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Däno Nts’ä Tr’ädäl

Heritage

We steward, protect, and share Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in culture and heritage resources.

Anything and everything you do, the way you live is your heritage. I walk it, that’s who I am.​

Elder Angie
Joseph-Rear
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The past

After signing the Final Agreement in 1998, Heritage was a small component of a large Social Programs department with the pressing social and educational needs expected of a new and emerging government.

With direction and responsibilities outlined in Chapter 13 of the Final Agreement, the Cultural and Education department was formed. It had a staff of 2: a Director and a Community Education Liaison co-coordinator. Like all Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in departments, the Cultural and Education department was governed by elected Chief and Council and the Elders Council. The department grew dramatically and went through various phases, missions, and incarnations over the next 4 years and eventually the department became known simply as the Heritage Department.

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The present

The Heritage team are currently oversee:

  • The UNESCO World Heritage Site Inscription.
  • The stewardship of Nun Go Ga, our baby mammoth.
  • Forty Mile Preservation in partnership with Yukon Government.
  • Heritage Library
  • Cultural Camps for Youth and Elders
  • Hän Language revitalization
  • Dänojà’ Zho Programming

The future

In 2022 Council passed a resolution to create a purpose-built heritage facility to meet the department’s needs. Planning is currently underway for new complex to be built next to the Chief Steve Taylor Administration building on Front Street.

The new TH Heritage Complex will be a house of living culture for our citizens, and community. This public space will help reclaim our endangered Hän language, relearn traditional craft and repatriate our heritage. It will be a space for archive and records preservation, cultural and language programming, the exchange of traditional knowledge and the development of culturally appropriate histories.

Our legacy will be a living Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in heritage.​

 

We pledge:

  • To be a motivated team of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in heritage professionals with the capacity to effectively manage and deliver our heritage resource programs.
  • To put together a comprehensive record of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in heritage.
  • To ensure heritage resources are not lost and are protected for today and tomorrow.
  • To have our heritage recognized, supported, and respected by everyone.

Documents, Applications and Forms

How to reach us: 

General Inquiries: heritage@trondek.ca

Media Inquiries: communications@trondek.ca

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Access Jëje-in (People) Directory
Late 1800s until ca. 1927

Gwich’in people stayed at the seasonal settlement of Black City. People then dispersed; many moving to Moosehide, Old Crow and Fort McPherson.
From the height of the Gold Rush period to about 1920, the principal Tukudh and Tetl’it Gwich’in settlement in the area was Black City or Blackstone Village. Some other isolated camps and cabins were located in the Blackstone Uplands, including Calico City, Michelle’s (Old Man Mitchell) cabin, Noil’s (?) cabin, and Alfred Bonnet Plume’s camp.

Early 1900s to ca. 1930s

Takudh Gwich’in and Teetlit Gwich’in people made annual winter trips to Dawson to sell tons of caribou meat that they had hunted on the way. During these visits, they stayed at Moosehide. A number of the Takudh later settled at Moosehide. 

Early 1900s

Many Gwich’in people died of diseases introduced by stampeders. Reverend Martin tells of digging many graves for people who died of influenza.

1904

The first of the annual police patrols between Dawson City and Fort McPherson, then in later years over the sea ice to Herschel Island. This route was nearly 1000 miles (1600 km) round trip. First Nations guides and hunters were important to the success of these long winter trips.

1910s

Fox farming became popular in the Yukon and a number of First Nations people made a good living trapping and selling live foxes. In 1913, the Dawson Daily News reported that Gwich’in people trapped four live foxes and delivered them to Dawson.

1910

10 December, Inspector Frank Fitzgerald led a group of three men on the annual winter patrol between Fort McPherson and Dawson City. For the first time, the patrol travelled from north to south rather than from Dawson to Fort McPherson. Two weeks later, the patrol hired Esau George to guide them across the portage to the Peel River, the last time they were seen alive.

1911

Feb., when the patrol had not reached Dawson by late February, Inspector Dempster was sent out with a search party to find the missing men. They found the bodies of Lost Patrol on March 21 and 22, within a day’s travel of Fort McPherson; then delivered the news to Dawson, traveling 475 miles by dogsled in 19 days.
The failure of Fitzgerald’s patrol was later ascribed to an inexperienced guide, inadequate food and gear for living off the land, and excessive cold, heavy snows and sparse game. As a result of this tragedy, the police-built rest cabins and supply caches along the patrol route and always hired a capable First Nations guide and hunter.

1927

The last resident of Black City moved to Fort McPherson.

1955

February, Cat train crews began building a winter road built from Flat Creek, south of present Dempster Corner, to Eagle Plains and Peel River Plateau.

1959

Construction of highway begins. Oil discovered at Eagle Plains.

1963

The new road was named after Inspector William John Duncan Dempster of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.

1979

18 August, official opening of the Dempster Highway, Canada’s first all-weather road to cross the Arctic Circle at Flat Creek. Final cost of the highway was nearly $103 million.

1986

Dempster Interpretive Centre opened at Tombstone Campground in a renovated trailer.

1992 through 1997

Tombstone Park was the subject of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Land Claims negotiations.

1994

February 9, 388km² withdrawn from disposal (subsurface withdrawal) for Tombstone Park.

1998

16 July, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in signed their final and self government agreements.
15 September, land claim & self-government agreements became effective.

2004

Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of completion of the highway. YK and NWT sponsored events in various locales and communities along the length of the highway. Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizens celebrated their history on the highway at Black City on August 18th. In October, the Yukon Cabinet officially established Tombstone Territorial Park.

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