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1899 and After

About the book: Bush Land People


[About the author]
   

Book Cover Bush Land People is a visual record of the country traveled during Terry's career, and it provides the first published photo essay of the bush economy in the region from Lac La Martre, Northwest Territories, in the north to the  Athabasca oil sands, at Fort McMurray, in the south. In the book you will discover the traplines and bush land communities of the 1960s and 1970s. During these decades the people of this region had to cope with the inroads of the oil and gas industry, the creation of thousands of kilometres of seismic lines and paved highways, dirt roads and the ongoing push to centralize native people in service communities where life bore little resemblance to the seasonal round of community travel commonplace in the 1940s and 1950s. In many respects this is a book about change that came uninvited and the people who had to cope with its effects on their lives.

While Bush Land People was written primarily for students to introduce them to the culture of the bush economy, it will also appeal to everyone with a desire to understand how life is lived north of the big cities that dominate the Canadian South. If you have dreamed of spending time on the land with native people, seeing long lines of caribou in their migratory march, or of canoeing down the rivers of the boreal forest, this is your book.

Bush Land People is published by The Arctic Institute of North America


About the author

Terry GarvinTerry Garvin (left), the author of Bush Land People, is also the silent voice behind the camera. For nearly forty years he has traveled the northern bush land in a variety of careers that have spanned the RCMP, community development work for Syncrude Canada Ltd., socio-economic assessment and management for Petro-Canada Inc. and consulting services to native communities across Canada. In all of the above employment, Terry has worked tirelessly to empower native people to take their own decisions about participation in development. In the best sense, he has been a teacher, a trainer, a friend and an ally. He has also been a participant in two worlds.

Born on a farm in Saskatchewan, he learned early to be self-sufficient, practical and calm when the storms raged. His bush skills made him a natural for northern duty as an RCMP member. He has mushed dog teams at -40 degrees; he has been welcomed in many small trapline cabins with supper and a bunk at the end of a long day; he has dragged rivers for lost children and he is as true and as loyal a friend as you will find in the bush.

By Mike Robinson, Adjunct Professor and Executive Director of The Arctic Institute of North America.  Reprinted from Bush Land People with the permission of the author. Copyright Terry Garvin, 1992-2002.

©copyright Heritage Community Foundation 2002.  All Rights Reserved.