Lessons from the land
Bea Lake
Idaa Trail
Fence Narrows
Blood Rock
Grave Site
Hook Place
Komoola Portage
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Village beside Nidzii
Bea Lake
Canoe
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Welcome to Bea Lake
The remains of birchbark canoes are commonly found at portages and other locations along the Idaa Trail. When Tom Andrews, an archaeologist from the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, travelled the trail in the early 1990s, Marie Mantla, a Dogrib elder, told him of two birchbark canoes that were stored and never recovered near Bea Lake (Bea Ti  in Dogrib) in 1939. Guided by another Dogrib elder, Harry Simpson, the team found the remains of the canoes, and also located the birch tree used to repair the canoes.
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Bea Lake ca. 1925 (NWT Archives/N-1979-073-0372)
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Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada