Dene

The Dene people are an indigenous group of First Nations who inhabit the northern boreal and Arctic regions of Canada.

We have been satisfied to see our wealth as ourselves and the land we live with. It is our greatest wish to be able to pass on this land to succeeding generations in the same condition that our fathers have given it to us. We did not try to improve the land and we did not try to destroy it. That is not our way. ~ Philip Blake, chief of the Dene Nation

Quotes

• If our Indian nation is being destroyed so that poor people of the world might get a chance to share this world’s riches, then as Indian people, I am sure that we would seriously consider giving up our resources. But do you really expect us to give up our life and our lands so that those few people who are the richest and most powerful in the world today can maintain their own position of privilege?

  That is not our way.

  • Philip Blake, chief of the Dene Nation, “Statement to the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry,” in Dene Nation: The Colony Within, ed. Mel Watkins (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), p. 7

• We have lived with the land, not tried to conquer of control it or rob it of its riches. We have not tried to get more and more riches and power, we have not tried to conquer new frontiers, or out do our parents or make sure that every year we are richer than the year before.

  We have been satisfied to see our wealth as ourselves and the land we live with. It is our greatest wish to be able to pass on this land to succeeding generations in the same condition that our fathers have given it to us. We did not try to improve the land and we did not try to destroy it.

  That is not our way.

  • Philip Blake, chief of the Dene Nation, “Statement to the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry,” in Dene Nation: The Colony Within, ed. Mel Watkins (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), p. 8