num_pages: 272
description: The Dene have lived in the vast Mackenzie River Valley since time immemorial by their account. To the Dene the land owns them and it is central to their livelihood and very way of being. But the subarctic Canadian Northwest Territories are home to valuable resources including oil gas and diamonds. With mining came jobs and investment but also road-building pipelines and toxic waste which scarred the landscape and alcohol drugs and debt which deformed a way of life.In Paying the Land Joe Sacco travels the frozen North to reveal a people in conflict over the costs and benefits of development. Sacco recounts the shattering impact of a residential school system that aimed to remove the Indian from the child; the destructive process that drove the Dene from the bush into settlements and turned them into wage laborers; the government land claims stacked against the Dene Nation; and their uphill efforts to revive a wounded culture.
language: English
title: Paying the Land
publisher: Metropolitan Books