2019 Yukon Riverside Arts Festival YRAF_program2019web | Page 13

A monumental task does not begin to describe what lay ahead. Historically,
Indigenous groups all over the globe have attempted to be heard, to
mobilize, and yet have remained marginalized.
How, still dealing with the trauma of years of oppression and abuse, were
Yukon First Nations going to commit to mobilize and be heard by the very
institutions who were their oppressors? How were these fourteen culturally
and geographically distinct Nations going to speak to each other?
In 2018, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Elder Percy Henry described this pivotal
moment;
“Fire was dim. Almost out. We throw a stone in and little spark happen. And
that’s how we got the fire going again.”
Step by step. Spark by spark.  Conversation by conversation.  Talking
became the key towards a self-determined future.                    
TALKING Nation to Nation.         
TALKING grassroots leaders to federal politicians.       
TALKING hunter to lawyer.
TALKING elders to youth.
TALKING community members to bureaucrats.     
TALKING to others.
Through speech, opposing worlds / ideas / systems of governance and
protocols collided, misunderstood, patronized, repeated, repeated, and
repeated again, their sides of the story. Their sides of the agenda. Walls
were broken down, footholds were created and agreements were made.
One such meeting, held in August of 1977 between Prime Minister Pierre
Elliot Trudeau and five Yukon First Nations leaders regarding the then-
approved Mackenzie Pipeline, is contained in a document archived in
the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Government collections. These minutes of the
meeting allows us to be a fly on the wall within a tension filled boardroom.
Captured word for word, these minutes vividly illustrate the dichotomy
of two opposing ways of understanding economic, social and cultural
development of a land and its inhabitants. A conversation that started
out about the pipeline ultimately became a conversation about First
Nations way of life and a declaration for autonomy and self-determination.
Through a diverse range of media Yukon artists Ken Anderson (Tlingit/
Scandinavian), Lianne Marie Leda Charlie (Tagé Cho Hudän | Big River
People), Fran Morberg-Green (Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in), Valerie Salez (1st
Generation Canadian), Doug Smarch Jr. (Tlingit), and Joseph Tisiga
(Kaska Dene) activate this archival document and ultimately continue the
conversation surrounding self-determination in the face of federal and
corporate agendas.