Night Spirits: The Story of the Relocation of the Sayisi Dene

For over 1500 years, the Sayisi Dene, “The Dene from the East,” led an independent life, following the caribou herds and having little contact with white society. In 1956, an arbitrary government decision to relocate them catapulted the Sayisi Dene into the 20th century. It replaced their traditional nomadic life of hunting and fishing with a slum settlement on the outskirts of Churchill, Manitoba. Inadequately housed, jobless, and unfamiliar with the language or the culture, they saw their...