Oh, I've been 'konned, alright. I've been up in the Yukon since Saturday and she's got under my skin, and not in the "it stays with you; people come for a summer and stay for twenty three years" kind of way (which, by the way, was the story of the couple who owned the B&B I stayed at last night).
No, in the unsettling kind of way. The kind of way where only a three-in-a-row-hit-machine of Journey, Brian Adams and "Hungry Eyes" can fix (and it did - thanks KISS fm Spokane).
I'm writing a story about the water quality in Yukon First Nations with a focus on the town of Little Salmon Carmacks, where over half their wells were repaired by the Canadian Auto Workers of all people.
A great story and a cause I'm extremely excited about. Seems as I'm the only one though, and understandable so, I guess. When you've had e.coli lurking around you your whole life you try to forget about it, and when you're made used to living off handouts you don't really overflow with gratitude at each stranger that shows up to help "fix" your town. I get it. But when you show up, invited, just to tell these people's story you'd expect at least for people not to look at you like they think you just stole something from them. I think I'd shit my pants if I got invited to dinner (maybe THAT's why I haven't been.....)
I think because I'm white and polite and I ask alot of questions most people believe I'm from the government. This is why I think they've been keeping their distance, but I'm hoping they'll realize I just want to understand and to give that understanding to other people and then maybe, maaaaybe by the time I leave I'll have a couple nice stories and a few people I can call friends. Til that happens though, it's hard. Even the weather's been cold and the temptation to stay in bed or to go out in search of something familiar (read: white) has been growing stronger by the day.
I got stood up by the CHIEF today. The fucking Chief. Ambassador of the community, head of the band, their elected representative and the man who suggested I come visit (probably not thinking I'd show). We were supposed to have had a meeting today at one pm and where is he? In another community. He double booked. I was so excited and nervous to meet him and I had a little present and everything. I almost cried when I showed up at the office and his secretary told me he wasn't there.
The day did get better tho - a couple younger guys that work for the bands on the wells took some time out of their work days to show me around town (THEY showed up to our meeting). We visited some of the community wells and then walked around the interpretive centre. One was friendlier than the other, but all in all it was good fun - we joked around and I felt like I didn't have to watch my words for once this trip. Our visit was far too short, and I didn't want to leave these friendly faces when they dropped me off at my cabin.
What no one realizes is that the people who espouse that "the Yukon stays with you" shit all have one thing in common - they. be. white. as. shit.
Or, you know, as something actually white.
Don't get me wrong, the expats up here are really friendly and great to talk to. They'd share a liver with you if it was possible, and I wouldn't have made it this far without them giving me rides, shelter or food.
But they aren't really "Yukoners." Real Yukoners probably wouldn't call themselves that in the first place; they'd call themselves Northern Tuchone, Tlingit, or one of the many other First Nations who've called the place home for so long they still remember how to snare a mammoth like a rabbit.
But those people don't talk much. And this freaks the shit out of me; it makes me turn quiet and, in turn, probably makes me seem freaky, sneaky and unapproachable - a vicious, vicious circle that corrodes reporting when you only have four days to do it. And I'm tryyying to get out of this funk, I really am, but it's really hard when your welcome wagon is missing a wheel and was left at the highway for you to ride your own damn self in on.
The real Yukon is hard. It is a hard-knock fucking life and I have it lucky - if you're brown or you have a first name for a last name or you were born anywhere North of 60 except Whitehorse then you've got plenty of reasons to gripe.
The summer's not bad, the First Nation Council will take care of people and provide jobs where it can, but when winter comes and funding's being given out in 1989 dollars not even the Band's magic can get you paid. If you don't have a full-time job, usually for the Band Council or the government (INAC, AFN, Yukon Council of First Nations or Yukon Territory Government), then you're going on E.I.. The reason I say Whitehorse isn't that bad is that, being the capital, it houses most of the government jobs. Of the nearly 19,000 people making up the 'experienced labour force' in the Yukon over 2,000 work in the government, says the 2006 census, making it the fifth largest employer in YT after sales and service, mining and administration. And how many First Nations do you think are getting those jobs? From what I've seen and heard walking around the capital, not enough to shake a stick at.
Of the few lifetime Yukoners that I did have a conversation with lasting five minutes or more, two women sitting at a picnic table in Whitehorse were saying they were going to be heading to Alberta soon, and one of them jokingly asked if I'd take her back to Ontario with me. "It's hard here," she explained. "Too hard." Her cousin had died just the day before in a car accident, and her brother had died the week before for a reason she didn't get into. She teared up when I told her I was heading further north to Carmacks, and she warned me about the construction and the gravel roads up that way that caused her cousin's accident.
Coming up here as a Euro-Canadian you get a distant, hesitant feeling from natives who seem to fear you'll follow the trend and set up camp here, hang around the cities with the other ex-pats and take up the jobs the natives can't get.
Residential schools have left a painful legacy here, and even though the last ones were shut down thirty years ago or more the effects of the abuse suffered there has trickled down the generations making drop-out rates high and graduation rates low.
Among the miriad of photos of elders and past Chiefs that decorate the halls of the Band Office conference room are two group shots in front of a wooden structure like a large log-cabin. The Council Clerk explains to me that these were taken of residential school students in her parents' time, and that her mother thankfully escaped being sent because of a bad leg that wouldn't heal - who'd have thought one would ever see
that as a blessing? "Most people don't like talking about it," she explains, "and whenever they do they cry." Students suffered mental/emotional, physical and sexual abuse from school instructors and supposed caretakers, and the Council Clerk feels that the vulnerability of her mother's broken leg would have made her an especially large target for sexual abuse. "I don't like these photos hanging here," she says. "We should forget every memory of those schools."
Some students were in attendence for their whole adolescences, emerging without life- or parenting-skills. You can see now how this would take more than just a government and church "I'm sorry" to heal the wounds caused by the system.
The community of Carmacks has between 400-500 residents and nearly 90 individual wells and one community well providing water to the well-less. These wells are maintained, cleaned, treated, and the community well water trucked over the whole community by one man who must also find funding and solutions to provide the community with a safer water source. Why doesn't anybody help him, you may ask? Because no one can get certified. Why's that? Because no one can pass the math portion of the certification tests.
It gets to you up here. It really fucking gets to you. The hopelessness, the dependence, and the temptation to sweep in with a solution. Trying to understand the situation I feel as though each time someone tries to stand they get pushed back down by something different, and it's hard to get your energy when you're living off the scraps of what you once had. Sure First Nations can hunt and fish whenever they want, but with commercial fishing boats catching the big fish and throwing them away if they aren't the specific kind they were out for you don't catch much.
But every community is different and for every ten seemingly hopeless people there's one or two with a plan and a passion for their community, and these people will see us through. Though they might not be officially certified they're doing what they can unofficially, helping out part-time in the summer and gaining experience to pass on until someday somebody will be able to get their certification and a steady paycheque. You'll find these people hanging around the band office or the elders, keeping up the old ways that the schools tried to take from them or their parents, going to their fishing camps or trap lines and taking the younger generations. If you come at the right time of year they might even lend you their extra tent and show you how it's done.
So there is hope, but you have to look for it. And it's not in a government office unless it's a cheque without strings or a promise that can't be taken back. It's not in the Whitehorse Walmart or the coffee house staffed by white people. These places are safe because hope is hard and they have it easy. Hope is found where there seems to be none. It's in water regulations that don't see race; it's in the people who fight against the odds to graduate from highschool, and who show their children the love they might not have had. It's in those who put in 10 - 12 hour days to help their neighbors and to train and talk to and listen to the younger generations.
You can finally read my article in THIS magazine!
