Phoebe Nahanni
Phoebe Rose Nahanni (January 17, 1947 – May 14, 2001) was a Slavey-Dene geographer and cartographer. She played a central role in the Dene Nation mapping project, which constructed a map of how the Dene Nation actively used about 450,000 square miles of land. This information was one of the factors in the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry's recommendation not to construct a pipeline through the Mackenzie River Valley. Nahanni was also active in the social scientific study of arctic and subarctic communities, and is thought to have been the first Slavey-Dene woman to hold a master's degree. Life and career Nahanni was born on January 17, 1947, near Jean Marie River in the Northwest Territories. She attended the University of Western Ontario, making her one of the first Dene people to attend university, and she graduated with a degree in geography in 1972. Geography was a particularly relevant topic of study because of the active land claims disputes that Dene people were undergoing. While she was an undergraduate, Nahanni took a leading role in an early experiment with distance education to try to make higher education more accessible in the north. Nahanni and a group of students worked with members