Hay River is a town in the Northwest Territories, Canada that was incorporated at a town in 1963. It is located on the south shore of Great Slave Lake, at the mouth of the Hay River. This town is located 201 air kilometers southwest of Yellowknife. The town was permanently settled in 1868 by the Hudson’s Bay Company to establish a trading post with Anglican and Catholic missions. The Catholic church built during the late 1800s in Hay River is still being used today in the Hay River Reserve. The Hay River Reserve is home to about 300 K’atlodeechee First Nation and was created in 1974. Before the arrival of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the area was used by the Slavey Dene people. The town had a population of approximately 3,606 in 2011. Most members of the current Hay River community have ties to the postwar construction of the Mackenzie Highway. Due to its important transportation and communication amenities and abilities, Hay River earned the nickname “the hub of the north.” This town houses the staging point for shipping up the Mackenzie River and the commercial fisheries of Great Slave Lake. The economy of Hay River today relies heavily on private enterprise (The Canadian Encyclopedia, n.d.). 

References

The Canadian Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Hay River. Retrieved from Historica Canada: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/hay-river/

Berger refers to wanting to obtain the views regarding the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, from the native people of the Western Arctic and the Mackenzie Valley. This area was called the western arctic when this inquiry was written and now it is more often referred to as the Northwest territories. The Western Arctic, or North West territories, contain parts of Canada such as the Beaufort Sea, Yellowkinfe, Fort Simpson, Fort Goodhope, Norman Wells, Deline, Inuvik, and many more. Berger when speaking of the Western Arctic was referring to the northwest territories in Canada, but there is also the Western Arctic in Alaska. The Canadian Western Arctic is home to the Mackenzie River, which is the second largest river in all of north America. In the decade after 1960, oil companies spent 25 million dollars on the development of wells. As of 2013, the Legacy Well Strategic Plan, made a plan to clean up some of the abandoned oil wells that are no longer in use in the Western Arctic. While Berger’s inquiry was about the threats the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline would have on the Western Arctic, there are still other threats happening in the Western Arctic. Some of the current threats to the Northwest Territories are the oil and gasses immediate threat to wildlife and the extremely fragile ecosystem in the Arctic. Another huge threat to the Western Arctic is climate change. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world and this is a problem for the fragile Arctic ecosystem. So while the Mackenzie Valley pipeline was never built, the common threats that people were scared of are still occurring. "BLM to clean up old oil wells in western Arctic." BLM to clean up old oil wells in western Arctic. September 26, 2013. Accessed March 08, 2017. http://wilderness.org/blog/blm-clean-old-oil-wells-western-arctic.

"Oil and Gas." Western Arctic. 2016. Accessed March 08, 2017. http://www.westernarctic.org/story-of-the-western-arctic/threats/

Knut Lang (1896-1964) was a Scandinavian man who settled in the Mackenzie Delta from the 1936-1964. He operated a trading post that serviced fur trappers (mostly muskrat), both Inuit and non-Inuit. He was well liked and known for his generosity, eventually becoming elected to the territorial council of the northwest territories from 1957-1964 (Gwich'in Social & Cultural Institute).

Knut is recognized as suggesting the name Inuvik for the town on the eastern edge of the delta. Inuvik later became administrative center of the region (Gwich'in Social & Cultural Institute) . In the 1950's and 1960's the Canadian government began to entertain the idea of indigenous government (Assembly.gov.nt.ca) . Knut saw the most direct path towards self governance of the northwest territory lay by dividing the northwest territory into an Inuit dominated eastern Arctic and western Arctic comprised of Inuvialuit, Métis, and Dene. This culminated in the creation of the nunavut territory in 1999 (Assembly.gov.nt.ca).

1. Gwich'in Social & Cultural Institute,. Nomination Form For Territorial Historic Sites:Knut Lang's Place. Fort McPherson, NWT: Gwich'in Social & Cultural Institute, 2007. Web. 7 Mar. 2017. (http://gwichin.ca/sites/default/files/gsci_benson_2007_nomination_form_knut_langs_place.pdf )

2."Creation Of A New Northwest Territories". Assembly.gov.nt.ca. N.p., 2014. Web. 7 Mar. 2017. (http://www.assembly.gov.nt.ca/visitors/creation-new-nwt )