Drum Songs: Glimpses of Dene History reconstructs important moments in Dene history, offering an understanding of their past, the impact of the fur trade, their interaction with Christian missionaries, and evolving relations with the Canadian federal government. The Dene nation consists of twelve thousand people speaking five distinct languages spread over 1.8 million square kilometres in the Canadian subarctic. In the 1970s and 1980s, the campaign against the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, support for the leadership of Georges Erasmus in the Assembly of First Nations, and land claim negotiations put the Dene on the leading edge of Canada's native rights movement. A new introduction discusses Dene experience since the first edition of the book and suggests how the approach of scholars in this field is changing. Kerry Abel is assistant professor of history, Carleton University.
