A trip to Deline

On the shore of Great Bear Lake

July 23, 2012
Sunrise: 4:10 am
Sunset: 1:43 am
Temps: 11- 25'C


In early July, I went on "duty travel" to the little community of Deline (Deh-lynn-eh), on the South Western arm of Great Bear Lake.  It is near the Great Bear River, which flows into the Mackenzie River. This is in the Sahtu region.

A collection of caribou antlers

 

To get there, I flew Canadian North (big plane) to Norman Wells, a small community along the Mackenzie River. From there, it was a little flight with a little Northwright plane and two cowboy pilots, landing on the dusty gravel runway in Deline.

This quiet community is home to about 565 Dene First Nations and Metis peoples. I was pleasantly surprised to hear a lot of the local language, North Slavey, spoken amongst both young and old residents of the village.

 My work kept me busy during the day, but one evening I found the time to explore the town. The weather was gorgeous, and a bit of wind kept the NWT bugs at bay. Half the town has waterfront property, and the rest have views of the lake anyways. A few people were fishing off the dock, catching greyling, and young people were cruising by on quads, smiling and kicking up dust. Others drove by in big pick-ups - many had kids in the box and toddlers on their laps. A pretty relaxed town!

Not far into my walk, I noticed a tipi! Thrilled, I took a picture. It appeared to be a mixture of wood and canvas, and I assumed it was a smoke house. A passing elder, who just finished filleting fish, confirmed this. Happy to have noticed this (we don't have tipis in Terrace or Inuvik), I continued on.

And then I saw another tipi. And another. And another. There were tipis everywhere!!

Turns out, Deline is tipi-town. Every second house seems to have one. Heck, they have a church in the form of a tipi.

One of the town's administration buildings is shaped like a tipi. The sign on one of the buildings has a tipi. Even the dog houses are shaped in tipis (no, just kidding!).

Anyways, I really enjoyed my visit to Deline. The people are friendly and laugh easily, and the location is beautiful.