A Uranium Legacy from the 1940s for the Dene People
Robert Del Tredici, Port Radium, Vance Peninsula, Great Bear Lake, NWT., 18 July 1998
Abandoned Uranium Sacks, once filled with crushed radioactive ore and carried by Dene natives, now lie rotting in the sun at Port Radium, the world’s first uranium mine. Dene native Joe Blondin Jr. surveys the scene. He was born in Port Radium at a time when the mine was supplying uranium for bombs in the U.S. Many Dene ore-carriers inhaled uranium dust and over time sickened and died of cancer. Their settlement of Deline on the western shore of Great Bear Lake has been called “the Village of Widows”.