In this paper some aspects of social and cultural change in the traditional cultures of the Athapaskan-speaking peoples of the Mackenzie and Hudson Bay drainages (particularly pertaining to kinship and political organization) are analyzed in the context of recent history. The term "micro-village" is used here to differentiate this modern type of northern community from the autonomous village of other areas. The author characterizes the micro-urban village by the complexity of urban industrial society but in the context of a little community that is socially, culturally, and ethnically only marginally related to its nation context. This complexity includes the federal and provincial or territorial levels of government, the variety of government departments, commercial and industrial interests, sectarian divisions, and ethnic complexity. Smith believes that the immediate consequences of the emergence of the micro-urban village, which include a reduction in the size of the cooperative kin group and emphasis upon the lineal group; close consanguineal kin, and immediate affinities a shift in the role of the chief from domestic leader to primary negotiator and agent of the government personnel; the incipient development of kin-based factionalism and of ethnic and economic divisions. A further consequence may be the development of a system of pervasive factionalism and perhaps of the social "atomism" that is allegedly characteristic of many northern forest Indians and other peoples. In any case, this article states that we are dealing with the development of a new socio-cultural pattern, rather than deculturation and a poverty of culture. A map of the location of Chipewyan villages is included.