Our Stories

In 1900, Chief Kishxóot (Jim Boss) recognized the effect of settlers and petitioned the Government of Canada and wrote to the Yukon Commissioner and the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs requesting compensation for his people’s loss of land and hunting grounds.

In 1973 the Yukon Native Brotherhood and the Yukon Association of Non-Status Indians came together to form the Council for Yukon Indians – known today as the Council of Yukon First Nations – in order to negotiate land claims on behalf of all Yukon First Nations people.

Elijah Smith, or Tä Me in Southern Tutchone, was born in Champagne in 1912. In 1973, he led a delegation of Yukon First Nation leaders to Ottawa to present Together Today for our Children Tomorrow to the Prime Minister of Canada, which marked the beginning of modern land claim negotiations in the Yukon.

Kusawa Territorial Park is designated as a Special Management Area in two Land Claim Agreements and is part of three Traditional Territories: Carcross/Tagish, Champagne and Aishihik, and Kwanlin Dün First Nations.

The Ddhaw Ghro Habitat Protection Area is an environmentally and culturally rich area located between the Pelly and Stewart Rivers.

Have you visited Ni''iinlii Njik (Fishing Branch) Territorial Park? Together, the park (whose name means "where fish spawn") and adjacent Habitat Protection Area and Settlement Lands protect a distinct ecosystem in the Traditional Territory of the Vuntut Gwichin First Nation.

Vuntut National Park was established through the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation Final Agreement in 1995, to protect the traditional and current Gwich’in way of life, and the water, plants and animals essential to their culture.

As a living cultural heritage site, Huchá Hudän (Fort Selkirk) is a place to share, respect and preserve for future generations.

The Yukon Association of Non-Status Indians was founded in 1972 to represent and advocate for First Nations people who lost their status through discriminatory sections of Canada’s Indian Act.