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First Nations
Inuit
Métis
The Chipewyan (Denésoliné or Dënesųłiné – "People of the barrens")[3] are an aboriginal Dene people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group, whose ancestors were the peoples who left the archaeological traces of the Taltheilei Shale Tradition.[4][5][6] They are part of the Northern Athabascan group of peoples. They were located generally in Western Canada.
The French-speaking missionaries to the northwest of the Red River Colony referred to the Chipewyan people as Montagnais in their documents written in French.[7] Montagnais (in French) therefore has often been mistakenly translated to Montagnais (in English), which refers to the Innu of northern Quebec, and not the Dene (Chipewyan people).
Chipewyan peoples live in the region spanning the western Canadian Shield to the Northwest Territories and including part of northern parts of the provinces of Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The following list of First Nations band governments had in March 2013 a total registered membership of 22,754, with 10,938 in Saskatchewan, 6,371 in Alberta, 2,871 in Manitoba and 2,574 in the Northwest Territories. All had Denesuline populations; however, several had a combination of Cree and Denesuline members (see the Barren Lands First Nation in Manitoba and the Fort McMurray First Nation in Alberta).
There are also many Dene (Denesuline)-speaking Métis communities located throughout the region. The Saskatchewan village of La Loche, for example, had 2300 residents who in the 2011 census identified as speaking Dene (Denesuline) as their native language.[8] About 1800 of the residents were Métis and about 600 were members of the Clearwater River Dene Nation.[9]
The Denesuline people are part of many band governments spanning Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.
The Chipewyan moved in small groups or bands, consisting of several extended families, alternating between winter and summer camps, hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering in the Dene neighbors and to better defend themselves against their rifle-armed Cree enemies, who were advancing to the Peace River and Lake Athabasca.
Historically, the Denesuline were allied to some degree with the southerly Cree, and warred against Inuit and other Dene peoples to the north of Chipewyan lands.
An important historic Denesuline is Thanadelthur ("Marten Jumping"), a young woman who early in the 18th century helped her people to establish peace with the Cree, and to get involved with the fur trade (Steckley 1999).
The Sayisi Dene of northern Manitoba is a Chipewyan band notable for hunting migratory caribou. They were historically located at Little Duck Lake, and known as the "Duck Lake Dene". In 1956, government relocated them to the port of Churchill on the shore of Hudson Bay and a small village north of Churchill called North Knife River, joining other Chipewyan Dene, and becoming members of "Fort Churchill Dene Chipewyan Band". In the 1970s, the "Duck Lake Dene" opted for self-reliance, a return to caribou hunting, and relocated to Tadoule Lake, Manitoba, legally becoming "Sayisi Dene First Nation (Tadoule Lake, Manitoba)" in the 1990s.[38]
Denesuline (Chipewyan) speak the Denesuline language, of the Athabaskan linguistic group. Denesuline is spoken by Aboriginal people in Canada whose name for themselves is a cognate of the word dene ("people"): Denésoliné (or Dënesųłiné). Speakers of the language speak different dialects but understand each other. There is a 'k', t dialect that most people speak. For example, people in Fond du lac, Gąnı kuę́ speak the 'k' and say yaki ku while others who use the 't' say yati tu.
The name Chipewyan is, like many people of the Canadian prairies, of Algonquian origin. It is derived from the Plains Cree name for them, Cīpwayān (ᒌᐘᔮᐣ), "pointed skin", from cīpwāw (ᒌᐚᐤ), "to be pointed"; and wayān (ᐘᔮᐣ), "skin" or "hide" - a reference to the cut and style of Chipewyan parkas.[39]
Most Chipewyan people now use Dene and Denesuline to describe themselves and their language. The Saskatchewan communities of Fond-du-Lac,[40] Black Lake[41] and Wollaston Lake[42] are a few.
Despite the superficial similarity of the names, the Chipewyan are not related to the Chippewa (Ojibwa) people.
In 2015, Shene Catholique-Valpy, a Chipewyan woman in the Northwest Territories, challenged the territorial government over its refusal to permit her to use the ʔ character in her daughter's name, Sahaiʔa. The territory argued that territorial and federal identity documents were unable to accommodate the character. Sahaiʔa's mother finally registered her name with a hyphen in place of the ʔ, while continuing to challenge the policy. Shortly afterward, another woman named Andrea Heron also challenged the territory on the same grounds, for refusing to accept the ʔ character in her daughter's Slavey name, Sakaeʔah (actually a cognate of Sahaiʔa).[43]
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