Sahtu and the Atomic Bomb, by Deborah Simmons
 In 1930, prospectors found pitch blend radium and uranium
at Great Bear Lake. At first, the main interest was in
the radium used for medical purposes. But when the lethal
use of uranium was discovered,
the Somba K’e (Port Radium) mine was secretly transferred to
the Canadian government. The uranium ore from Great Bear
Lake was refined at Port Hope, Ontario, and from there went directly
to the Manhattan
Project to make an atomic bomb. After the destruction of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, every ounce of Great Bear Lake uranium ore
was sent to
the United States for the construction of more bombs. An
estimated 1.7 million tonnes of radioactive tailings were left behind
at the
mine site when the mine closed down.
Many people from the community were employed by the mine
as ore carriers. The ore had to be transported in 100-pound
bags down the Great Bear River by barge, then portaged
by truck at the rapids,
and loaded onto another boat. At every stop, the bags had
to be loaded and unloaded on the backs of the ore carriers.
And every time it was
handled, the powdery ore would leak from the bags.
 George Blondin lived in front of the mine for 15 years. The
family subsisted in large part on fish from a net set right
in front of the mine. He says, “I thought it was gold, they were going to
make rings or something.” Since that time, cancer has claimed three
of his brothers, as well as his wife and four of his seven
children. He believes that his family is just one of the many that were
impacted
by the mine.
In an effort to make amends, a delegation of Dene people
attended the peace ceremonies at Hiroshima in 1998 on the
anniversary of the bombing there. The first ore carriers
of the uranium that went
into the bomb met with the first people on whom the atomic
bomb was dropped. As Bella Modeste put it, “We Dene people are a good people … We
hope that blame won’t be put on us because we had no knowledge
about all that happened in the war.”
 The Déline Uranium committee has been conducting research
on the social and environmental impacts of the mine. Negotiations
with the federal government for cleanup of the Somba K’e mine site
are taking place concurrently with self-government negotiations.
The documentary film Village of Widows (1999) on which this
article is largely based may be obtained from Lindum Films
in Toronto, phone 461-2305.
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