 In terms of the Northwest Territories and the development of aboriginal groups and their cause, we always had to have a certain amount of humour and from the Northern Arctic perspective we approached things differently but oftentimes we'd have people come in from the Southern Canada to be involved in helping us, getting politically motivated. So we've had all kinds of people very strong and particularly Indian groups from B.C. and there was once this girl came to my place and stayed with me for quite some time. My mother is totally non-political and a very much a survivor. She was sitting, I went to bed and she was sitting and not many other people to talk to so, Rosalie had said, well Maggie, you know, you're an Indian person, there's daughters totally involved, you must feel very strong about your identity in the mosaic of the developing political situation in the Northwest Territories. And this went on for quite a while so finally one of us says, well how do you feel about yourself and all this? And I said, well, my name is Maggie Adams and I'm there happy to be a part of it. I'm 28 and presently my job here is the chair and the chief executive officer of the Interground Regional Corporation and this is the overall corporation and all the other corporations such as the Development Corporation, the Investment Corporation and any of the other subsidiaries are contained under the Interground Regional Corporation head so the Interground Regional Corporation heads up all the corporate groups that are in the island. My home really is a clave and most of my younger life I was brought up about 30 miles below a clave and grew up in that area between a clave and the West Channel so that's what it was called and in those days everybody was a hunter and a trapper so my father was a hunter and trapper and we were just part of a broader community so everybody did the same thing so that's where I spent most of my life. I was fortunate maybe being a girl and second in the family where it was felt I was needed more at home so I had more of an opportunity to do my education and take my education through correspondence courses rather than going to a hostel and that helped a lot in terms of having really strong ties to the family and to the region. In the early 60s there was a change of events where more people began to move in and this really was becoming a larger center where other people's interest seemed to be taken over from what was known as the community of the Delta and that was lived for a while but when the oil and gas industry came in it sort of shot out into the Delta because most of the work was being done out there and I had been working most of my life with hunters and trappers committees and community committees as secretary of letter writing and these types of things and it got to a point where it was very difficult to get the respect of the industry and of government when people had something to say and because I guess we were not a political force to be reckoned with and because Agnes Sammer was a key person you know she generally led the way and tried to figure out things you know what is the best way to go how do the people get a voice and so with her connections and with her discussions she felt that you had to become a legitimate incorporated body with a mandate you know with the guidelines and the membership behind you so that's how Cope was formed because people just were not taking the inner reality or even the Gwichin who were around here very seriously. Inuit-de-parake set of Canada decided that it was too broad an area so they formed a broader organization known as Inuit-de-parake set of Canada so these things you know happened we started with everybody involved and then gradually I guess there was funding available to the other organization it was very difficult for Agnes to secure support government funding lobby support for Cope and because at the beginning she didn't want that she felt that people had to be committed to the organization had to really believe in what they were doing or else it wouldn't survive and so the first really clash or conflict we had with oil and gas was within Banks Island and some of the work that was done across the lake where there was dynamite blasting in the lakes people very concerned about that and so those were the you know in the early stages of the organization right at the beginning of 1970 and it was difficult to hold things together because there was always people didn't work wouldn't experience in an adversarial organization you know most anyway I would like to be nice about things and and it was difficult for them to get aggressive and it was nice that Agnes was around because she didn't have a problem with that you know and many of us were recruited to to do the the background work and and she didn't have any fear of facing some pretty tough and well funded industry organizations and and even some of the the councils you know the community councils like the town of Inuvik was very concerned that we would drive away the industry and that you know nothing you know will happen and so we didn't have a lot of friends you know as Cope you know other than the really strong innovative that we're backing it and look we're looking more in the future I was involved with with Cope and then ITC and then when we broke away in 1974 I was involved with Cope and and the negotiation of the claim I was heavily involved with the community part of it the community the communications in the community dealing with the community deal with individual families information and community support so I was always involved with that you know when we went on with our claim so in 19 we had a lot of problems we had and the government Yukon was against us because they didn't want us to have had any part of the claim in the Yukon and the the Indian groups in the Northwest Territories were concerned with with what we were doing because they didn't want us to set up precedent and even within New York the parents said we had difficulty with them you know with a number of people and who felt that you know when they withdrew the claim because we were all together at one time all the individuals together but they weren't prepared because the communities weren't enough informed but we were facing the development we were facing the you know you know major upheaval here and if you leave it too left it too long then you know just by not doing anything about it you don't have a place and people are pushed further back in the background so I was always involved with it you know right from the beginning and the concern of having to be out you know have a say in in their land base and in their homeland and um when I went and when I was working with with cope and um the tool we always had difficulty with the Northwest Territory government and they weren't hard and fast on anything but what it was is they always throwing roadblocks in you know creating issues that we had to solve and it took a long time it slowed down the process of claims and and although they weren't part of negotiations they were part of the federal government team and so they'd always throw roadblocks in the way and it was decided that someone had to be in a territorial government that understood the claim and to make sure that that the issue of the Northwest Territories government was taken care of so that's why I ran in the election in 1979 it's just for that specific purpose because we we seem to be stymied by the NWT government we couldn't understand why and it just seemed that there was a a group of people that didn't want the claim to go forward so let's keep putting stumbling blocks and just delay and delay and maybe they'll get tired and give up or run out of money or their their own people will turn against them because then they're spending too much money so all these kinds of things were happening so that's why I didn't really have a great desire to run for territorial counsel it was the fact that there was a number of us who could have and and so we sat together and and because my children had grown up and were on their own it just I was the one that probably had the best ability to and the freedom to to take on that task I guess the readiness if you wanted or the learning or the knowledge came way back back before government you know we I've always from the time I was a kid always involved with community activities and always involved with people and and the different organizations that were formed whether they were community or otherwise and I've always been interested in you know how things work generally you know I you know we're not just a little you know I my father was very good at about this and talking to everybody in the west channel I know we Victor Allen and Edward and all these sometimes used to listen to him say what are you talking about because we always thought that everything should say the same we'll still be standing here in the bank we'll still be off picking off muskrats you know we'll still be skinning muskrats and the economy could still survive and we'll still have a good life but he used to always talk about that's not you know putting our head in the ground and and thinking that we're only going to be ourselves and you know but just through the discussions and and and pushing you know ourselves to think beyond and saying that we're just a small part of a very large society so even though you ran your life perfectly where you are you did the best you're going to the influence from other places are going to slowly overtake you and you have to be ready for that and you can't put your head in the sand anymore and we used to wonder what what are you talking about you know and but as things evolve you could see these changes coming and then you could see it one time you were very important group of people and then all of a sudden someone else is more important and someone else it's later on you're just a nuisance you know so i guess i've always been involved so whether i was involved with cope or irc and government you learn a lot in government i learned a lot i learned a lot about you know how to do things how to get things done you know where the connections are in government um who does what you know and how governments change you know and the limitations on government too so that knowledge is always good whether i was working here or working in the community that knowledge is very good mandate of irc is is contained in the final agreement and and one of the the main parts of this is to to allow in the alley to be meaningful participants in a changing northern and canadian society that means a lot you know we have to to get politically or otherwise avenues for every individuality to try to be a meaningful partner or participant in the society you know right now when we're discussing that issue we ask ourselves this question what is basically the problem that is limiting that to happen okay what is limiting and some of the some of the problems is economics jobs and when you talk about that it's lack of education comes out more and more the lack of academic education people have different kinds of education but academic education is very important in this day and age you know even if you're a trapper it would be important for you to have a fairly decent academic education just because of how you would do your work differently and people having children if they wanted to educate their children out if they decide to have a land base you want to educate your educate your children it's possible to educate your children on the land the principles say what does it mean and the basic principles i'm going to read it to you probably some of you know it all by heart to preserve a new the al cultural identity and values within a changing northern society so we knew it was changing but at the same time you know we had to preserve who we are and try to make sure that the values were there and we still have to work very hard to do that and be to enable it to be out to be equal and meaningful participants in the northern and national economy and society now that we're not equal and meaningful probably took us a longest time to get government to agree to those two words they want to water those words down and tell us you know you don't really need those words so we spent a lot of time when i'm being as meaningful you know and they wanted the smaller less pressing words and then to protect and preserve the arctic wildlife environment and biological productivity so those were the three principles that guide all these and let every one of these were developed and taken door to door it's not only the offshore development of oil and gas but also you know the whole opening up of the arctic nely corny says the road does more than link to isolated communities this attention to a access to the coast and a recognition that there's a coast that will bring more stability in the long term lately the region has been starved for jobs some residents say their concern the highway will pass too closely by husky lakes and it'll bring too much traffic to the sensitive area around the traditional camp but few are speaking publicly about that 200 people now have jobs with a project and leaders hope that's just the start the oil and gas you know that's what we see in the long term with the offshore happening i really strongly believe talking about tourism alone the arctic ocean right here right on the arctic ocean it'll sell itself with them grouping corny and others crusaded for the highway they lobbied the federal government after becoming frustrated when the territorial government promised a road but never came up with any money they didn't do anything about it was just a lot of talk now with the federal government paying two thirds the territorial government is kicking in at least a hundred million it'll pick up any cost overruns and pay for maintenance corny says in exchange for agreeing to help pay for the road ottawa increased the territory's foreign limit if it wasn't for this project being on the table and and their appeal to the government that they did not have money to do their share the deck wall wouldn't have been lifted she says other regions could learn a thing or two from the anubi alawet if people want to get money for their projects then go ahead and start doing the work like we did today's the official opening of the floor named after nellie cornway who's been a you know a leader in the field in the western high arctic in the anubi alawet region in particular we're very proud of the fact that we worked very closely with the anubi alawet and have for many years now in this two ways of understanding how this system is functioning our objective really is to understand that system with the tools of western science and to understand what they are right now and what are the pressures on that system what are the pressures that are causing it to change how fast are those things changing and importantly can we model those changes can we make a really good model of what the arctic marine system will look like 20 years from now 50 years from now 100 years from now based on a firm understanding of the science that we're doing today the science that is coming out of this will be something that we will be proud of for decades to come and it's something that will be an ongoing legacy of the university of manitoba so this institute and this floor and our focus on the arctic will be something that will be at the university of manitoba in perpetuity now if you don't survive and you don't get on with your life and you'll feel good about yourself and you don't feel like you're competitive you're with other people you don't feel so good about yourself so that's a different way of dying so we have to get on and in trying to you know work with the education department with government and everyone trying to get people academically operational so that they don't feel that they can't compete if they want to compete