PART THREE KNOWING THE LAND

EVON PETER

PERSPECTIVE

Diitsii Diitsuu Nąįį Gooveenjit / For Our Ancestors

Our identity, our sense of belonging, our understanding of being human, are all connected to our relationship with the land. And our relationship with these lands span millennia. Our grandfathers and grandmothers who came before us walked these same ridges, valleys, and trails. They fished the same lakes, streams, and rivers. They cherished memories carried in the pungent smell of the fall tundra, in wafts of spruce, cottonwood, and willow smoke. They ventured throughout these lands until their final rest. Our ancestors are literally part of this land. We are part of this land.

As a child, I had the opportunity to spend time living with my grandfather Steven Tsee Gho’ Tsyatsal Peter Sr. in our village of Vashrąįį K’ǫǫ (Arctic Village in English) in the southern foothills of Gwazhal (the Brooks Range). My earliest memories are almost entirely of the outdoors: we spent little time inside, and the land was our playground. We would roam the shores of Vashrąįį K’ǫǫ, the creek our village was named after, up to Vashrąįį Van, the lake that feeds into the creek. Elders set fishnets in Vashrąįį K’ǫǫ to catch łuk daagąįį (whitefish), and us kids would use spears in the narrow channels to catch iltin (northern pike).

In the fall time, most families would move up onto Dachan Lee (Tree Line) campsites to hunt for vadzaih (caribou) and make dry meat for the long winter. The smells of wood fire, freshly fried meat, and campfire tea permeate memories of those days. Sometimes we would run down the mountain to the glacier creek to fish for shriijaa (grayling). On the land, we were free. On the land, we were nurtured.

When my grandfather was nearing his last days, he asked to return to his birthplace, over the mountain from Vashrąįį K’ǫǫ, to the shore of Van K’ehdee. He is there now. A long wood pole with a carved fish up top marks his final resting place. When I can, I make the day-long trek over the mountain to visit him there in the summer. He was among the last of his generation, raised among families who followed a nomadic life, moving with the seasons, across our lands.

He spoke about the importance of our Gwich’in language. How the Vaanoodlit (white man) had enforced educational policies that were stripping the language from our young people. To him it was absurd, and he was sad to see it happening. When he was growing up on the land, our language was the only one he knew. He remembered seeing the first Vaanoodlit in our country and reflected on how much has changed since that time.

In our generation, we are tasked with the responsibility to revitalize the use of our language and ensure the knowledge it holds continued to be transferred down the generations. Our language is descriptive, full of poetry, humour, and meaning. The small drops of water that rest on a leaf following a rainfall are sometimes called dil chųų gahtsii (“water made for the lesser yellowlegs”). My grandfather’s resting place is on the shore of Van K’ehdee (“lake on top of a lake”), named for shallow water surrounded by a deep crater filled with water.

Through our language we more fully understand the perspectives, world view, and knowledge our people had of the land and our environment. We can situate ourselves geographically in places on the land, understand the hydrological connections among lakes, streams, and rivers, and reference geological attributes of hills, ridges, and mountains for navigation. Our ancestors were philosophers, historians, geologists, hydrologists, biologists, healers, and intellectuals. They crafted systematic methods for naming places and integrated them into stories to perpetuate the knowledge. We are the beneficiaries of this knowledge, and it is incumbent upon us to value it for what it is: thousands of years of lived experience compounded into stories, songs, history, names, and ceremonies—our world view.

We have only scratched the surface in recognizing the value that Indigenous knowledge, values, and perspectives have to offer more broadly, to the social and physical sciences, as well as to political and international relations. We are pressed for time to document and expand the understanding of our languages while the remaining first-language speakers are still with us. Expanding this knowledge will require commitment from learners and investment by institutions.

Still, the late Chief David Salmon of Jałgiitsik (Chalkyitsik) once shared with me that the land is also our teacher, as it was for our ancestors. As the drive to revitalize the Gwich’in language and cultural practices grows among the people, we understand that it is to the land that we must return for many important lessons. This is natural, as we are part of the land.