Why this town in the Northwest Territories was called the 'Village of Widows'

Atomic Reaction airs on the documentary Channel Sunday, October 27 at 9pm. 

The discovery of a rare rock amidst the tundra of Canada's Far North nearly 100 years ago set in motion one of mankind's most destructive legacies: Decades of mining, workers getting sick and, finally, a pair of atomic bombs that killed tens of thousands of civilians in an instant — and changed the world forever.

As author and professor Peter van Wyck says in the documentary Atomic Reaction: "This is a piece of Canadian history that doesn't get talked about much."

It all started near Délı̨nę, a community on Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, where the Sahtu Dene people have lived for thousands of years. Originally a nomadic people, they started settling more firmly at Délı̨nę in the 1940s. 

In 1932, Eldorado Mine opened across the lake from Délı̨nę at a site known as Port Radium. The site was an early source of radium, originally considered a miracle substance and used in cancer treatment or to make instrument dials glow in the dark, it fetched $40,000 US a gram at that time. Around this time, young Sahtu Dene men started working at the mine, transporting incredibly valuable bags of radioactive ore. 

But soon, uranium became the main goal of the operation.

The dangerous material made its way from Canada's North to the top-secret Manhattan Project in the United States and ultimately to Japan in the atomic bombs that the U.S. military dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. 

Today, a billion-dollar cleanup project is still underway in Port Hope, Ont., where Eldorado ran a uranium and radium refinery. There, the mined ore was processed and radioactive waste was deposited throughout the area.

'Village of Widows' became a common name for the community

Lawrence Nayally, radio host for CBC's Trail's End, the N.W.T. afternoon show, and originally from Pedzéh Kı̨ First Nation, first started visiting Délı̨nę as a child to spend time with cousins that lived there and explore the land. Today, Délı̨nę is considered an important place for cultural and spiritual gatherings.

Growing up and learning from his elders, Nayally said the legacy of the mines wasn't often discussed, even as many told stories about the land and its notable locations.

"They talked a lot about the land, right? Because that was their livelihood — a part of them. And so they would talk about certain areas, especially when we went to Délı̨nę, on the lake, just how beautiful it is. All of the historic locations where the famous stories took place. 

"And then they would mention Port Radium," he continued, "and just how it led to the creation of the atomic weapons that we know of today. And so, you know, they talked in a kind of loose way about it. But the sad thing is that, years later, when I was pretty young, they buried quite a [few] people that had a lot of cancer."

"Village of Widows" became the grim term for the community, still haunted by its connection to the atomic bombs. Many community members eventually began to worry about the risks they took in transporting sacks of radioactive ore from the mine as ore workers and their family members developed cancer later in life.

"They talked about, 'What's causing this?'" Nayally said. "It would all go back to those mines. Because, you know, what they were putting into the waterways, what they were doing, was very dangerous."

In 2005, a national report examining the health legacy of the mine concluded that cancer rates in Délı̨nę were not statistically different from rates in N.W.T. However, it stated that these findings should be "interpreted cautiously" due to gaps in the cancer registry before 1990, and the small populations of Délı̨nę and the province. 

The report also acknowledged that a legacy of fear and anxiety surrounding environmental contamination and health remains in the community.

It reminds us to hold power accountable

As a young man, Nayally himself sought work in the North, where mining was a big industry. He describes himself as "a kid from the bush" who never finished Grade 12 and struggled to find his place in the world. 

Nayally looked for a mining job in Yellowknife but was not accepted into a training program, instead finding related work within the sector by testing ore. But the path was not meaningful to him.

"One day, I used my Dene drum and I fed the fire, and I just asked the Creator, my ancestors, to help me out finding a job that is meaningful, that is good, that will help others," Nayally said. "And then, three days after I had done that, I get this call to ask if I was interested in working in radio."

The history of Délı̨nę, and other similar stories about how resources and industries affected local Indigenous communities, inspires Nayally in the work he does today.

"A lot of those stories kind of shaped my perception of what could be, and what should be," he said. "It's really given me a chance to be the best at what I currently am doing, which is storytelling through radio."

"This is Délı̨nę's story," he added. "But this is also the story of many Indigenous nations across the world that had to deal with the cunning ways of industry and government just to be in power, to be wealthy."

Discovering this rich ore, mining it and its eventual path of destruction was "secretive" and "deceitful," Nayally said, as the community was never told about their involvement in the bombs until after they were dropped on Japan. He noted the potentially harmful effects of exposure was never shared with people either. 

The lesson is an important one, Nayally said: It reminds us to hold power accountable, ask questions and seek the truth about what's being done to the land — because those impacts can be generational.

As photographer, artist and activist Robert Del Tredici says in Atomic Reaction: "We don't have any sense of the longevity of the nuclear waste. For all practical purposes, it is immortal. And we own it. We created it."

"I'm glad the story of what happened is getting more out there," Nayally said. "But it's upsetting and sad. At the same time, I have to, as a Dene person, have hope that what went wrong can be made right."

Watch Atomic Reaction October 27, at 9pm on the documentary Channel.