American Indian Culture and Research Journal

INTRODUCTION Northern Canada is a complex and fragile homeland blessed with physical and natural resources which are now subject to modern land claims agreements. An important public policy issue that receives little attention in the academic literature relates to the various models of governance that will be established once aboriginal claims are settled in Canada's north. For northerners, however, claims settlements represent the single largest item on the public policy agenda. Most of the research on native claims focuses upon the normative foundations for the claims, the unique cultural and environmental dimensions, and the quantification of actual entitlements in the form of cash and land transfers. This paper transcends the debate over entitlements and seeks to refocus the dialogue around those issues relating to post-claims governance. Admittedly, this paper is a polemic. My objective is to generate discussion and, hopefully, further research concerning what might be termed the implementation phase of the claims process. This is particularly important for the Dene/métis of the Mackenzie region of the Northwest Territories, the Inuit of the eastern Arctic, and the Council for Yukon Indians in the Yukon.