An Indigenous Community Reclaims Its Roots

Stepping out of the sunny camp clearing at Huchá Hudän/Fort Selkirk and into the shade of the forest, I begin to scan the woods for the spruce and pine resin I’ve been sent to collect for making pitch salve. Finding hardened lumps of the thick, sticky substance that pines, spruces, and firs secrete when they get damaged is trickier than I expect. Walking through the dense boreal brush, I find myself examining tree bark with a meditative deliberation.

“This is part of what makes harvesting from the land so special,” says Teri-Lee Isaac, heritage manager of Selkirk First Nation and owner of Tutchone Tours’ new cultural camp. “It kind of forces you to slow down and use all your senses.”

Eventually I get into a rhythm of scanning a tree for scars, finding the resin and gently scraping it off. Back at the camp, I add my fragrant treasure to a pot simmering with beeswax and olive oil. Isaac explains that, thanks to its antiseptic and antibacterial qualities, pitch salve has been used by Indigenous people for thousands of years as a healing balm. 

As she stirs the pot, Isaac talks about other plants she harvests in her ancestral territory, including Labrador tea for colds or headaches, spruce tips for joint and muscle pain, and lichens for wound healing. The land has everything we need when we look, she says. Isaac, who grew up in multiple towns as she moved with different family members, learned this in part from her elders, but also from books. “Our ancestral teaching and learning was interrupted [by decades of cultural suppression],” she explains. “Traditionally, I would have gained all my knowledge from elders.”

Indigenous people have adapted and thrived in the land now known as Canada since time immemorial. In the Yukon, where Selkirk First Nation is one of fourteen distinct First Nations, and one of the three that make up the Northern Tutchone people, this once meant living a nomadic lifestyle. The people moved through the landscape in harmony with the seasons as they followed the food cycles. “From fish camps, to caribou hunting areas, to foraging sites,” Isaac says, “They took care of the land and it took care of them.”

With the establishment by European settlers of trading posts and missions, permanent communities began to evolve in the 1850s. Then thousands of stampeders headed for Dawson City during the 1896 Klondike Gold Rush. During this period, it’s estimated that tens of thousands of First Nations people died, many succumbing to European illnesses including smallpox. 

Diminished in number, and pushed off their traditional lands, Isaac says her people’s survivors began gathering here; on the flat banks of the Yukon River, on land they’d used for seasonal potlatches and trade with other Nations for at least 7,000 years. In 1852, the Hudson Bay Company thought the setting, with its low, grassy banks and established position on Indigenous trade routes, would be the  perfect location for a trading post. With an expanding European and now-permanent Indigenous population, the Anglican Church also set up a mission. Fully exposed to European culture, the Nation began to adapt to life at Huchá Hudän/Fort Selkirk.

Then, in the 1880s, the Canadian government established the residential school system, with the goal of assimilating Indigenous children into western culture. The government essentially stole children away from their communities and exposed them to physical, sexual and cultural abuse; destroying their connections to their land, language, traditions and families. At the same time, the Potlatch laws came into effect, amending the Indian Act to criminalize all elements of the ancient and complex system of governance practiced by First Nations. Traditional family roles and responsibilities were disrupted, knowledge was lost, and communities were splintered.

Isaac shares the heavy history of her people as part of an all-inclusive weekend camp that combines medicine walks, traditional storytelling, and Indigenous skill building, along with tasty meals and time for exploring. As we walk through the old town, our group of four campers learns about the history of the site and buildings. Through artifacts and stories, Isaac shows us how her people lived before the townsite was abandoned in the 1950s, after the Alaska Highway bypassed the community and river traffic all but disappeared. 

Despite its remote, water-access only location, Isaac says as early as the 1970s, her Nation began to prioritize protecting and developing tourism at Huchá Hudän/Fort Selkirk as a way to reclaim their relationship with their culture and territory, create good jobs, and honor their ancestors, who’d traditionally welcomed visitors. 

After years of effort, in 1990, the Huchá Hudän/Fort Selkirk historic site was founded; becoming one of the first places in Canada to be protected by a co-ownership and co-management agreement between an Indigenous Nation and the local government. This agreement included a provision that the land would be withdrawn from prospecting and exploration as well as from development for oil, gas or coal mining. 

The first years of the partnership focused on archeological work and conservation. This was when Issac first fell in love with the area. “My grandmother was a cook for the restoration crew,” she says. “We ran around the site and played in the old school.” Then camping infrastructure was developed for paddlers traveling along the Yukon River, while Nation members cataloged artifacts and added interpretive displays.

But Isaac says she and her Nation still had bigger dreams for the site. When she became heritage manager for Selkirk First Nation, she learned that guests to the territory were interested in visiting Huchá Hudän/Fort Selkirk, but no one was offering boat tours. So in 2021, Isaac launched day trips to the site with Tutchone Tours. “But people kept saying they didn’t want to leave—they wanted to learn more,” she says.

So during the spring of 2023, Issac and her partner, William Smith of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, built a camp with deluxe wall tents, a fire pit, and a kitchen area. Smith also took time to study and become a Guardian Watchman, a leadership role that combines science and Traditional Knowledge to conserve and manage the land. “It’s a dream come true; I take care of the land and teach people to enjoy it without extracting more resources from the territory,” Smith tells me.

When we stop beside the old Hudson Bay ruins to harvest soap berries — which we’ll soon whip together to make a frothy, astringent treat known as Indian ice cream — Isaac teaches us how to thank the plant for its offerings and only take a few branches of berries from each bush (and only what we need). She tells us the plant’s name in the Tutchone language and says that part of why she hosts guests is so that she can keep learning and rebuilding her culture. “It makes me feel more connected to my ancestors when I speak my language on my traditional territory,” she says. 

Tourism that leaves communities and ecosystems better off while enriching the life of the visitor is known as regenerative travel. While the term is new, Indigenous Tourism businesses across the Yukon, Canada, and other places including New Zealand, Australia, the US, and Mexico have spent years developing authentic experiences that restore and conserve land while strengthening cultures and communities — and visitors have been responding enthusiastically. 

“Travelers are craving connection,” says Keith Henry, President and CEO of the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada (ITAC). The association advises more than 1,900 Indigenous-led tourism businesses across Canada on how to develop business plans that reflect their values and protect their cultures. Pre-pandemic, it was the fastest growing segment of tourism in Canada. Henry says that part of their success lies in the realness of the experiences. “They’re not contrived or Disneyfied,” he says. “They’re diverse, authentic, and modern, and provide unforgettable moments for travelers.” And, according to the World Tourism Organization, they boost employment, empower communities, and enable people to re-establish their relationship with the land.

With our weekend winding down, we clamber aboard the boat with our gear and set off on the storied Yukon River for the first thirty-five of our 280 kilometer journey back to the Yukon’s largest city, Whitehorse. Looking back at the historic site, I sift through my feelings. I’d followed moose tracks, learned to bead, heard traditional stories, and slumbered in comfort in the vast, silent forest. At one point, we made an offering and asked permission to enter the old graveyard. Isaac told us how she was searching historic records — working to give the occupants their names back. For the oldest ones, the restoration work crews had lovingly rebuilt their spirit houses. 

For this ancient culture, the horrors of the past 150 years are a blip. Through tourism, they’re restoring themselves and asking the land reteach them ancient skills. Along the way, they offer visitors a profound gift: the chance to slow down, connect, and heal ourselves — and the land — together. “We’ve always adapted,” Isaac tells me, as though she’s reading my thoughts, “It’s our strength.”

What You Can Do:

• Learn about Indigenous cultures from Indigenous peoples. For the past 150 years, most of us have learned about Indigenous people from colonial-style museums. Gain a better understanding of how diverse Indigenous peoples are by adding a visit to an Indigenous cultural center wherever you happen to travel. 
• Choose Indigenous-owned options. Contributing to a community’s economic success allows them to pursue goals like developing a Guardian Watchman program or buy back traditional lands. Whether you’re looking for a campsite, a hotel, a fishing guide, or a restaurant, there’s often an Indigenous-owned business that can meet your needs.
• Take part in Indigenous-led experiences. Experiences including fully immersive camps, medicine walks, or guided canoe trips offer the opportunity to learn about the land and its conservation needs from its traditional owners. They can last an hour to a week, or more — there’s something for everyone.

Find out more:

• Yukon First Nations Culture and Tourism
• Destination Indigenous (Canada)
• Native America Travel (US)
• Maori Tourism (New Zealand)
• Aboriginal Australia

*My name is found all across Canada because my ancestors were early settlers. Fort Selkirk was named by Robert Campbell of the Hudson Bay Company for the Earl of Selkirk, or perhaps one of my ancestors who was a so-called ‘beaver baron' with the company. —Diane Selkirk