PRESERVATION OF 

 ARCHAEOLOGICAL REMAINS IN CANADA 



Diamond Jenness 



Former Chief, Division of Anthropology 

 National Museum of Canada 



I have been asked to supplement Dr. de Laguna's paper by 

 outlining the efforts that Canada has made to protect her Es- 

 kimo remains, and the success that has attended those efforts. 



First of all, it is very important to remember that Canada's 

 Arctic and sub-Arctic regions are not organized into self-govern- 

 ing provinces similar to Ontario and British Columbia, but are 

 administered directly from Ottawa by the federal government 

 itself. The head of the administration is a federal cabinet min- 

 ister whose Deputy bears for this purpose the title "Commis- 

 sioner of the North West Territories and Yukon." The 

 Commissioner is assisted by a government-appointed Council, 

 all of whose members were, until recently, senior civil servants, 

 one a high-ranking officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted 

 Police. Acting on the advice of this Council, the Commissioner 

 issues ordinances for the regulation of trade, mining and other 

 activities within the region, ordinances which the Royal Cana- 

 dian Mounted Police then enforces through its numerous out- 

 posts. These ordinances have no validity outside the Arctic 

 and sub-Arctic, because farther south the provinces control 

 their own natural resources. They do not apply even to the 

 Labrador Peninsula, because that region also is divided between 

 two of the provinces, Quebec and Newfoundland. Although 

 there are many Eskimo (and Indian) remains in the peninsula, 

 neither of those provinces pays any attention to them. The 

 federal government, however, has instituted a strict watch over 

 the remains in the North West Territories, which fortunately 

 contains by far the largest number. 



60 



