Elders from around the Sahtu will share stories from ancient Dene history at a conference in Norman Wells scheduled for Sept. 30 to Oct. 4.

The Sahtu Origins and Identity Conference will gather stories and information about the links between the Dene forbears and the Siberian Ket people, the travels during and after the Ice Age which took these people into, and throughout, the Americas.

SA国际影视传媒淭he idea came from a Dene gathering conference in Calgary,SA国际影视传媒� says Raymond Yakeleya, who, with his company Earth Magic Media Group, is helping organize the Norman Wells conference, along with Sahtu land corporations, First Nations, M茅tis organizations and the Sahtu Divisional Education Council.

SA国际影视传媒淧eople at the conference, the young Dene, were asking these questions, 'Where do we come from and how did we get here?'SA国际影视传媒� says Yakeleya. SA国际影视传媒淲hich is a really good question. We just didnSA国际影视传媒檛 show up by accident. That wasnSA国际影视传媒檛 how it worked.SA国际影视传媒�

He says the discussions went back to the last ice age, to the Siberian Ket people who share linguistic similarities with the Dene, to the spread of Dene peoples across northern Canada and Alaska, to the Navajo and Apache in the southern U.S. who are also linguistically linked and even, possibly, to the Aztecs.

SA国际影视传媒淚 think it's important that our elders, especially our historian elders, start talking about what is remembered, (and) pass along the history of the Dene to our young people,SA国际影视传媒� says Yakeleya.

Elders from Tulita, Deline, Fort Good Hope, Colville Lake and Norman Wells will be invited to the conference.

Yakeleya also just signed a contract with PBS to produce a five-part series on the Dene peoples, called People of the Land and Water: The Dene Nation. It will look into the same stories and history.

Yakeleya says the connections to the Ket people in Siberia, who have documented linguistic links to the Dene, and the Aztecs, to whom a connection with the Dene is just beginning to be investigated, are particularly mysterious and interesting.

Beyond these genetic mysteries, the stories of survival SA国际影视传媒� in an era of sabre-toothed cats, short-faced bears, North American lions, mastodons, mammoths and giant beavers SA国际影视传媒� held by elders today are bound to be compelling.

SA国际影视传媒淭he stories from the elders, the stories that we have from the last ice age, you know SA国际影视传媒� it must have been a horrific time,SA国际影视传媒� says Yakeleya.

SA国际影视传媒淚 mean, if you've got North American lions running around and all you've got is a spear and maybe a bow and arrow, it's really quite the way to make a life. But I guess our old elders would have had no choice, and they did it. That's how we are here today.SA国际影视传媒�