Why this town in the Northwest Territories was called the ‘Village of Widows’ – by Nina Dragicevic (CBC Docs – October 25, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/

The discovery of a rare rock amidst the tundra of Canada’s Far North nearly 100 years ago set in motion one of mankind’s most destructive legacies: Decades of mining, workers getting sick and, finally, a pair of atomic bombs that killed tens of thousands of civilians in an instant — and changed the world forever.

As author and professor Peter van Wyck says in the documentary Atomic Reaction: “This is a piece of Canadian history that doesn’t get talked about much.” It all started near Délı̨nę, a community on Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, where the Sahtu Dene people have lived for thousands of years. Originally a nomadic people, they started settling more firmly at Délı̨nę in the 1940s.

In 1932, Eldorado Mine opened across the lake from Délı̨nę at a site known as Port Radium. The site was an early source of radium, originally considered a miracle substance and used in cancer treatment or to make instrument dials glow in the dark, it fetched $40,000 US a gram at that time. Around this time, young Sahtu Dene men started working at the mine, transporting incredibly valuable bags of radioactive ore.

For the rest of this article: https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/why-this-town-in-the-northwest-territories-was-called-the-village-of-widows-1.7362052#:~:text=%22Village%20of%20Widows%22%20became%20the,developed%20cancer%20later%20in%20life.