Danezaa People - History

History

Prior to 1800 the Dane-zaa inhabited lands further east, near the Athabaska and Clearwater rivers, and north to Lake Athabaska, as well as territory north of the upper Peace River. Recent archaeological evidence establishes that the area of Charlie Lake north of Fort St John has been continuously occupied for 10,500 years by varying cultures of indigenous peoples.

In the late 18th century, European Canadians opened the Peace River area to fur trading. The Cree, a powerful people to the east of the Dane-zaa, had become highly dependent on the European goods and the maintenance of a trade monopoly with North West Company traders (the Northwest Company later amalgamated with the Hudson's Bay Company). The Scots-Canadian explorer Alexander Mackenzie established Rocky Mountain Fort at the mouth of the Moberly River in 1794.

A post journal of 1799-1800 mentions people trading at the post who can be identified as the ancestors of members of the former Fort St John Band, now the Doig River and Blueberry River First Nations. Oral history collected from elders at Doig confirms that the ancestors of present Dane-zaa families were in the upper Peace River area prior to first contact by Alexander Mackenzie in 1793. Traders provisioned their expeditions with bison meat and grease collected by the Dane-zaa in their hunting on the rich prairies of the upper Peace River area. By the time the Hudson's Bay Company took over the North West Company in 1823, bison had become commercially extinct.

For many years the Dane-zaa have followed the teachings and songs of their "Dreamers," who first predicted the coming of the Europeans. The last Dreamer, Charlie Yahey, died in 1976. The Dane-zaa of Fort St John took an adhesion to Treaty 8 in 1900. Today they continue to have a vibrant cultural and economic presence in the North Peace area.