Yukon -- History, Northwest Territories History, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Northern Canada -- History, Northern Canada, Dene, Inuit 

"Furs, gold, whales, oil -- the reason for going north has always been to empty the treasure house. The northern territories are vast; they are also sparsely populated, so southern Canadians have been content to leave the North a colony, not a true part of Canada.

But the land claims and resource development disputes of the 1970s served notice that the traditional attitude of benign neglect will no longer do. Today the territories press for greater autonomy, the Dene and Inuit for self-government, and environmentalists and developers for their respective visions of the North's future.

Since the first British naval expeditions to "The Frozen Zone," the history of the North has been romanticized. This book presents history as actually seen from the North. Ken Coates starts by describing the resilient pre-European cultures of the Dene and Inuit peoples. Then come the exploits of the great explorers like Frobisher and Franklin, foreshadowing a future of conflict.

Chapters are devoted to each period of development -- the fur trade, Arctic whaling, the Klondike Gold Rush, military projects like the Alaska Highway, Ottawa's "bureaucratization" of the North, and the resource aspects of recent years. Throughout, Ken Coates shows that today's northern politics has deep roots in the true history of "Canada's colonies.""--Back cover. 

251 pages : illustrations, map ; 16 cm. 

Contents:
1. The land, original peoples and first contacts --
2. The early fur trade --
3. The gold frontier and the Klondike --
4. The doldrums in the middle north --
5. Boom and bust in the Arctic --
6. The army's north --
7. The bureaucrat's north --
8. Whither the north.

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.