Canada apologizes to Dene
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"It is unbearable to consider what you lost in those years in Churchill," Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett stated. "All we can do now is offer our apologies." There was hardly a dry eye among the crowd as she spoke. These people knew what it was like. Their relatives had lived, and died because of it.
TADOULE LAKE, MB-The Canadian government formally apologized to the Sayisi Dene on Tuesday, August 16, when Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett issued an apology to the survivors of this northern Manitoba community.
"It is unbearable to consider what you lost in those years in Churchill," Bennett stated. "All we can do now is offer our apologies."
Along with the apology, Canada offered a $33.6-million compensation fund that will be invested as a trust, along with 13,000 acres of land in Little Duck Lake.
In 1956, the Canadian government forced the community of 250 Dene from Little Duck Lake and left them in the Churchill area because Ottawa believed the tribe was causing a caribou decline. This forced exodus led to hunger, violence, and death.
Minister Bennett made the apology three times. Once in Churchill, again in Tadoule Lake, and finally in Winnipeg on August 17.
Tadoule Lake Chief Ernie Bussidor stated that the Dene people have themselves to thank for surviving.
"Against all odds, we survived," he told the Winnipeg Free Press. "What you see here is our utopia."
Bussidor was only one month old when the forced removal took place. "I probably witnessed a lot more tragic events than I should have...and most of us of that generation have that same notion," he said.
"People freezing to death, fires, you name it. A lot of children died. That kind of stuff never leaves you."
Survivors abandoned the place they were relocated to in 1973. Five men led dog teams on a journey that took them 13-days inland to the remote Tadoule Lake, home to about 300 Sayisi Dene.
Roy Duck said that he had seen it all. His father, Tom Duck, 80, was the one who led the group back to Tadoule Lake.
It will take generations of healing before the community is whole again according to Illa Bussidor, a former chief and the co-author of Night Spirits, a book about the horrific relocation to Churchill and what happened in the years that followed.
