Northerners: Profiles of People in the Northwest Territories Author: Douglas Holmes Publisher: James Lorimer & Company, Toronto, 1989 ISBN: 1-55028-215-8

Canada is a vast and endless sort of place. Nonetheless 99.7% of the population lives in the bottom half of the country snuggled up to the US border, enjoying an American lifestyle while fretting over if and how they’re different from the Americans. Meanwhile the bold 0.3% of the population occupying the top half of the country dutifully get on with the task of upholding Canada's identity as a true north, strong and freezing nation. The populations of the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut are split almost evenly between white and indigenous people, with most of their towns and villages unconnected by the road system and accessible only by air or boat in the summer and snowmobile in the winter.

Doug Holmes went north for a short visit in the late Seventies and stayed until the early Nineties. He worked in Yellowknife and Inuvik, first at a grocery store, a gold mine and the ever-present federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, before ending up as a journalist for Northern News Services and the CBC.

‘Northerners’ is a collection of 24 profiles of men and women who made the North what it was in the Eighties. The book doesn’t pretend to be a comprehensive reference work about the Northwest Territories; rather it simply and vividly portrays real people living in a real world.

Contents

Acknowledgements
Preface

PART I: TRADITIONAL LIVES
Annie G. Robert: A Life on the Land
Anna Nungaq: Relocated to Total Darkness
David Ruben Piqtoukun: Polar Bears in Africa
Richard Beck: Dog-Mushing Dynasty
Abe Okpik: Project Surname
René Fumoleau: Criticism and Catholicism
Benjamin Arreak: Alternative Anglicanism

PART II: POLITICAL LIVES
Nick Sibbeston: Filibustering in Slavey
Tagak Curley: Twenty-eight Words Later
Cece McCauley: The Chief with the Fax
Stephen Kakfwi: A Good Time to Settle a Land Claim
Lynda Sorensen: Shedding the Redneck Image
Peter Ittinuar: To Ottawa and Back

PART III: BUSINESS LIVES
Nick Lebessis: Fur Trader and Jet Setter
William Nasogaluak: Reindeer Are Not Caribou
Doug Billingsley: Playing Different Roles
John Todd: The Joint Venture
Ed Klaus: The Arctic Freeway

PART IV: MODERN LIVES
Tom Jeyachandran: The Flying Doctor
T. David Marshall: The Highest Judge
Edna Elias: Challenging Traditional Attitudes
Margaret Thrasher: Town Drunk
Sharon Firth: From the Trapline to the Olympics
Bezal Jesudason: How to Get to the North Pole

Praise for Northerners

"As pleasurable an entrée as there is to the varied and colorful politics of our North."
- Douglas Fisher, Sunday Sun

"Douglas Holmes is a competent journalist. His reporting skills make the 24 individuals he profiles seem very real… Holmes' book could inspire an entire calendar of northern Canada – populated with the colorful characters he portrays in this book."
- Toronto Star

"Northerners provides interesting reading and puts real characters behind the headlines dealing with the North."
- Ottawa Citizen

"Doug Holmes deals in facts, not fiction and he presents two dozen realistic portraits, warts and all… Northerners is an honest, readable collection, which should help dispel some southern misconceptions."
- Canadian Book Review Annual

"A delightful series of short biographies… This is a book for anyone who has been north and met some of these people, or for anyone who is mildly curious about northern lives and personalities."
- Kingston Whig Standard

"Holmes has set the stage for More Northerners or Northerners II, and I, for one, hope he writes it."
- Halifax Daily News