Heritage, Arts & Culture Meet the 14 First Nations of Yukon

As you travel our rivers and highways, you will follow the ancient pathways of our people, see the animals, mountains and valleys we love, experience the clean air, rich aromas and vibrant colours of our everyday world. While we share many common traditions, each of our 14 First Nations has its own special places and voices. We invite you to connect with us and feel the pulse of our people and our land as you journey through it.

—Yukon First Nations Culture and Tourism Association

A message from Teslin Tlingit Council: We are the Inland Tlingit, descended from the Taku Quan of Taku River. The name Teslin derives from tás ten, meaning “long sewing sinew” in our language, aptly describing the 148- kilometre (92-mile) long and narrow lake. When you visit Teslin on the shores of our shimmering blue lake, you are sure to experience a profound sense of wonder, welcome and wellbeing. In the words of our esteemed Elder, the late Virginia Smarch, we have been living as “part of the land, part of the water” forever.

Our citizens rely on hunting, fishing and gathering to supply healthy foods, along with the spiritual connections to the land that contribute to our wellbeing. We prize the salmon, which navigate the longest migration run in the world to return to us each summer

Our oral traditions tell of our people travelling from coastal Alaska inland to trade for hundreds of years. Our ancestors began living permanently in the Yukon in the 1800s, with more families arriving in the past century. As a self-governing First Nation, we have developed a unique governance model incorporating our clan leadership and contemporary administrative processes to provide programs, services and cultural continuity for our community. We retain our traditional Tlingit clan structure with five clans: Koohittan – Raven, Ishkeetaan – Frog, Yanyedi – Wolf, Deisheetaan – Split Tail Beaver and Dakl’aweidi – Eagle.

A message from Carcross/Tagish First Nation: Our Carcross / Tagish First Nation ancestry includes Tagish Athapaskan and Inland Tlingit. We belong to six clans: the Dak_`laweidí and Yanÿeidí (Wolf Moiety) and Deisheetaan, G_aanaxteidí, Ishkahittaan and K_ookhittaan (Crow Moiety). Our traditional lands include the Yukon River headwaters, ancient trails in the coastal mountains, and vast southern lakes surrounding Carcross.

Our ceremonies honour transitions from birth to adulthood to death, identifying relationships within family, clan and nation. Our art expresses spiritual connections with each other, the land, water and animals. Crests, totems and regalia represent our rich oral heritage and tradition of sharing. There is so much happening in our land today to make our hearts sing. Visit our new Learning Centre with spectacular views of Nares Lake and the four sacred mountains. Hear Elders’ stories about the beginning of time when Game Mother brought all the animals into this world. Learn about our modern government that manages lands, resources and investments gained in our selfgovernment agreements and works to build a healthy community. Our youngest citizens attend our daycare, watched over by our clan crests.

Come play for a day at our Carcross Commons. Sip a delicious latté, stroll through the shops, meet our people and visitors from around the world while kids are playing at the Game Mother Playground. Watch Master Carver Keith Wolfe Smarch create magnificent poles, masks and regalia. Breathe the fragrant aroma of cedar chips and listen to our ancestors’ stories told through animal and human figures taking shape in his skillful hands.

A message from Kwanlin Dün First Nation: Kwanlin is our Southern Tutchone name for the canyon that carries Chu Níikwän (Shining Waters) - the Yukon River into Whitehorse. Kwanlin means “water through the canyon” and references the jade-green water rushing through the tall basalt rock columns of what is now called Miles Canyon. Dün is our word for People.

The landscape of the Traditional Territory of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation is full of our origin histories. It tells of a time when glaciers and large lakes covered the area and speaks of how our people came to live here. This was the homeland of the original people of this place – the Tagish Kwan. Our great grandparents saw tens of thousands of stampeders arrive during the 1898 gold rush and they participated in the establishment of new settlements including Whitehorse. Our grandparents saw many of our foot-trails merged into the Alaska Highway and other roadways during World War II. After the war our parents fought for our right to vote, hold land title and educate our own children. Building on the ideas of our forbears, we signed our Self-Government and Land Claims Final Agreements in 2005.

Kwanlin Dün First Nation is now the largest landowner in Whitehorse. As an urban Self-Governing Nation we are thriving, working with our neighbours to create a sustainable, healthy and culturally rich environment for our children and future generations.

A message from Champagne and Aishihik First Nations: We are the Shadhäla, Äshèyi yè kwädän (Champagne and Aishihik First Nations or CAFN). Our name derives from two of our historic settlements: Shadhäla (Champagne), on the Dezadeash River; and Äshèyi (Aishihik), at the Alsek River headwaters. CAFN has more than 1,200 Dän – this means “person” in Dákwanjè (Southern Tutchone), our traditional language. Landscape features in our country have both Dákwanjè and Tlingit names, with the latter being the language of trade during the 18th and 19th centuries. Many citizens also have Tlingit ancestral connections. Dághāłan (family) is the heart of our culture and way of life. In kwädąy (traditional) times, families worked together to provide for themselves with everyone contributing. Children grew up with and were taught by their grandparents and extended family members. Our clan system, which is central to our identity and belonging, keeps us connected as a community. We have two clans: Käjèt (Crow) and Agunda (Wolf), with nakwat’a (potlatches) hosted by one of the clans and featuring a feast to honour a person, event or achievement. 

A message from Kluane First Nation: Dànnch’e – How are you? Welcome to Á Tsì Keyí, meaning “my grandfather’s country,” nestled on the shores of the vast lake we call Lhù’ààn Mân’ (Kluane Lake).

Our citizens are Lhù’ààn Mân’ Ku Dań - people of Kluane Lake. Our small community stays actively involved territorially, nationally and internationally via the Internet, satellite, cellular telephone and postal networks. We also stay connected with travel through the Burwash Airport and on the Alaska Highway. Our citizens are progressive leaders engaged in professional and social enterprises at home and far beyond. We strive to maintain high literacy, encourage advanced education and promote employability for all Kluane First Nation citizens. Our focus is on living well and responsibly in an ever-changing world. The bounty of Kluane provides delicious healthy foods, including fish, moose, small game, edible roots and berries. With ample summer daylight, local gardeners harvest fresh vegetables. We are pursuing solar and wind as green energy options to reduce our dependence on diesel and generation of greenhouse gases.

A message from White River First Nation: Beaver Creek is home to White River First Nation, the most westerly community in Canada bordering on Alaska, U.S.A. Our two traditional languages – Northern Tutchone and Upper Tanana – are spoken by Elders and taught to youth. We maintain ties to our relatives in the Yukon and Alaska. Before the Alaska Highway our people travelled freely back and forth with no barriers and shared resources across the region.

Connections among people in these lands extend back through countless generations, demonstrated at the Little John archaeology site a few kilometres north of town. Bone, copper, obsidian and ochre artifacts date to 14,000 years before present, a significant source for telling the story of early human occupations in our Traditional Territory. Our people lived off this land, travelling in small family groups. In the past century, we were affected by outside historical events.

Government surveyors cut lines through the forest in the early 1900s to mark the boundary. Our village at Snag served as an airfield during WW II and recorded the coldest temperature in Canadian history at -63°C. The Alaska Highway brought continuous traffic across our lands and the establishment of Beaver Creek.

Through profound changes, our people have continued to follow traditional pursuits. Hunting, fishing, trapping, berry picking, and mushroom and root harvesting provide nutritious foods. We also administer heritage, wildlife and social programs through our First Nation government, headquartered in Beaver Creek.

A message from Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation:  The Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation is based today at Carmacks on the Yukon River. In earlier times, we travelled with the seasons across our traditional territories to hunt, fish and gather foods needed for survival.

In summer our people have fish camps along the Yukon River to harvest and dry two species of salmon – the King and Chum – migrating upriver from the Bering Sea. Until recent decades the fish returned by the tens of thousands each year, providing a reliable, plentiful and delicious source of protein that kept us healthy and happy. Now we find our King Salmon fishery is severely depleted, with much smaller fish and drastically reduced numbers. We are working with Indigenous groups in Alaska and the Yukon to study the problems facing the salmon in order to prevent further degradation or even extinction of these magnificent fish.

Our oral traditions are strong and timeless. Most important was and is our Northern Tutchone language that encapsulates the long-standing wisdom of our people – place names that point to particular resources, landmarks to guide our travels, social terms and concepts to help us live well, supporting each other through dark cold winters and bright intense summers. Our Elders’ stories describe the giant animals that shared the land with us and detailed accounts of the methods used to hunt them.

A message from Selkirk First Nation: Our traditional home and our nation’s namesake Fort Selkirk is at the confluence of the Yukon and Pelly rivers. Renowned as a meeting place for Indigenous people for thousands of years, there is a rich archeological record providing ample evidence of their activities. Today it is a protected heritage site that we co-manage as a park with the Yukon government.

Most Selkirk First Nation citizens live at Pelly Crossing today, shifted to the highway corridor by government in the 1950s when roads replaced steamboat transportation on the river. Known as the “Heart of the Northern Tutchone,” our community works closely with relatives at Mayo and Carmacks to preserve our common language and cultural knowledge. We have a special interest in documenting Dooli – the traditional laws of our people to provide a firm cultural foundation for contemporary life in a fast-changing world. We actively support our youth of the Selkirk Spirit Dancers who are learning our traditional drumbeats, songs and dances from Elders. Other artists focus on sewing, beading, and carving regalia for the dancers. Not so long ago, our great grandparents were expert builders of birchbark canoes and baskets, fish traps, hunting gear and other tools. We are reviving these skills among youth so they will not be lost to future generations.

A message from Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation: Walk the streets of Dawson City and you’ll meet our citizens whose contemporary lifeways are proudly rooted in our heritage. Our citizens continue to follow the timeless traditions of hunting and gathering on the land and teaching our youth valuable subsistence skills and cultural practices. Our homes are built by our progressive housing program. We are engaged in every aspect of community education and well-being.

We have lived around the big rivers of the Yukon interior for thousands of years. Our culture was strong and vibrant and we thrived and survived on our own terms. Newcomers trickled into our lands gradually in the 1800s, then in a massive wave as thirty thousand stampeders arrived in 1897–98.

Our esteemed Chief Isaac lessened the negative impacts of the newcomers by moving our families downriver to Moosehide Village and safeguarding the Hän songs with Alaskan relatives. For the next one hundred years our people and resources suffered many great hardships.

We have worked hard to re-establish a healthy equilibrium and a new economic base for our community. Fittingly, our land claims treaty forged a new way for us in 1998, exactly a century after the gold rush.

A message from First Nation of the Na-Cho Nyak Dun: Mayo is the main community for the Na-Cho Nyak Dun, which means “Big River People” in our Northern Tutchone language. Closely linked to our relatives at Pelly Crossing and Carmacks, we are all part of the Northern Tutchone Council, through which we undertake many programs for language revitalization, traditional arts, documenting cultural practices and education

Our name defines who we have been since the beginning of time. Na-Cho Nyak is our name for the Stewart River. Big rivers are where we have always lived, travelling extensively to make a living, navigating rivers and lakes, big and small in finely crafted birchbark canoes, mooseskin boats and rafts.

When our region boomed with gold and silver mining in the early 1900s, we moved to a site downriver from Mayo, known today as “the Old Village.” We had a church and school there, living very happily in our own ways for more than 50 years. The river eroded that site and amenities in Mayo brought us into town in the 1950s. We remember the Old Village fondly and go back as often as possible for ceremonies and celebrations.

A message from Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation:  Today, Old Crow is the home community for the Vuntut Gwitchin – People of the Lakes. We have strong family ties connecting all our communities, including other Gwich’in nations in Alaska and the Northwest Territories. This has been so for centuries. We love to meet and connect for trade and celebration, and to seek harmony with one another. This is called Gwiyiinji’ ihłak meaning “one mind.” Long ago people congregated in times of plenty to travel and work together, singing their beautiful songs to make their work less toilsome. They worked together in almost telepathic unison.

We use our connection to the animals, the environment and celestial regions to follow game, make good decisions, and make predictions. This is the land where our families operated caribou fences until the mid 1800s, totally reliant on the land and its bounty. Our Gwich’in oral traditions say that humans and the caribou were once relatives and could easily communicate with each other. However, separation was inevitable and when the split happened, the Gwich’in and the caribou exchanged pieces of their hearts. Many times, when a kill occurs, the successful hunt is attributed to the fact that the caribou was a relative that gave its life to provide sustenance to the community

Get a more complete look at the First Nations of the Yukon. This includes things to do, festivals, events, stories of the ancestors and more details on their past, present, and vibrant future.

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