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INUVIK
After studying both European and Canadian history, Gwich'in beneficiary and Inuvik-born PhD student Crystal Fraser decided to take a closer look at her own aboriginal history.

Crystal Fraser visits with her grandmother Marka Bullock in the long term care ward at the Inuvik Hospital on August 21. Fraser is doing a PhD in Aboriginal History and is looking for community involvement in choosing her topic. - photo courtesy of Crystal Fraser

Fraser left Inuvik in 1994 and completed high school in Yellowknife at the age of 23. After obtaining a bachelor of arts in European history and a masters in Canadian history, she's now starting the second of four years to complete her PhD in aboriginal history at the University of Alberta. As a member of the Gwich'in, she wanted to delve into the history of her own people.

"So many people in Canada are studying European history. Canadian history needs more people to ask questions," Fraser said. "I taught a course at the University of Alberta called Canadian History since Confederation. In the textbook, there was one page of aboriginal history of 500 pages. It kind of shows the marginalization of aboriginal history under the larger rubric

of Canadian history."

To complete her PhD, Fraser will write a 400-page paper on a certain aspect of aboriginal history. She hopes to focus on the history of intimacy within the aboriginal people between 1850 and 1950. Her topic has not yet been chosen and she hopes people within the Gwich'in and Dene communities can provide her with research ideas.

"In academia, the public and scholars rarely mix. It's usually written in a way that the public can't reach," Fraser said. "I'm open to any ideas. I am seeking community involvement."

Her angle on the topic could focus on marriages, childbearing practices, sexual history or the history of siblings for example.

Fraser has already received about eight to 10 ideas about Gwich'in political structure, the nature of aboriginal justice and residential schools. Even within these ideas, she will likely focus on gender and women's history.

"I think that while aboriginal Canadians are marginalized, women are still marginalized to a certain extent," Fraser said. "I'm a feminist and for equal treatment of men and women. One thing I've come to realize is that even though I'm studying history, the questions I have are about the present. I'm using the tools of the history to understand the present; how we got here."

One struggle Fraser will have in completing her dissertation is finding sources for her topic.

The majority of record- keepers between 1850 and 1950 were non-aboriginal, missionary men who were "maybe not the best (representative) of Dene childbirth customs."

Fraser will use some written sources from government records in Ottawa and Hudson Bay Company records in Winnipeg, but has spent time trying to convince the education system about the worth and accuracy of oral histories, folk tales, songs and myths.

In recent years this has included data gathered from anthropological and archaeological findings. Fraser may shift her time period to 1900 to 1980 so she can speak with people who lived through the changes of the past century.

With more historians documenting aboriginal history from an aboriginal perspective, Fraser hopes it will eventually be included in school curriculum.

"The discipline of history is very Eurocentric, even though we have some very respected aboriginal historians living in our communities," Fraser said. "When historians think about traditional history, they think about what is in the archives. We have to be interdisciplinary and think outside the box."

Once Fraser has completed her dissertation in 2014, she hopes to publish her findings.

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