Dene women are leading and directing efforts toward "healing" themselves, their families, and their communities. Employing a modality of montage and storytelling, this thesis explores this enigmatic concept of "healing" among Dene, and its gendered dimensions, in the community of Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories. This account challenges the limitations of a resistance-hegemony paradigm often used to describe Aboriginal actions as embedded within colonial relations, and endeavours toward a more nuanced analysis which explores Dene "healing" beyond the colonial space. "Healing" is emerging as a vehicle for the assertion and celebration of Dene identity, Dene tradition and "Dene ways". This thesis further explores how many Dene women in Fort Good Hope are mobilizing the power of tradition, such as -aet'sechi/ (practices associated with "becoming woman"), as a means of "healing" social/health concerns, and influencing gender and power relations in the community.

The Dene are a subarctic people indigenous to northern Canada. The indirect and direct contact the Dene had with the European traders and Christian missionaries who came to their land around the turn of the 20th century triggered profound changes in their society and economy. This study focuses on some of these changes, and, particularly, on how they have affected the lives of Dene women who inhabit the small community of Fort Liard, which is located in the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories. / Using as context the formal and informal economy and the concept of the model of production, the author proposes two main ideas: first, "nurturing" or "social reproduction" and "providing" or "production" are vital and integral to the Dene's subsistence economy and concept of work; second, it is through the custom of "seclusion" or female puberty rites that the teaching and learning of these responsibilities occurred. Dene women played a pivotal role in this process. The impositions of external government, Christianity, capitalism, and free market economics have altered Dene women's concept of work. / The Dene women of Fort Liard are presently working to regain the social and economic status they once had. However, reclaiming their status in current times involves recognizing conflicting and contradictory ideologies in the workplace. The goal of these Dene women is, ultimately, to overcome economic and ideological obstacles, to reinforce common cultural values, and to reaffirm the primacy of their own conceptions of family and community. The goal of this study is to identify and examine the broad spectrum of factors and conditions that play a role in their struggles.

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Research was conducted to better understand the food insecurity (FI) experience among women in a small indigenous Canadian Arctic community. A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted in January-February 2006 with 54 women (20-40 years). Interviews were conducted on food insecurity, lifestyle, health, dietary self-efficacy and traditional food (TF) frequency; anthropometry data were also gathered. FI affected 55% of participating households in the community. Issues of food availability, quality and variety; lack of consumer skills; and lack of TF access were recognized as potential barriers to food security. Women from FI households were more likely to report an inability to access TF (p=0.0171). No associations were found between food security status and dietary self-efficacy or TF frequency of use. Current measures, programs and policies addressing FI need to consider unique barriers facing Indigenous Peoples living in northern Canada, including the barriers that affect access to TF resources.

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