By Norman Yakeleya
The elders, in the early days of my political leadership, often commented on the importance of “working together.”
As a young band councillor and chief of the Tulita Dene Band, these two words – working together – to me seemed simple enough and easy to follow.
The elders also mentioned the importance of getting along with each other.
These words are powerful and true and yet so difficult to work on when we get stuck in our own stories.
With so many challenges at the community level it is difficult to see the forest for the trees and look ahead. However, we have seen many examples from our own people that we can move forward by working together. The Berger Inquiry is a good example of that. Dene people worked together because we believed that we needed to stop the pipeline before our lands were gone.
The Dene Nation is rebuilding itself for a changing world. We start at home and carry the words of our elders.
The Dene Nation continues to work with the Grand Chiefs to examine what our role is in today’s fast changing world. The Dene Nation will do a constitutional review and renewal that will continue to allow us to work together so that all of the Dene Nation are on the same page.
As we move forward to reconciliation and recognition of our inherent rights to self determination and eventually implementation, we keep in mind what the Gwich'in elders said earlier this month at a meeting of the Grand Chiefs in Inuvik "working together for the Dene Nation is good."
Thank you to our elders for reminding us that together, the Dene Nation is stronger.