World Notes CANADA

They are already known as the "first Canadians." Now 13,000 native Indians and metis (of mixed European and Indian stock) who inhabit the Mackenzie River Valley in Canada's Northwest Territories are about to become the region's biggest landlords. With drums beating a steady cadence and 1,000 Dogrib, Slavey, Chipewyan and Cree Indians and metis looking on, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney last week signed a tentative agreement calling for $403 million and 109,000 sq. mi. of federal lands to be turned over to native peoples in the western subarctic end of the region that stretches across the top of North America. Along with two other agreements covering parts of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon expected next spring, the accord appears to be the largest land transfer since the U.S. bought Alaska from Russia in 1867.

The agreement ends 15 years of land-claims wrangling and clears the way for the social and economic development of an area roughly the size of Texas. Besides land and cash, the native people will receive 10% of royalties from minerals, oil and gas that may lie beneath the tundra, as well as traditional fishing and hunting rights over an additional 600,000 sq. mi. of boggy terrain. Said Alexis Arrowmaker, an elder of the Dogrib tribe: "The young generation is going to appreciate what we've done."