Jerome, the first professional Gwich’in photographer in the Northwest Territories, documented traditional activities, events, daily life, and work at fish camps and in various N.W.T. communities in the 1960s and 1970s. He was born in Aklavik and raised at a Gwich’in camp called “Big Rock,” near the Mackenzie River, before he was taken to Grollier Hall, a residential school in Inuvik. As a young man, Jerome trained as a welder, but he soon pursued photography, working briefly for the Native Press newspaper in 1977 before taking up freelance photography. At the time of his tragic death by house fire at the age of thirty, he was working on the series Portraits and History of the Dene Elders in the Mackenzie Valley. Around nine thousand negatives were recovered from his home and later donated to the NWT Archives, where they received extensive conservation treatment. The Archives partnered with the Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute to host a series of identification workshops in 2008–09, through which over thirty-five hundred images were catalogued and made accessible online.

Image: James Jerome, Northern Games: A crowd is gathered in front of Sir Alexander Mackenzie School in Inuvik during the 1979 Northern Games. Several women and children sit in the foreground, some are eating., 1979, graphic material, NWT Archives, Yellowknife.

For further reading, see:

Carrie, Jason. “Archives of the North, by the North, for the North: The Meaning, Value, and Challenges of Creating, Keeping and Running Archives in the Canadian Territories.” Master’s thesis, University of Manitoba / University of Winnipeg, 2020.

“Native Press Hires Two Natives.” Native Press, April 1, 1977, 8.

NWT Archives, James Jerome fonds. gnwt.accesstomemory.org/n-1987-017.

Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. “1979 James (Jim) Jerome.” Northwest Territories Timeline. Accessed May 11, 2023. www.nwttimeline.ca/1975/1979Jerome.htm.

True North FM. “In Pictures: 1970s NWT through the Eyes of James Jerome.” January 7, 2016. www.mytruenorthnow.com/10744/in-pictures-1970s-nwt-through-the-eyes-of-james-jerome/.

Seesequasis, Paul. “Traditional Ways.” In Canadian Geographic: Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, 2018. indigenouspeoplesatlasofcanada.ca/article/traditional-ways/.