dr.Vern Rampton was able to
identify areas of the landscape which were more attractive for
human use than others. This then allowed the archaeologists to
considerably reduce the size of the areas within which to carry
out their search. 

Vern Rampton (Geomorphologist, Carp, Ontario): "The
archaeologists wanted to find out if there was an easy way, based
on geomorphology and geology, of evaluating landscape for the
probability of archaeological sites. We try to find out from the
archaeologist where the archaeological sites where before we do
anything, and then we compare that with our knowledge of the
geology of the area. And then when we get into detail, what we do
is we try to map the area into units that, based on certain
common characteristics, have high archaeological potential, and
those that have low archaeological potential. And then when its
all confirmed, we then can produce maps."

Narrator: Pat Sutherland and Paul Roy analyzed low level aerial
photographs in the Lancaster Sound region. They identified the
remains of homes abandoned hundreds, and in some cases, thousands
of years ago.

Pat Sutherland (Archaeologist, Woodlawn, Ontario): "Once the
aerial photography is completed in the field and the photographs
have been processed, the task of photo interpretation begins.
This involves marking and recording the number of archaeological
sites, the types of archaeological sites (that is whether they're
campsites or winter illages), the possible cultural affinity of
those sites (whether they belong to the Dorset culture or the
Thule culture), recording the number of features and the types of
features that are contained within each of the sites that are
seen on the photographs. And finally, and this work was done
using the colour transparencies, identifying geomorphic
modifiers, that is lanscape units, things such as river deltas,
raised beaches and trying to correlate those lanscape units with
the archaeological sites so that in some sense we can perhaps use
this information to predict where archaeological sites might be
located and use that in future survey initiatives."

"The pilot project did demonstrate that the low level aerial
photography did not provide any greater advantage in terms of
recording, actually recording, the numbers of sites over that of
conventional methods of survey such as foot and helicopter
survey. However, it does offer some distinct advantages; things
like giving us a permanent visual record of the archaeological
sites. The other advantage of low level aerial photography is
that it allows us to more precisely locate the archaeological
sites. So it proved to be a cost-effective, ancillary method of
archaeological survey to that of the conventional methods that we
have used in the High Arctic."

Narrator: Wildlife studies helped in identifying areas which
would have attracted hunters and fishermen. In many cases,
though, this information was not as specific as required, nor
always as comprehensive or broad in coverage as was hoped.
Traditional knowledge was also gleaned from early accounts by
traders, merchants, missionaries and anthropologists.

Narrator: But within each of the Mackenzie Valley and Delta
communities, it was the elders who had spent most of their lives
in the very regions the archaeologists were studying, who were to
become a most valuable source of information. 

Ingrid Kritsch (Anthropologist, Gwich'in Social and Cultural
Institute): "People lived on both sides of the creek. On the
north side were 2 cabins, probably washed away by flood in the
1970s. On the south side they stayed in canvas tents in the
spring and fall, and that particular year there were 5 tents.
This is Hyacinth who was telling us about this place. 
They would pass the spring here for about a month starting in
April or May. In the fall, they would stay for about one month in
early September to get ready for trapping in the mountains."

Narrator: Who better to ask about the land and the best ways of
drawing life from it? Both informally during casual conversations
and systematically during focused projects, the elders shared
lifetimes of experience; knowledge acquired not only from their
own decades of learning, but also the wealth of information about
the land and its resources, passed down from their parents, and
their parents before them. 

Alestine Andre (Anthropologist, Gwich'in Social and Cultural
Institute): "I think that experts is a good name for them. Their
experience and their life and the things they know on the land is
just so great. I'm just amazed at the knowledge that people have
about the land; the names of the places, the resources that are
there, the stories that are attached to some of these names. But
if you go out with elders, certainly you could tell they know how
to live on the land."

Ingrid Kritsch(Anthropologist, Gwich'in Social and Cultural
Institute): "There is a lot to learn, I think. That would be the
message I'd like to try to get across; there's a lot to learn
from traditional culture. I think people are understanding that
more and more now; people are more concerned
about the environment. And a lot of the traditional knowledge
that Native people have is very environmentally friendly. They
had to learn how to live with nature and not the western ethic
(which) is more dominating nature and changing it, not living
with it."

Alestine Andre(Anthropologist, Gwich'in Social and Cultural
Institute): "I think that all of us as Native people (need) to
understand that we have a very strong and rich culture that we
should hold on to...out of respect for past generations...if just
through the stories of these camps and the way of life that our
past generations have lived. Its amazing. I'm always
amazed at low strong our people were."

Narrator: Geology, aerial photo interpretation, wildlife studies,
archival research and traditional knowledge; these sources of
information helped plan the search for archaeological sites in
the field. But they could not replace the difficult task of
actually going out and locating physical evidence of old
campsites. 

Narrator: With such a large and ecologically diverse area to
cover, a variety of means of transportation had to be used. In
the Beaufort Sea coastal regions, the treeless landscape made the
use of helicopters an ideal way of covering lots of ground while
easily detecting the remains of houses and other obvious features
of old campsites, such as ground caches and refuse heaps. 

Narrator: Helicopter-assisted survey crews usually operated out
of the Polar Continental Shelf Project base in Tuktoyaktuk, from
where they would spend long days examining the terrain from the
air.

Pat Sutherland (Archaeologist, Woodlawn, Ontario): "Helicopters
give us more accessibility for landing. With floatplanes or other
type of fixed-wing aircraft, you are somewhat restricted in terms
of where you can actually land. Helicopters are also useful for
doing aerial reconnaissance. Flying in a helicopter, doing
initial archaeological survey in a helicopter gives you the broad
perspective that yuo need before you begin ground survey or
survey by boat, whatever. It gives you a good sense of the lay of
the land that you don't get by being on the ground. You can
recognize the more recent material, that is the actual features
that are part of the archaeological site, and in fact artifacts
such as sled parts, kayak pieces, that type of thing, from the
air. Its a bit more difficult when we're dealing with the early
material.  However, if there are things like fireplaces or tent
rings, by flying at a fairly low altitude over the ground, you
usually can spot these types of early prehistoric features,
provided that you're not dealing with an area that is heavily
vegetated."

Narrator: But different people left different and often less
obvious traces of their passing. While some house remains could
be seen from the air, other sites consisted of nothing more than
scatters of small chips of stone, left over from the making of
stone tools, and, occasionally, some of these tools themselves.
The only way of locating these sites was to land in promising
spots, carry out a careful examination of the ground surface, and
dig small holes or test pits in order to discover buried
artifacts.

Narrator: South of the Beaufort Sea coastal region, visibility is
severely limited by tree cover and the work required to locate
sites is much more difficult. Archaeological site survey methods
had to be adapted to this different environment.

Narrator: Floatplanes were the workhorses, transporting
archaeologists and their equipment from lake to lake.

Narrator: Base camps were set up, and from these, the
archaeologists would travel by inflatible boats to reach
different portions of the lakeshores. Only then, could potential
locations be reached by foot.

Narrator: As on the coast, hints of past use were sometimes found
on the surface, but more often than not they lay buried in the
thin, subarctic soils.

Narrator: In the five decades that preceded NOGAP, only a handful
of sites had been discovered along the Mackenzie River Valley. Of
these, just one had been studied carefully. Four seasons of field
research later, the NOGAP Archaeology Project had increased the
number of new sites to well over 100.

Narrator: Careful study of the small collections of artifacts
gathered during site survey allowed the archaeologists to
determine which sites might provide keys to poorly documented or
even totally unknown periods of the past. Although site survey
continued, the testing and excavation of specific sites became
the primary focus of the second phase of the programme. 

Narrator: Archaeological excavation is painstaking work.
Intuition, based on years of experience, does play a role in
deciding where on the site to excavate. More important, however,
is preliminary testing: the excavation of small squares to
provide clues about potentially worthwhile areas to begin full
scale work.

Narrator: As each day passes, new information becomes available,
which the archaeologist interprets. He or she must constantly
step back to re-assess the strategy, hoping to better predict
where additional material will be found. 

Narrator: The objects left behind are quite important. They show
how people resolved many of the common problems of existence; how
they made such articles of everyday life as knives and
arrowheads. They can provide hints about the culture of their
users. But an archaeologist also needs other, less obvious
information.

Narrator: By studying the soil layers that contain the artifacts,
he or she can begin to talk about how often people came to a
particular locality and what the environmental conditions might
have been like at that time. By analyzing and comparing the bones
of animals left behind by the site's occupants with the bones of
known animals, the archaeologist might be able to tell the season
at which the people used the site and perhaps what kind of
hunting techniques were employed.

Narrator: By carefully collecting charcoal samples and having
these radiocarbon-dated, discussion can begin about when a
particular site was actually used, and the length of time
particular cultural traditions existed.
 
Narrator: By keeping meticulous records about where various
objects were found, the archaeologist begins to reconstruct the
activities which took place at the site and the general
appearance of the site when people lived there.

Narrator: Since the NOGAP Archaeology Project began its fieldwork
in 1985, hundreds of new sites have been discovered, dozens have
been tested and a number of these have had full-scale
excavations.

Narrator: This wealth of information permits the archaeologist to
study local developments instead of being forced to assume
similarities with archaeological cultures hundreds of kilometres
away.

Narrator: Much new information has been added to the history of
these regions. In some cases entire new chapters have been
written. In others, well-documented details now enrich what was
previously a dim and hazy picture. 

Narrator: For example, the ancestors of the Inuvialuit, who today
live in the Mackenzie Delta communities of Aklavik, Tuktoyaktuk
and Inuvik, were historically the largest group of Inuit people
in the entire Arctic.

Narrator: The basis of their strength and culture lay in the rich
beluga hunts carried out in the fall of each year at the mouth of
the East Channel of the Mackenzie River.  

Narrator: Large populations, numbering several hundred
individuals, gathered at such well-known archaeological sites as
Kitigazuit, Gupuk and Cache Point. Other large coastal sites were
also known elsewhere along the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula.

Dr. David Morrison, an archaeologist with the Canadian Museum of
Civilization, set out to better understand the life of the
Mackenzie Inuit. He concentrated his search away from the East
Channel of the Mackenzie River and looked instead in the Eskimo
Lakes area, up the Anderson River and as far east as the mouth of
the Horton River. 

David Morrison (Archaeologist, CMC): "We knew we had big village
sites like Kitigazuit; the explorers had seen them, this is also
written-up in the Nuligak books, I had also oral history sources
focussing on that one kind of site. In a way, it was the most
exciting and most important kind of site. A town like Kitigazuit
was a real town. It had a thousand people in it for the July
hunt. It was probably the biggest settlement in the entire
Canadian Arctic in 1850 or 1750 or 1650. It had been lived in for
hundreds of years. So its quite understandable that this was the
focus.  But at the same time, at least non-Inuvialuit, knew
almost nothing of what the rest of the Inuvialuit life was like.
The main thing we're seeing however, is that sites like
Kitigazuit do not represent the sum-total of what Inuvialuit
people were doing in the summer. We're finding sites in the
interior, on the Husky Lakes, which shows that many many people
were going down to the interior and living on caribou,
more-or-less year-round. So what we're finding actually is
that the oral history accounts agree very nicely with the
archaeological accounts. The two sort of complement each other
very nicely. And we're seeing things that substantiate what the
elders say and at the same time what the elders say helps us make
sense of what we're digging up."

Narrator: South of the Eskimo Lakes are the traditional lands of
the Gwychia Gwich'in.  Virtually nothing was known
archaeologically of this Dene people, who today live mainly in
the tiny settlement of Arctic Red River.

Narrator: In the course of his investigations, Dr.Jean-Luc Pilon
of the NOGAP Archaeology Project encountered a number of
depressions measuring about 2 metres long, 1 metre wide and
roughly 50 cm deep. He assumed these were simple ground caches in
which people had stored fish for later use as dog food; a
practice still followed today. But excavation of some of these
features suggested this was not the case. 

Jean-Luc Pilon (Archaeologist, CMC): "During the course of our
work in the southwest Anderson Plain, we found over 50
semi-subterranean house features or pit houses. From the surface,
when we first find them, there are a number of characteristics
that are quite obvious; these characteristics we find time and
time again. There are two basically. The first is obviously the
pit or the central depression. The dimensions of these
depressions or pit features vary from 2 to 3 metres in length,
and 1 to 1.5 metres in width.  Our excavations have shown that
the people would dig at least 1 metre below the surface of the
ground. The second feature that is quite characteristic of these
semi-subterranean houses is a ridge of sand or a berm around the
sides. Sometimes we find it at the ends, but it's much less
pronounced. This ridge of sand can be anywhere from 10 to 20
centimetres in thickness and in some cases, up to 1 metre thick.
That sand lies on top of the remains of the roof that is composed
of poles lying very close to each other and parallel to the
length of the depression. And all of this has since collapsed and
infilled often part of the depression, so that they look a lot
less pronounced than they did when the people were using
them. Another feature or characteristic that we found when we
tested or excavated the houses, was that just outside the ends of
the depression are hearth features or the remains of fireplaces.
And its the recurrence of these patterns of sand ridge,
depression in the centre, poles under the sand lying parallel to
the long axis of the depression, and a fireplace at
the end, that tell us that we're dealing with houses and most
likely winter houses."

Narrator: To establish the credibility of his interpretation,
Pilon built a scaled-down version of a semi-subterranean house,
based on the archaeological evidence he had amassed. 

Jean-Luc Pilon (Archaeologist, CMC): "There were three features
that we had to see in that reconstruction. We knew first of all
that inside the house there was a pit. So we excavated one of
these. Now that pit was part of the inside of the house; it
wasn't the house itself. So the house sort of sat over it. That's
another important feature because those poles in the
archaeological sites covered a much much larger area that the pit
itself. Another important feature were the earth ridges that lay
on either side of the depression in the archaeological sites and
that earth also covered the poles of the collapsed roof. So to
reconstruct that, we put A-frames at either end of a depression
or a pit feature that we dug, and we placed poles parallel to
each other, between the A-frames. The gaps between the poles we
filled with moss. Finally, we took the dirt from the depression
that we'd excavated and placed it on top of the moss. This way,
we had a nice thick layer of insulation on the roof."

Narrator: In addition to the question of pre-contact Gwich'in
winter houses and the full range of Mackenzie Inuit economic
activities, NOGAP identified many other archaeological problems
and attempted to resolve them.

Narrator: For example, all along the Beaufort Sea coast, the land
is currently being eroded at alarming rates, with some areas
losing as much as 7 metres every year. It has long been assumed
that the people who used to live in the Beaufort region always
camped within sight of the ocean, and so it was thought that
those campsites older than a few centuries must have long since
been washed out to sea. Determined NOGAP archaeologists have
shown that not all traces of these earlier times have been lost.

Narrator: Instead, they have documented a number of distinct
archaeological cultures along the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, Richards
Island, and in the Cape Bathurst Peninsula region; cultures whose
existence spanned several thousand years. 

Narrator: In some cases, the artifacts left behind by these
groups could be clearly associated with similar artifacts found
in other parts of the Arctic. At other times however, there was
no doubt that links were strong with groups to the south, well
within the forest. This confirmed what geologists and botanists
had already known: that the treeline moved considerable distances
during the thousands of years since the last glaciers
disappeared. In fact, a forest of spruce trees once covered the
Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula. The archaeological evidence clearly shows
that no single group ever had a unique reign over the land.

Narrator: With time and changing climatic conditions, the
occupants of the land also changed; there was give and take,
there was adjustment.

Narrator: Other aspects of NOGAP archaeological research have
also allowed new and useful insights into the distant past. 

Narrator: Our understanding of where and why people might have
set up their camps has grown. Good fishing spots, such as that at
the mouth of the Arctic Red River, show a pattern of re-use that
goes back at least 1400 years.

Jean-Luc Pilon (Archaeologist, CMC): "As I put them in, you can
hear a hissing. You can hear it for quite a few minutes after."

Narrator: Our comprehension of some of the more common artifacts
was expanded through simple experimentation. For instance,
hundreds of fist-sized rocks, cracked and broken from use as
boiling stones, were found at many of the sites. 

Jean-Luc Pilon (Archaeologist, CMC): "I'm going to remove now the
first bunch of rocks and, see, already some of them have cracked.
Perhaps these were stones that didn't have the right shape and I
shouldn't have chosen them, and if I had known better, perhaps I
wouldn't have. Perhaps they're stone of the wrong type of rock.
You see this water, I've only put the rocks in the first time, 7
of them, and already its steaming. The second round of rocks
should  be nice and hot..."

Narrator: Attempts by the researchers at making a pail of  water
come to a gentle boil, using stones heated in a fire, allowed 
them to theorize that these large quantities of fire-cracked
rocks  must have required many, many boiling episodes to create.
This invaluable information can be used as a yardstick for
estimating the amount of time a site was used.

Narrator: All this archaeological research, this science, was
carried out for very precise and down-to-earth purposes; to give
federal, territorial, or Native land managers the best tools
available to make better-informed judgements about heritage
resources when planning or considering particular development
proposals.

Narrator: But somewhere between fundamental archaeological
research and land management, there is a gap. A bridge is
necessary, to permit the practical use of this valuable
information. This essential link is made through the use of a
sophisticated computer system known as a geographical information
system, or GIS. Put simply, GIS allows any number of different
maps to be overlaid, and the combination of these maps studied
for patterns. With today's computer technology, any number of
different maps can be superimposed. 

Jean-Luc Pilon (Archaeologist, CMC): "The interesting step comes
when we combine the different types of mapped information in
order to identify patterns between them. The reason for doing
this is quite simple; we cannot undertake archaeological survey 
everywhere. But we do have to minimize the damage to the
resources that do exist out there. Now obviously people didn't
live just anywhere, nor did they live everywhere. By identifying
patterns between the characteristics of the land, the traditional
land use and the archaeological sites, we can begin to develop a
rule of thumb that might account for most of them. In other
words, if a large proportion of sites occur on certain kinds of
landscapes, then in areas where we haven't conducted our
archaeological work, we still might be able to predict where
archaeological sites might be, based on the presence of certain
kinds oflandscapes. Its certainly a lot easier and a lot cheaper
to undertake the creation of landscape maps using aerial
photographs than to conduct full-scale archaeological survey."

Narrator: A land manager can then use this knowledge in areas
where archaeological work has not taken place, in order to better
assess the possibility that a proposed project will destroy
valuable archaeological heritage sites.

Narrator: That land manager and future archaeologists in these
regions will have a reference against which to assess the
significance of sites that are discovered in the course of
development. 

Narrator: Planners will be better able to avoid selecting areas
with high probabilities of archaeological sites. They will also
have a number of options for minimizing harmful effects when no
other routing is possible. 

Narrator: The Canadian Museum of Civilization's NOGAP Archaeology
Project, together with its partners in the Northwest Territories
and Yukon, has addressed many issues which reach far beyond the
archaeological community and its scientific concerns. By
maintaining a land management objective, they have stayed the
course originally set out by the Beaufort Sea Environmental
Assessment Review Panel. They have also tried to focus on the
spirit of the voices heard at the Berger Inquiry, learning more
about a heritage that is perishable and removed from view, but
invaluable for the people whose ancestors once walked on the
land, a heritage that is beyond price. 

Joanne Barnaby (Executive Director, Dene Cultural Institute):
"Our own efforts to document history, to document cultural
evolution, through traditional knowledge research, had led our
people to recognize that there are real values of doing that, but
there are also limitations. I think that as a result of taking
the initiative and doing community-based research,
community-controlled research, they're starting to open-up and
view more positively other types of research too, which, together
with traditional knowledge, provides us with a more complet
picture, a more comprehensive understanding, even though it's
from two very different perspectives."

Willard Hagen (President, Gwich'in Tribal Council): "Archaeology
as a field has always played a part in the negotiating and the
settlement of the claims. Its something we've always had to
address, and always had to keep in mind as a direction from the
elders. So its something that will only be expanded in the
future."

William Gruben (Inuvaluit Lands Administrator): "In future
they're talking of possible storage sites in case an oil spills
would happen. I'm talking years down the road. If we had that
sort of information on a Geographic Information System, that
could pinpoint where these points of interest are to the
Inuvialuit, we bring those into the negotiating process at the
outset rather than waiting until we get someone from the
community to come in and say "Look, why did you build or why did
you give approval for a project to happen in this area. Didn't
you know that there's grave sites there or that's where an old
house was or an old campsite from years ago?" If we had that sort
of mechanism from the archaeological community, then that would
certainly be assisting us in determining how we use or approve a
project within the vicinity of the areas."

Willy Simon Modeste (Archaeological Assistant, Inuvik): "I was
always interested in the past because when I was trapping in the
early 60s, I saw cuttings, even the old axe-cuts. It makes me
wonder about the people who were there at the time cutting and
living around there; how they lived, how they looked, who were
they. Sometimes I see a place where there's sign of
children...all that.  So now I'm working on this job. It gives me
a good idea. I'm finding answers to what I was thinking about."

Grace Blake (Chief, Tsiigehtchic Band Council): "I was always
reluctant to have people come around and disturb the environment.
But because I was in an authoritative position, I had to look and
listen, and then evaluate whether its a good thing. And because
it was related to oil and gas exploration, part of the NOGAP
project, I felt it was okay, because it would help us to
understand our people better. We would know more about our
people, about the background of our own people. Because I think
the more we know, the better we feel about being who we are."

Narrator: Although the future of oil and gas megaprojects is
uncertain, the NOGAP regions will continue to grow and the need
for development will not disappear. The archaeological work that
has taken place, has provided the Inuvialuit Development
Corporation, the Gwich'in Tribal Council and both the territorial
and federal governments with better tools to face the future,
without harming the past. 

Narrator: These final words belong to Frank T'Seleie, who was
Chief of the Fort Good Hope Band when he spoke them for all those
who care about the future, and understand the importance of the
past:

Frank T'Seleie (former Chief, Fort Good Hope Band Council): "We
know that our grandchildren will speak a language that is their
heritage. We know they will share their wealth and not hoard it
or keep it to themselves. We know they will look after their old
people and respect them for their wisdom. We know they will look
after this land and protect it. And that five hundred years from
now, someone with skin my colour and moccasins on his feet will
climb up the Ramparts and rest, and look out over the river, and
feel that he, too, has a place in the universe, and he will thank
the same spirits that I thank, that his ancestors have looked
after his land well, and he will be proud."