Terry Garvin Oral History Interview

In 1951, a young man from Craik, Saskatchewan, named Terry Garvin began his journey into the woods - specifically the Boreal Forest of Canada's northwest. At the time, he was a constable for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police assigned to serve various communities in northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, northern British Columbia, and the southern Northwest Territories. Over the next 13, his work brought him in close contact with some of the First Nations and Métis communities of the North, and his fascination with the culture of the people of the Boreal Forest was born.

Garvin would go on to work in a number of different fields in the North: community development, socio-economic assessment and management, and developing the new discipline of Traditional Use Studies or Land Use Mapping. With a number of colleagues (Gordon Armitage, Cecilia Boucher, Bertha Ganter, Gordon Hodgson, Fred MacDonald, Shirley Nelson and Mike Robinson of the Arctic Institute of North America), he undertook the important Fort McKay First Nation Traditional Land Use and Occupancy Study There is Still Survival Out There.The Study, completed in 1994, became a model for this kind of work mapping 38,000 square kilometers including the peoples' trails and cabins, spiritual (grave) and historical sites, fur bearers, big game, fish, birds, berries, trees and plants, place names, and traplines.

Garvin went on to work on other TUS including the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation. In his work he drew on his extensive knowledge of the North and also used photography and oral history to enhance the studies. Garvin wrote Bushland Peoples (University of Calgary Press, 199?) and Carving Faces, Carving Lives, People of the Boreal Forest (Heritage Community Foundation, 2006). He also was actively involved in the creation of the People of the Boreal Forest Website and Edukit, developed by the Heritage Community Foundation for the Alberta Online Encyclopedia - www.albertasource.ca.

The following excerpts are from an oral history interview with Garvin undertake in 2008 by Dr. Adriana Davies, Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Heritage Community Foundation. David Bates is the videographer and video editor.