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Champagne and Aishihik First Nation
Kyra Chambers
One of Kyra Chambers’ earliest memory is her dad climbing on horseback and strapping her into the saddle in front of him. Rocking back and forth during the ride as they headed out, Chambers fell asleep. That experience shaped her future. Today, Chambers is the owner and operator of Champagne Pack Trains Ltd. She works with a herd of mountain horses like those she dreamed of owning when she was a kid, to offer tours on her traditional territory. One of her favourite places to take clients, whether experienced riders or younger kids, is Kluane National Park. A trip there, along the Cottonwood Trail, is what sparked the idea for her company in the first place.
Chambers’ tours in that area highlight its open, grassy fields; breath-taking mountain views; the animals you’ll find in the area; the grizzlies that live there; and the history of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nation, of which she’s a citizen. Recently, Chambers found a recording of her late father, Frank Chambers, talking about being 18 years old and guiding geologists on those same trails in the 1950s. It was a reminder to her of how long her family has been on that land and how it’s now her turn to share it with the world. “The first time I listened to [that recording] it felt like I was walking the path that I’m meant to walk on, especially since horses were so important to him too,” she says. “I get to live my dream, but his as well.”
John Fingland
If you’ve ever visited Haines Junction, chances are you learned something from John Fingland. A citizen of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nation (CAFN), Fingland leads campfire talks with Parks Canada at Kathleen Lake, is a senior heritage interpreter at the Da Kų Cultural Centre and will just kind of lead impromptu tours for anyone who tells him Hey John, I’ve got family visiting the Yukon.
“I represent my First Nation a lot in my life,” Fingland says. “It’s hard to say no.”
Having lived in Champagne, about 40 minutes east of Haines Junction, since 2010, Fingland loves giving walking tours of his village and explaining how people travelled through the area in the past; why the village was established; where to find grayling in the spring; and the story behind the thousands of shards of obsidian you can kick up out of the sand in the area—it served as the raw material for certain cutting tools thousands of years ago.
Fingland also travels daily into Haines Junction to work in the local school. His band plays at Pine Lake on Friday nights and he helps launch a traditional dugout canoe onto the lake every Wednesday during the summer months at 1 p.m. Anyone can come and paddle the canoe, he says. A lot of visitors tell him it was the highlight of the whole trip to experience the canoe, which was made by Tlingit master carver Wayne Price and a group of CAFN youth. As a side trip from the Junction, Fingland recommends following the Haines Road toward Haines, Alaska, or continuing north on the Alaska Highway to Silver City, to see Kluane Lake and Kluane National Park.
“It speaks for itself,” Fingland says of the park, which has no roads and is only accessible by foot. “It’s one of the greatest places in the world. It’s the real jewel around here.”
