Little Salmon / Carmacks First Nation
The Little Salmon / Carmacks First Nation is one of the First Nations in the Canadian Yukon , most of whose members live in Carmacks . They are descendants of the Northern Tutchone who previously resided here and therefore belong to the Northern Athapasques, both linguistically and geographically . They refer to themselves as Tagé Cho Hudän ("People on the Great River").
Today's First Nation includes descendants of approximately 11 local groups who roamed an area that included what is now Carmacks, Little Salmon, Big Salmon, Tatchun Lake, Taltlmain Lake, and the Nordenskiold River. The Southern Tutchone, who are closely related in terms of language and culture, knew two local groups under the names Äyan Kwächʼǟn ("Carmacks People") and Gyǘ Shäw Chù Kwächʼǟn ("Big Salmon River People").
In December 2009 , the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development counted exactly 597 recognized Indians in the Little Salmon / Carmacks First Nation . The tribe itself gives the number of its members as 630.
history
Early history
The earliest livelihoods were the caribou herds , but also moose , sheep and marmots , hares and Alaska piping hares . There were also birds and fish, especially salmon . They cover almost 4,000 km across the Yukon River. Grizzly bears, wolves, coyotes and lynx also live here.
The harsh climate required a semi-nomadic life, with families gathering in spring and summer camps to fish, but also in the short fall to hunt. The early groups lived in shelters made of twigs, branches, and hides. The clothing was also adapted to the climate.
They consolidated their relations with neighboring groups through regular trade contacts and joint celebrations, as well as through family ties. Their view of the world and their relationship to their surroundings were also similar. Shamans excelled as healers and were responsible for making contact with spiritual powers. They also helped to find hunting prey.
During the less favorable times of the year, small groups of families, following their respective walking cycle with some variations each year, roamed the entire traditional area.
The fur trade already arrived shortly after 1800 by the Tlingit to the neighbors in the southern Yukon, the so tied to local trade for the first time to the world trade. This brought some European goods, such as guns, metal goods, axes, knives, but also tobacco, tea, sugar and flour to the groups that later formed the Little Salmon / Carmacks First Nation.
Klondike gold rush
George Carmack , after whom Carmacks is named, found coal at Tantalus Butte (locally called Coal Mine Hill) not far from present-day Carmacks in 1893. He began mining coal on the south bank of the Yukon River and set up a trading post. Carmack discovered gold together with Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie in 1896 and thus triggered the Klondike gold rush .
When it broke through the sparsely populated region in 1897, but above all in 1898, around 100,000 people flocked to the gold fields. Most of them came from the Pacific via the only two passes. They built rafts and boats on Lake Lindeman or on Lake Bennett to travel the half-mile to Dawson . In May 1898, around 7,000 boats descended the Yukon past the tribe's territory.
White families soon lived in Carmacks and they did not tolerate the presence of the Indians in the vicinity of the village. So 1905 residents complained about campers within the village limits, whereupon the responsible Indian Ministry (Department of Indian Affairs) determined a reservation in the following year , but this was not established until 1926 (Carmacks no. 10). Little Salmon became a reserve in 1956 (Little Salmon River no. 10). The Indians were kept so far away from the English-speaking culture that as late as 1932 it was found that at best two elderly people from the Carmacks group understood more than the simplest of English. In 1950, 133 of the residents of Carmacks belonged to the Anglican Church and only 3 to the Catholic Church.
Alaska Highway, Assimilation Policy
In 1942 the construction of the Alaska Highway began . The population of Whitehorse rose by leaps and bounds from 700 to 25,000, in 1953 the town became the capital of the territory, replacing Dawson . In 1968 the Robert Campbell Highway was built , connecting Carmacks with Watson Lake on the Alaska Highway.
In Carmacks, the Anglican Church opened a school that was only attended by Indian children, a so-called Residential School . A teacher named Brownlee worked there around 1940. Some students from Carmacks went to the school in Carcross , whose catchment area extended over Whitehorse to the north to Old Crow .
Land claims and self-government
The Tagé Cho Hudän Interpretive Center , a mixture of tourist information, museum and archive, opened in 1996.
In 1998, after long negotiations, the First Nation signed an agreement with the territory and the federal government in Ottawa that regulated the rights of use to their traditional territory.
Current situation
In the 2006 census, 325 of the 425 inhabitants of Carmacks named Aboriginal identity , that is, they were members of the "indigenous people".
Since 2007, Yukon Energy has been building a power line from Carmacks to Stewart Crossing , which Pelly Crossing has already reached. A branch to the Minto mine has been in operation since November 2008, the continuation to Stewart Crossing was still under construction at the end of 2010.
In the last election for chief on January 13, 2009, Eddie Skookum, who had signed the contract from 1998, won with 128 votes against George Skookum with 123 votes.
literature
- Ken S. Coates: Best Left as Indians. Native-White Relations in the Yukon Territory, 1840-1973 , Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1991, paperback 1993.
- Catharine McClellan, "Tutchone," in: Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 6, Subarctic, Ed. June Helm, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution 1981, 493-505.
- James Albert Johnson: George Carmack: The Man of Mystery Who set off the Klondike Gold Rush , Epicenter Press 2003.
See also
- First Nations history
- List of Indian tribes recognized in Canada
- List of North American Indian tribes
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ Little Salmon / Carmacks First Nation ( Memento of the original from February 7, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Ken S. Coates: Best Left as Indians. Native-White Relations in the Yukon Territory, 1840-1973 , Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1991, Paperback 1993, p. 93.
- ↑ Ken S. Coates: Best Left as Indians. Native-White Relations in the Yukon Territory, 1840-1973 , Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1991, Paperback 1993, p. 167.
- ↑ Ken S. Coates: Best Left as Indians. Native-White Relations in the Yukon Territory, 1840-1973 , Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1991, Paperback 1993, p. 125.
- ↑ Ken S. Coates: Best Left as Indians. Native-White Relations in the Yukon Territory, 1840-1973 , Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1991, Paperback 1993, p. 133.
- ↑ Ken S. Coates: Best Left as Indians. Native-White Relations in the Yukon Territory, 1840-1973 , Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1991, Paperback 1993, p. 151.
- ^ The contract can be found on the website of the tribe , Final Agreement and on that of Little Salmon / Carmack's First Nation Final Agreement. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, accessed September 17, 2015 .
- ^ Statistics Canada
- ^ Carmacks-Stewart Power Line
