ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the shift by examining the Canadian mining economy through the 1900s, and how it represents failed exchange for the Tlicho and the miners. The Tlicho cosmology is described, and the fundamental values of respect, exchange and reciprocity are identified as central in founding stories and history. The fur trade and a variety of mines, including gold, uranium, and lead-zinc, are the economic engines of the north of Canada. The diamond mines operate in the northern barren lands of Canada, home to the aboriginal people, the Dene and Inuit. The Tlicho Nation identify broadly with the Dene, all of whom speak languages from the Athapascan language group. The kwetiji mining camps did not conform to this characteristic, as the kwetiji tried to avoid contact with other people. The exchange relations that emerged between the kwetiji and the Tlicho, and their importance to the development of a broader mining economy, was not generally noted by settler society.
