True North: The Yukon and Northwest Territories

David W. Leonard is the project historian (Northern Alberta) in the
Historic Sites and Archives Service, Alberta Community Development. He
is also the author of Delayed Frontier: The Peace River Country to 1909
and the co-author of The Lure of the Peace R

As the author of this volume in the Illustrated History of Canada series
points out, the region of Canada lying north of the 60th parallel is an
extremely diverse region, both geographically and culturally. As a
result, the chapters of this study tend to read like separate essays.

Morrison has supplemented his text with a rich variety of illustrations
from several major art and archival repositories, including his own.
Unfortunately, some images are not well positioned. The portrait of
Martin Frobisher, for example, appears before we learn anything about
Frobisher. And why does a photo of the SS Distributor in the 1920s
accompany text describing the fur trade of the early 1800s? No
indication has been provided as to what materials have been used and
where they are located in the book.

Some factual errors stand out, as when the author states that the Dene
of the upper Mackenzie River signed Treaty 8 in 1899. In fact, the
Treaty Commissioners of 1899 never got beyond Smith’s Landing
(Fitzgerald) on the Slave River, and only as far as Fort Resolution the
following year, securing the adhesion of certain Dene (mostly Slavey and
Dogrib) dwelling south and east of Great Slave Lake. The Mackenzie River
Dene had to wait until 1921 and Treaty 11. Morrison might have noted
that, although Territorial Council was not transferred to the NWT until
1967, an administration office for the NWT was set up in Fort Smith
under O.S. Finnie as early as 1921. Also, the Mackenzie Highway was
completed in 1949, not the 1960s, and was not extended to Wrigley until
the 1980s. Fort Smith was only later served with a small connecting road
and declined as a result.

True North is nevertheless a very presentable work that should enhance
public understanding and appreciation of Canada’s vast and diverse
northland. The images chosen add much to the whole and remind us of the
vast wealth of photographs of northern Canada that exist in the
country’s archives, for it was a region to which many 20th-century
visitors brought cameras. Will the author’s own private collection one
day be deposited in a public institution and serve later historians the
way earlier collections, now in the public domain, have served him?