TLICHO
An ancient canoe route from Behchoko to the barren lands and then to Wekweeti is now available on GPS, thanks to a group of paddlers from the Tlicho region.

Paddlers with the Reviving Trails project travelled more than 500 kilometres from Behchoko to the barren lands and Wekweeti in August. From left, Charlie Eyakfwo, Joseph Wayne, Roy Judas, Celine Vukson Mackenzie, JJ Football and Daniel Mantla. - photo courtesy of Petter Jacobsen

"It's an old trail that's probably been there for thousands of years," said John B. Zoe, who paddled the Mowhi canoe trail as part of the Reviving Trails project, formerly known as the Traditional Trails project, in August.

People traditionally used the trail from the Behchoko area to the barren lands to hunt Bathurst caribou in the fall.

"It's a seasonal life. It would probably take you about a month or so to eventually end up in the barren lands in the fall time when the caribou are just migrating into the area," Zoe said. "Then eventually by spring time, early summer, you end up back in the same place. It's really a big circuit that people would follow."

As people started living in permanent communities, the ancient trails were no longer used and their routes were being forgotten.

On Aug. 6, the first travellers to make the journey in more than 20 years left Behchoko, said Petter Jacobsen, traditional knowledge researcher with the Tlicho Government and organizer of the Reviving Trails project.

The 18 member group travelled north east from Russell Lake on the Wecho River before eventually entering the Yellowknife River, then onto a series of lakes and rivers into the barren lands at Digati (Grizzly Bear Lake), Jacobsen said. The paddlers then entered the Snare River system to Winter Lake and back to Wekweeti, where they arrived on Aug. 25.

The 500 kilometre journey took 20 days.

The group plotted the entire route using GPS, including more than 60 portage locations, as well as burial sites and other culturally significant places.

Using technology to preserve the trail was a highlight of the trip, said Zoe, who paddled the route 20 years ago.

"The big thing for me was that we GPSed it for the first time, meaning that next time a group comes through, then they would know exactly where to go," he said.

As the group travelled, Jacobsen emailed photos and data to the Tlicho Government office in Behchoko where a staff member uploaded the information to the government's website. An interactive map now shows where the paddlers travelled each day, as well as photos. One photo features elder Louis Zoe holding two old knives found along the trail on the fourth day of the trip.

Navigational experts

The trail demonstrates the advanced navigation skills of the people who created it, said John B. Zoe.

"Because they've been using it for thousands of years, it's designed to get you there as efficiently as possible," he said. The route travels through areas where game, such as beavers and ducks, are plentiful.

But locating old portages was a difficult task, Jacobsen said. Though a group of travellers had made the trip 20 years ago, Jacobsen estimated the trail had been completely unused for at least 50 years prior to that journey.

"We had to walk along the shore looking for old cut marks or any kind of old campfires or any kind of signs of previous human habitation," Jacobsen said. "Some of the portages were really grown in and forest fires had ravaged the area and the dead falls from the trees, so we had to do a lot of cutting and a lot of clearing the trails additionally to actually finding the trail itself."

In addition to clearing the route, the group also took the time to clean up burial sites they found along the way.

"We located them and then kind of cleaned them up and cleared the bushes that were growing up around the grave sites and made new crosses," Jacobsen said.

Remembering traditional names and stories about places along the trail was an important part of the journey, Zoe said.

"We're there to really observe what we see and try to bring back the names, find out where the burial sites are and the names of the portages and the names of the lakes and some of the stories that go along with those things," he said. "So we had a lot of time to listen, observe."

The trip also promoted survival skills in addition to Tlicho language and culture, Jacobsen said.

"You're creating identity. You get a stronger self by being out there," he said. "We do one trip, but it serves several purposes."

Preserving ancient knowledge for future generations is one of those purposes, he added.

"You're creating new memories of the area and new usage of the area, so now there is another 18 people who know that route," Jacobsen said. "Before we went there were probably two or three."

Jacobsen said while a trip hasn't yet been scheduled for next year, he expects there will be many more journeys with the Reviving Trails project in years to come.

"There is a real push to keep going and doing more of these trips," he said. "And the land is huge, it's enormous. So there are so many places to go and so many places to experience and document."

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Dominion Diamond Corporation and the NWT On-The-Land Collaborative Fund provided funding for the trip.

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