COPE Formed
1970AD
1950–1995
Nellie Cournoyea and Agnes Semmler establish the Committee for Original Peoples Entitlement (COPE) ‘[t]o work for the establishment and the recognition of the special rights of the original people’. COPE was formed in response to the alarm felt by Indigenous northerners about their lack of rights in the face of oil and gas and other development. Soon after, Dene and Métis members withdrew to pursue their own claims, leaving COPE to represent 2500 Inuvialuit.