Guy LanoueLanoue 2004 ; Desgent and Lanoue 2005 ). Nonetheless, “power” is a
commonly accepted though ambiguous word that Athapaskan schol-
ars use to describe a special relationship to a transcendental or imma-
nent quality said to be unique to animals.^1
The Sekani are now classified as speaking a dialect of an Athapas-
kan language, Sekani–Beaver, though Sekani was considered a separate
language when I was doing my fieldwork (see Denniston 1981 ). They
live in several communities in north-central British Columbia, Can-
ada, mostly concentrated in three reserves in the heart of the Rocky
Mountains. Their homelands have been almost destroyed by the pro-
vincial government’s decision to build a dam on the Peace River, com-
pleted in 1968 , which created a huge artificial lake in the valley where
two tributaries of the Peace ran through Sekani territory. The con-
sequences of this unilateral decision have been described elsewhere
(Lanoue 1992 ). In fact, some of these consequences were of capital
importance in the process that led to my understanding power. One
community, Fort Grahame, was completely destroyed by the flood-
ing. The southernmost, McLeod Lake, was physically untouched, al-
though a large part of its homeland was flooded. The northernmost
community, Fort Ware, was relatively untouched by the flooding though
people had to adjust to the influx of refugees from Fort Grahame.
Overall, a government policy favoring the exploitation of the forest
lands made accessible by the new lake led to the creation of several
new towns (for Sekani, the two most important were Mackenzie and
Hudson Hope) meant to house and service the thousands of workers
needed to process the wood products that would be made accessible
by water transport. These people, for the most part unskilled work-
ers used to migrating as the economic frontier moved back and forth
with the prevailing economic winds, were often a significant source
of problems for the Sekani.
First, alcohol became freely available (before, local traders had gen-
erally limited the supply so as not to jeopardize trapping and hunting).
Second, some whites entered into status competition with the Indians,
in my opinion hanging around the reserve because other whites of-
ten shunned them. Compared to the Sekani, however, they were fabu-
lously rich. These whites often sought to entice the younger Sekani into