Paying The Land 9781250790415

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ALSO BY JOE SACCO

War Junkie Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992– 1995 Palestine The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo Notes from a Defeatist War’s End: Profiles from Bosnia, 1995–1996 Footnotes in Gaza Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (with Chris Hedges) Journalism

Metropolitan Books Henry Holt and Company Publishers since 1866 120 Broadway New York, New York 10271 Metropolitan Books® and are registered trademarks of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC. Copyright © 2020 by Joe Sacco All rights reserved. Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Book Distribution Limited Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, ext.5442, or by e-mail at [email protected]. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data eISBN: 978-1-250-79041-5

Names: Sacco, Joe, author, artist. Title: Paying the land / Joe Sacco. Description: New York : Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, [2020] | Chiefly illustrated.

To the people of the land

NOTES ON DENE LANGUAGES The Dene languages of the Northwest Territories are part of a larger language family called Athabascan which extends down to northern Mexico. I have endeavored to use Dene place names whenever possible and these and a few Dene-language words are sprinkled throughout the text. The written Dene languages are still evolving. In the absence of standard/universal/regularized spellings, Dene words are rendered in the International Phonetic Alphabet and with the most up-to-date spelling. The main Dene languages referenced are listed below, along with websites that provide more information for those who are interested.

The Shúhtaot’įnę (Mountain Dene) of Tulít’a speak a dialect of the Sahtú region’s Dene language, known to linguists as North Slavey. Three North Slavey dialect dictionaries, including one for Tulít’a, can be found at:

NOTE ON TROUT LAKE

http://www.sahtudec.ca/view.php?action=documents&id=63.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As always, a project like this, with one person’s name on it, has a long list of behind-the-scenes contributors and participants who deserve thanks and credit. Shauna Morgan is responsible for this book happening, though not for any mistakes, which are mine alone. She had tried to organize a talk by me in Yellowknife and told me that if I visited she would introduce me to some of the local issues related to the Dene and their environment. I couldn’t make it, but about three years later, when I first began thinking of exploring how resource extraction intersects with indigenous people, I looked her up, we wrote back and forth, and quite quickly the framework of a visit to the Northwest Territories began to take shape. She planned our trips according to my interests, set up numerous interviews, and acted as my guide and driver. More than that, she was a goodWhile I was in Yellowknife, HelenoffBowen humored comrade, someone Kris with Schlagintweit whom I couldand bounce ideas kindly let me stay at their warm and lovely home. I very much on the long drives between communities. She is currently on the enjoyed their dinners and our many relaxed conversations.

Terry Woolf gave me a ride with his dog team, which was one of the most delightful experiences I had in the Northwest Territories. Jim Antoine, besides sitting down with me twice for extensive interviews about his experiences with the Indian Brotherhood, the Dene Nation, the Berger Inquiry, and his tenure in the legislative assembly and as premier of the Northwest Territories, made an herbal tea from scratch for me to alleviate a very bad cold I suffered. This book wouldn’t be half of what it is without the kindness, help, and patience of Dolphus Jumbo, chief of Trout Lake (now Sambaa K’e), who gave his time to Shauna and me when we visited his lovely community. Meeting Dolphus is what made me decide to turn what was ostensibly a two-part magazine piece into a book. On our second trip, Dolphus opened up his house and Igave thank mytointerview subjects in general. People told me us aall place sleep. difficult stories about difficult times or intimate stories about their Paul Andrew, Conrad, Willard Hagen, David Theresa connection to Valerie the land, and they simply trusted that and I would use Etchinelle, Frederick Andrew, and Stephen Kakfwi all answered what they said in the right way, mostly so others might learn from additional questions over the years. Morris Modeste looked over

ABOUT THE AUTHOR JOE SACCO is the author of Footnotes in Gaza , for which he received the Ridenhour Book Prize, as well as Palestine , Journalism , Safe Area Goražde , and other books. His comics reporting has appeared in The Guardian , Details , The New York Times Magazine , Time , and Harper’s . He lives in Portland, Oregon.