First Dene Migration Symposium 2009
A first Dene Migration Symposium, entitled “We all have holes in our stories”, was held at the Tsuut’ina Nation in September 2009 and organized by Bruce Starlight, Sally Rice, and Jack Ives.
This first symposium was held before a multi-year set of excavations that Jack Ives oversaw at and around dry caves near Promontory, Utah. His SSHRC-funded project from the Government of Canada has yielded much new evidence concerning Dene migration to the SW that desperately needs sharing with community members in a follow-up symposium. The first symposium saw very positive collaboration between an international team of academics and members of the Dene Nation on both sides of the border, bringing as it did insider (Dene) and outsider (non-Dene) linguistic, archeological, ethno-historical, biological, genetic, climatological, geological, folkloric, computational, and curatorial expertise to the same table. There is deep interest in both Dene and scholarly communities to try to connect the dots among very dispersed areas of Dene activity and settlement in order to answer how and when Dene ancestors settled North America and, possibly, Siberia.
A tentative schedule and a flyer announcing the 2009 symposium can be found below .
Speakers included Bob Bear (photograph below, L), David Brugge, Sunday Eislet, Sam Gargan, Victor Golla, Jack Ives, Joel Janestski, John Janvier, Harvey Laughter, Lorenzo Max, Diane Meguinis, Ivor Deneway Myers, Bruce Starlight, Eddy Tso, and Ed Vajda (photograph below, R).
Other participants included Chris Cox, Harley Crowchild, Nadine Crowchild, Gary Donovan, Darin Flynn, Duane Froese, Betty Harnum, Dagmar Jung, Michelle Knoll, Joyce McDonough, Gerald Meguinis, Lynda Minoose, Pat Moore, Cynthia Pipestem, Paul Platero, Sally Rice, Conor Snoek, Bernice Starlight, Ellory Starlight, Emil Starlight, James Starlight, Valerie Wood, Raymond Yakelaya, and Gabe Yanicki.
Click on the following link to view the 2009 Dene Migration Symposium program: 2009_DeneMigrationSymposium_Program
Click on the following link to view the 2009 Dene Migration Symposium flyer: 2009_Symposium_flyer