Arctic Peoples

The Arctic Leaders summit at K’atlodeeche took place on the traditional land of the Dene people. The Dene call their traditional area Denendeh. The chief of K’atlodeeche, Roy Fabian, explained the meanings of ‘Dene’ and ‘Denendeh’.

“Dene means two things: ‘De’ meaning river or the radiance of the sun, and ‘Ne’ meaning earth; we believe we’re from mother earth. Our elders taught that to be Dene people, you cannot break your ties with her. We call our land Denendeh. That doesn’t mean Dene land, it means Dene with the land. In our language there’s no such thing as ownership. We need to re-educate our young people to change what’s going on in mother earth. There must be a big paradigm shift. Ninety percent of our people think they own the land, but that’s a ludicrous idea. As Dene people, the land owns us.”