Chef Kishxóot (Jim Boss)

(traduction en cours) In 1900, Chief Kishxóot (Jim Boss) recognized the effect of settlers and petitioned the Government of Canada:

"...the Indians are unable to subsist as they were formerly able to do... He [Jim Boss] says ‘tell the King very hard we want something for our Indians because they take our land and our game."

From a letter Chief Kishxóot (Jim Boss) wrote through lawyer T.W. Jackson to the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, dated January 13, 1902

Le chef Boss est né en 1857 et fût le chef héréditaire des Ta’an Kwäch’än. In the late 1800s, he recognized that the influx of people — as a result of the Klondike Gold Rush — was significantly impacting Yukon First Nations and their way of life.

In 1900 and 1902, Chief Boss wrote to the Yukon Commissioner and the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs requesting compensation for his people’s loss of land and hunting grounds.

Although the federal government’s response was lacklustre, this action by Chief Kishxóot (Jim Boss) laid the foundation for First Nations land claims almost 100 years before the first agreements were signed in the Yukon.