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Trip into the past
Gwich'in trip opens up old routes and traditional knowledge by Ian Elliot
INUVIK (Feb 27/98) - A group of travellers from Fort McPherson will be travelling 400 kilometres south and several generations into the past on March 2.
Gwich'in elders, youths and others from the community will reopen an
ancestral hunting route to Mayo, Yukon, in hopes of rediscovering their
culture which they began losing when the Dempster Highway was opened and
the old hunting routes were largely abandoned.
The elders hope to introduce the young travellers not only
to the route but to the land and its traditions, many of which are in
danger of disappearing as fewer people now rely on the land for survival.
"Before people lived in the community, they lived off the
land," said Robert Alexie, a Fort McPherson elder. Alexie's father
travelled the southern route to Mayo regularly in search of animals. Now,
few people in the community do more than weekend trapping to supplement
their town jobs.
"The youth have heard a lot of stories from their elders
about the places, but they can't identify with the places because they've
never seen them."
With sponsorship from the Department of Renewable Resources
and the Gwich'in Cultural Institute, the travellers, who are providing
their own snowmachines, are covered for all their needs except gasoline and
oil and are asking anyone who can donate enough for the trek to do so. They
are also seeking travellers interested in making the trip on their own
machines.
They will be packing their own supplies and Alexie, a
seasoned hunter who will be taking no food except bannock, tea and a few
dry supplies, says he will be depending on the land for bounty in the form
of a moose or caribou and hopes others will do likewise.
He will also travel without maps and illustrating the route
on a nearly-featureless wall map of the Gwich'in settlement region,
unerringly pointed out the many hill crossings and stream intersections on
large blank areas of the map.
"People today are not respecting animals the way they used
to. With the Dempster, you take everything for granted," Alexie said,
referring to hunters who shoot migrating caribou within a few hundred
metres of the highway.
"Back then, they respected the animals because they knew
that if they did not, then the animals would not be there in the future."
The trip will be a relatively leisurely one, done near the
pace of a traditional dog team, and could take 10 days to get to Mayo. When
there, a potlatch will be held for the travellers, who will travel back to
their communities along with their machines in a truck.
At the same time, another group will leave Mayo and head
towards Fort McPherson, and if the two groups encounter each other, a feast
will be held in the traditional manner of hunting parties encountering each
other.
"Years ago, we used to be connected," Alexie said of the
Yukon community.
"Now we are connecting again, and hopefully we can stay
connected." |