FACTORS ENABLING HEALTH IN ABORIGINAL - NON-ABORIGINAL
CULTURAL ENCOUNTER IN THE YUKON
by
Carole Williams
BSc., University of Bath, 1971

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF SCIENCE
in
COMMUNITY HEALTH SCIENCE

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA
May 2005
© Carole Williams, 2005

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Canada

Factors Enabling Health in Aboriginal - non-Aboriginal Cultural
Encounter in the Yukon

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand how holistic health is maintained in
circumstances of cultural encounter. Although Canadian Government and Aboriginal
definitions of health focus on holistic health, most of the research on health in cultural
encounters focuses on ill-health. This study focuses on the social determinants of health
rather than of ill-health. I interviewed three healthy Yukon First Nation women who had
experienced a cultural encounter with non-Aboriginals in order to understand the unique
nature of their experience and how they had maintained their health through that
experience. I used a chain sampling method to find my interviewees. Since I was seeking
a mutual understanding between myself and the Aboriginal participants who had
experienced the cultural encounter, I situated the study in the Constructivism theoretical
framework and used a qualitative methodology. I found certain common themes in the
accounts of these women. They had all started from a position of physical, mental,
emotional and cultural strength. They had all experienced diverse cultural lifestyles and
languages in their homes and communities. Their parents’ preparation and vision had
built a bridge which lessened the impact of the cultural encounter. They employed certain
skills which they had learned at home to cope with innovation, including modelling,
balancing, actively integrating and focusing on the positive. They maintained contact
with their homes or found ways to reconnect mentally and physically when separated. I

11

hope this research will achieve my goal of deepening understanding of cultural encounter
by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people and how health may be maintained
throughout it.

Ill

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract

11

Table of Contents

iv

Acknowledgment

V

Chapter One

Introduction

1

Chapter Two

Literature Review

5

Chapter Three

Methodology

18

Chapter Four

Data Collection and Analysis

26

Chapter Five

Thematic Summaries of the Stories

37

Chapter Six

Conclusions

82

Chapter Seven

Usefulness of Research

102
105

Bibliography
Appendix #1

Interview Consent Form

III

Appendix #2

Participant Information Sheet

112

Appendix #3

Questions

113

Appendix #4

Revised Consent Form

114

IV

Acknowledgment
I would like to acknowledge the great debt I owe to the three wonderful women
who participated in this study with me. I thank them for sharing their story and for their
willingness to write and re-write the text until we had got it right.
I also thank my supervisory committee. I am grateful to Antonia Mills, my
supervisor, for her questions which made me think more deeply and write more
coherently, to Lela Zimmer for the clarity of her thinking on the theoretical perspective
and to Julie Cruikshank for her wisdom, encouragement and extensive knowledge.
I thank my classmates for their affirmation of me and for their reflections on their
wealth of local experience. I especially thank Jody Walker for brightening the murky
days of writing Draft 1 with a bouquet of flowers.
I am very grateful to my husband, Andy Williams, who offered constructive
criticism at the right times and took second place to the thesis writing with only subtle
complaints. I thank my daughters, Sian and Megan, and my son-in-law, Lance Goodwin,
who maintained a polite interest and made useful suggestions as I talked ad nauseam
about my thesis. I am grateful for my granddaughter’s acceptance that I did not have time
to play with her because, “Granny is busy scribblin’.” Lastly I acknowledge the
inspiration of my daughter, Megan, who was living out cultural encounter while I was
only writing about it.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Personal Interest in the study
My interest in this study began in Dublin, Ireland, where I visited museums
displaying artefacts of the Celtic cultural tradition followed by a visit to the Book of
Kells, a Celtic-Cbristian illustrated version of the Four Christian Gospels. I was struck by
the way the Celts bad interpreted Christian ideas in a Celtic idiom, interweaving the
images I bad seen in the Celtic museums with familiar Christian images. The result was a
wonderfully creative intermingling of the two traditions. It was profoundly troubling to
me to reflect bow disastrously different bad been the cultural encounter between
Christianity and North American First Nations. My reading and experiences during the
last 30 years of living in the Yukon have made me aware of the anger and unease which
exists between First Nations and non-Natives and of its origins in the nature of the
cultural encounter.
During my reading of other cultural encounters and for a course on community
development, I discovered a common thread in the healthy survival of cultural encounter:
it was a focus on the positive, on the things which unite rather than the things which
divide, on the things which work rather than the things which do not, on community
assets rather than community needs, on individual strength rather than deficiencies.
Although the need to heal the ill-health of the past is acknowledged, my focus is on the
pursuit of positive health for the future. It was in this context that reports of healthy First
Nations people who had grappled with the cultural encounter shone like glowing embers

in a fireplace. I thought these people must hold the clues to a healthy future for our two
cultural traditions, so I designed this study to interview them.

Purpose of Proposed Study
My general research question is: what was the experience of the cultural
encounter with non-Natives in the subjective view of healthy Yukon First Nation people?
What is their view of the nature of the encounter and the meaning which they as
participants draw from it? Do they feel it contributed to their present health in any of its
aspects? In accordance with the Constructivist perspective I define as healthy those who
so assess themselves. Beginning with my invitation to tell the story of their first and
subsequent meetings with non-natives, specific follow-up questions were suggested by
the respondents’ accounts and reflections and by my review of the literature of similar
encounters.
The purpose of this study is to understand how holistic health is maintained in
circumstances of cultural encounter. The current Health Canada definition of health is
holistic in scope, focused on health rather than ill-health and regards health as socially
determined. This definition is close to the Aboriginal definition of health which is
similarly holistic, focused on health and determined socially. Although both definitions
focus on the pursuit of health, the majority of Government funded health research focuses
on the epidemiology of ill-health. Most studies of cultural encounter exhibit a similar
focus on ill-health outcomes, although a few do not.
In Canada, studies in the scientific tradition and statements by Aboriginal people
have pointed to a causal relationship between the assimilationist policies of colonial

governments in the years of cultural encounter and the present ill-health of Aboriginal
people. These assimilationist policies included the separation of young people from their
culture through the residential school experience, denigration of that culture and
prevention of the use of their own language. In this study I propose to study the converse
of that relationship, that healthy Aboriginal people perhaps had a different experience of
cultural encounter. It may be that their experience is merely the reverse of that
experienced by Aboriginal people presently suffering ill-health. Perhaps they managed to
retain contact with their cultural traditions, used their language or had already begun to
integrate the two cultural perspectives before they left home, for example. But perhaps
there are additional factors in their experience which led to their present health. My
interviews are designed to answer these questions.

Scholarly, Community and Social Significance
The value of this research is that it begins to fill a gap in our knowledge of how
health is maintained in cultural encounters since research to date has focused on the illhealth outcomes of cultural encounter. Although it may be inferred that healthful cultural
encounter is merely the opposite of unhealthful encounter this research was designed to
reveal additional or more specific cultural encounter experiences which are health-giving.
In constructing new partnerships with First Nations, both governments and churches may
benefit from knowing what works rather than what does not.
In its focus on healthy cultural encounter experiences, this research contributes
balance to the stereotypical picture of impoverished First Nation communities. This
research does not suggest that governments can deny that their colonial agenda damaged

First Nation health. While focusing on First Nation physical and cultural health, the
research puts this health in the context of its cultural encounter experience. Not only does
this research celebrate First Nation health, but participation in research with such a
positive focus may well prove to be a strengthening experience for the individuals
involved including myself as the researcher.
This research is also valuable in that it highlights the importance of culture and
spirituality in health. This may be useful for governments designing programming in
Community Health, Education and Social Services. Recent Canadian Government
attempts to address the damage done by Residential Schools in a 70 / 30% split
settlement with the Anglican and Presbyterian churches have focused only on redress of
physical and sexual abuse, even though 95% of litigation claims in the courts have also
cited loss of spirituality and culture. The United Church has maintained that the
settlement is insufficient in that it does not address the issue of the loss of spirituality and
culture ( Observer, 2003).
I hope that this research may deepen understanding of the cultural encounter in
the wider society of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. It will give some
positive ideas about how two cultural perspectives may co-exist with healthful outcomes
for all. As Ed Schulz, Grand Chief of Yukon First Nations, suggested to recent First
Nation high school graduates, “Let us embrace the best of our world and integrate the
best of theirs” (Taggart, 2003).

Chapter 2: Literature Review

In preparation for this exploration of the healthy experience of cultural encounter,
my review of the relevant literature covers Government and Aboriginal definitions of
health, history of cultural encounter in the Yukon, cultural encounter and ill-health and
cultural encounter and health.

Dehnitions of Health
Aboriginal people’s understanding of health may be referred to as holistic. In
North America this understanding has come to be expressed by the Medicine Wheel,
symbolising that well-being involves balancing gifts from the four parts of the wheel mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. Such balance results in a whole person who
lives in harmony with and connected to the Universe (Four Worlds Development Project,
1988). Teaching stories from the Yukon as recorded by Cruikshank speak to an
understanding of health as socially and spiritually connected well-being, operating in a
relationship with the physical environment (Cruikshank, 1990 and 1998). We can
understand health as holistic, focused on positive health and socially determined. Warry
notes that Aboriginal people use the term “mental health” in the broad sense of describing
behaviours that make for a harmonious and cohesive community (Warry, 1998).
Although Aboriginal people speak of spirituality as a separate concept when
talking to non-Aboriginal people (for example, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal
Peoples, 1993a,b, 1994, 1995) their own concept of spirituality is not separated from their

general concept of social health or well-being. Nor is the pursuit of such health or well­
being an individual endeavour - it is always expressed in a framework of social relations
and of relationship to the physical environment. Identity and purpose may be sought but
it is a social identity and a social purpose (Cruikshank, 1990 and 1998).
Beginning with the Lalonde Report of 1974 (Lalonde, 1974), Health Canada’s
definition of health has broadened from a bio-medical model to a holistic model with a
positive focus on health rather than the absence of disease and being socially determined
rather than being dependent on the individual’s physical resources and lifestyle (Health
Canada, 2001). Important research in developing this definition of health has been done
by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) notably by Mustard and Frank
(Mustard and Frank, 1994). The current Health Canada definition of health as holistic,
positively focused and socially determined closely matches the traditional Aboriginal
concept of social health. In spite of this, some research in the Community Health
discipline is still grounded in the bio-medical model of health as the absence of physical
ill-health. As Waldram et al note in their survey of Aboriginal health and health care,
such a concept of Aboriginal health “masks the rich diversity of social, economic and
political circumstances that give rise to variation in health problems and healing
strategies in Aboriginal communities

we need to get beyond traditional

epidemiological measures to encompass the perspectives and concerns of Aboriginal
people in the communities whose health status is being assessed” (Waldram et al, 1997:

2 0 %.
Hawks attempted to find common elements among varying definitions of spiritual
health as the possession of spirituality. He defined this as, “a high level of faith, hope and

commitment in relation to a well-defined worldview or belief system that provides a
sense of meaning and purpose to existence in general and that offers an ethical path to
personal fulfillment which includes connectedness with self, others and a higher power or
larger reality” (Hawks, 1994). Theological definitions of spirituality speak of it as a
lifelong journey or process of discovery of meaning, emphasising the dynamic aspect of
belief formation as developmental stages rather than acquiescence to a static set of beliefs
(Fowler, 1981). The product is an emerging sense of personal identity and purpose in
relation to the social and spiritual world. Fowler makes a useful distinction between the
contents and structure of faith. The structure of faith accords with what is generally
understood as spirituality, whereas its contents accords with my understanding of a
religion, a specific faith tradition. It is the structure of faith which progresses through the
various stages of development rather than the contents of any one faith tradition.
Progression from one stage to another necessitates a recapitulation of the previous stages
where the former beliefs are reworked in the light of the ideas of the new stage. Fowler
believes that nihilism results when this recapitulation is prevented.
Anthropological writings about Yukon First Nations’ culture and spirituality treat
them as one, emphasising the First Nations’ spiritual connection to the land. Both
spirituality and culture are relational concepts. In non-aboriginal writings spirituality
deals with relations between an individual, others and a higher power (Hawks, 1994).
Culture is generally understood to deal with relations between an individual and society.
Although it is theoretically possible to have a cultural tradition which is not spiritual this
would not appear to be the case with Yukon First Nations. For them spirituality is cultural
and their cultural traditions are spiritual. For this reason I refer to both concepts together.

Health Canada’s inclusion of spirituality in their holistic, socially determined
definition of health is supported by the great majority of scientific studies and reviews
which have looked at the link between spirituality and health, although they use a variety
of definitions of spirituality and focus on different aspects of health. Definitions of
spirituality vary from a social support mechanism (Sullivan, 1993) through commitment
to a worldview which outlines identity and purpose in relationship with others and a
higher power (Hawks, 1994) to commitment to a defined set of spiritual beliefs, often
referred to now as religion rather than spirituality (McLachlan, et al, 1999).
Some studies have found that spirituality is a positive factor in healing physical
ill-health (Uderman, 2000; Koenig, 2000). Other studies found spirituality is a positive
factor in healing mental ill-health (O’Connell, 1999; McDowell and Galanter, 1996;
Kaczorowski, 1988). Spirituality has also been found to promote physical health (Leach,
2000; Comstock and Partridge, 1972; Koenig, 2000; Hawks, 1994) and to promote
specific characteristics of mental health (Mahoney and Graci, 1999; Ellison, 1983;
Carson and Green, 1992; Maton, 1989; Roth, 1988). Of particular interest are studies
which found spirituality to be a protective or resilience factor in the survival of traumatic
experiences (Valentine and Feinaer, 1993; Pargament, 1997; Fabricatore, Handal and
Fenzel, 2000; Maton, 1989). There is more literature supporting spirituality’s link with
mental health than physical health. A few studies have disputed a positive relationship
between spirituality and health or found no association between them (MacLachlan et al,
1999; Idler, 1995). Both MacLachlan and Idler defined spirituality as religion, in the
sense of a high commitment to a defined set of beliefs. In the Yukon, in the 1992 Health
Promotion Research Program, which surveyed Yukoners’ perceptions of health, some

asserted that health could only be achieved by balancing physical, mental, and spiritual
well-being or felt that health was influenced by the presence or lack of spirituality
(Yukon Territorial Government, 1992).

History of Yukon Cultural Encounter
In the Yukon the cultural encounter between Aboriginal people and Christian
non-Aboriginal people began in the latter part of the 19* century as European explorers,
fur traders and missionaries pushed into the Yukon Territory, then part of the North West
Territories. The diaries and reports of these explorers express surprise at how few
“Indians” they saw. The “Indians,” however, were observing them from a distance; in
oral accounts recorded by Julie Cruikshank, the natives at first concluded that these
Europeans must be “cloud people” since their colourless faces revealed them as spiritual
beings from another world where the characteristics of ordinary reality are reversed
(Cruikshank, 1998: 9). It transpired that these cloud people were capable of making
partnerships in the physical world. As British and Russian traders entered the region in
the wake of the explorers, they joined and intensified existing trade networks between the
interior Athapaskans and their Tlingit neighbours on the then Russian coast of Alaska to
the South, and their Gwich’in neighbours to the North. They formed trading partnerships
sometimes cemented in the established fashion by marriages and mutual kinship
responsibilities (Cruikshank, 1998: 6).
In contrast to the traders who were willing to work with local people, the
Anglican and Catholic missionaries who arrived next had their own agenda. They were
aiming to Christianize the Yukon Aboriginal people and introduce them to the spiritual

and cultural values of Victorian Britain (Cruikshank, 1998:7). The local people had their
own spiritual and cultural beliefs, seeing humans and non-humans (including animals)
engaged in a mutually sustaining social contract. This social contract was
incomprehensible to the missionaries who saw animals as fur-bearing commodities and
humans as distinct from animals over which they held dominion. Yukon Aboriginal
people had no trouble integrating the new stories of Jesus into their belief system, but the
missionaries with their exclusive theology had no interest in accommodating the local
people’s inelusive spirituality (Cruikshank, 1998:8). In order to advanee their agenda the
missionaries formed partnerships with the traders and later with Federal Government
administrators (Coates, 1991). These partnerships exerted their own influences on the
cultural encounter. Although initially Anglican mission schools taught written versions of
the local Aboriginal language, this practiee was abandoned in the schools after the death
of Bishop Bompas in 1906 (Spotswood, 2002).
With the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898 came greater interest on the part of the
Federal Government in administering the Yukon. The Yukon became a jurisdiction
separate from the North West Territories in the same year, with its own Commissioner,
Gold Commissioner, Police Officer and Indian Agent. The Federal Government made no
treaties with Yukon Aboriginal people since they believed the Indians did not own the
land and that the Yukon held few prospects for significant settlement (Coates, 1991:
162). The Federal Government declared that “there is no Indian title to be extinguished in
the Yukon” (House of Commons Debates, volume 46 (1898) page 824, quoted in Coates,
1991). After this, different cultural and spiritual concepts concerning justice, ownership
and individual responsibility already apparent in the early cultural encounters between

10

Yukon people and the immigrants crystallised into cultural clashes. Actions to impose
European style law and order occasioned bewilderment on the part of local Aboriginal
people and actions following Aboriginal notions of justice occasioned indignation on the
part of the non-Aboriginal immigrants (Cruikshank, 1998:81-97). Education of variable
consistency and quality was offered Aboriginal children from the latter part of the 19*
century with the Federal Government reluctant to finance it, believing that the return did
not justify the expenditure. The churches, initially just the Anglican Church but later the
Catholic and Baptist Churches, promoted it enthusiastically. Although grudgingly
federally funded. Aboriginal education remained in Church hands until after 1950. The
limited resources restricted church efforts to an irregular day school program, seasonal
schools and several small boarding schools, the first of which opened in 1911 at Carcross
(Coates, 1991; Almstrom, 1990).
In 1945 Federal educational policy shifted to an insistence on universal education
and to the enforcement of compulsory schooling. Enrolment in boarding schools
increased, although under protest from Aboriginal people, who felt that the schools were
too far away from the more remote communities of the Yukon. Some attempts to have
Aboriginal children attend local white day schools met with objections from white
residents and they were officially excluded from 1934 until the Indian Act of 1951
(Coates, 1991). Dissatisfaction with the lengthy separation, the irrelevance of the
education and the traumatic experiences of the children in the schools led to their closure
in the 1960s with the last to close being the Catholic school at Lower Post in 1975
(Coates, 1991).

11

Cultural Encounter and Ill-health
Many of the studies documenting the poor social health status of Aboriginal
communities have indicated pervasive substance abuse and high rates of suicide. The
term “social health” is used here in accordance with its usage in Aboriginal people’s
health literature to indicate their holistic concept of health. In John O’Neil’s review of
Aboriginal Health Policy for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples he notes that
the term “social health” first appeared in the work of Joan Feather in 1991 to integrate
“ideas about health drawn from family and community medicine, mental health and
Aboriginal ideas about holistic health and the medicine wheel” (quoted in Warry, 1998).
It is estimated that 50 - 80% of adult Aboriginal populations in Canada have alcoholrelated problems (Heidenrich, cited in Merskey et al, 1986; Leland, 1976; Warry, 1986
and 1990.) Substance abuse, including gas sniffing by Aboriginal children and youth is
regarded as a significant problem in many Aboriginal communities (Warry and Mofat,
1993). There is a perception that alcohol abuse is regarded as the most critical mental
health issue for Aboriginal communities (Justice and Warry, 1996). The suicide rate of
Aboriginal people is more than three times the national average (RCAP, 1994 and 1995;
Brant, 1993; Kirmayer, 1994; Minore, et al, 1991). In B.C., covering the period 1984 89, using on reserve data and estimating off-reserve data. Cooper estimated the suicide
rate for all Aboriginal people as 50% higher than the national rate (Cooper et al, 1992).
The statistics are estimates and perceptions because health status data with regard
to suicide and substance abuse are not available in an ethnically linked form. Categorised
mortality statistics are available for on-reserve Aboriginal populations but this only
represents a fraction of the total Aboriginal population (Waldram, et al, 1997). The

12

writers in “A Persistent Spirit,” a collection of papers on Aboriginal health in B.C., used
Status Indian data and assumed this to be representative of the whole Aboriginal
population in B.C. (Stephenson, et al, 1995).
Aboriginal people object to ethnically linked health status data for several
reasons. As noted by O’Neil in his discussion paper presented to the Royal Commission
on Aboriginal Peoples in 1993, when such data is interpreted and used by outsiders it
portrays an image of Aboriginal communities as “desperate, disorganised and depressed”
and can be used to justify policies of paternalism and dependency, notions contrary to
Aboriginal values of self-reliance and reciprocity (O’Neil, 1993). In addition, the image
of ill-health is unbalanced - it ignores the strengths and resiliency of the quality of life in
Aboriginal communities (Warry, 1998; Kelm, 1998; Stephenson, et al, 1995). In the
Yukon, the Council for Yukon First Nations (CYFN) has asked that health status data not
be ethnically identified since they believe the causes of ill- health to be of socio­
economic not ethnic origin and data should therefore be presented in its socio-economic
context (Yukon Territorial Government, 1998). As Waldram concludes, the only way,
therefore, to access health status data is to ask Aboriginal people about it (Waldram, et al,
1997). In the Yukon, the 1992 Health Promotion Research Program, Paper 2, “What the
People Say,” surveyed Yukoners’ perception of health but didn’t identify Aboriginal
respondents (Yukon Territorial Government, 1992). Whether perceived or estimated, the
available literature agrees that there is a problem of substance abuse and suicide amongst
Aboriginal people.
Aboriginal people have concluded that the assimilation policies during the
cultural encounter of the colonial era have created socio- economic conditions which

13

have led to the prevalence of these social health problems in their communities. Part of
these socio-economic conditions is the loss of spirituality and culture (Brant, 1993;
Westermeyer and Neider, 1984; Warry and Mofat, 1993; Councillor, 1992; Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1994; Justice and Warry, 1996). Miller’s
documentation of the Residential School experience is one exposition of the effect of
some of these assimilation policies (Miller, 1996). The reality of the experience for the
students in the schools was a far cry from the hopes and vision of Chief Shingwauk, an
Ontario Chief, who had requested the provision of a “big teaching wigwam” where
Aboriginal children would be “received, and clothed, and fed, and taught how to read and
how to write; and also how to farm and build houses, and make clothing; so that by and
bye they might go back and teach their own people.” He had not envisioned the
mistreatment of the children, the denigration of Aboriginal culture, the prohibition of
Aboriginal language nor the inadequate food and excessive chores. In particular he had
not foreseen the inadequacy of the education which failed to prepare the children for a
successful life in the Euro-Canadian world, the whole aim of his request. Miller’s book is
especially useful in that it contrasts the aims of the Aboriginal people in requesting
education with the different agendas of the Canadian Government (vocational training to
aid the economy at minimal cost) and the Churches (evangelising).

Cultural Encounter and Health
Although the majority of literature both scientific and perceptual suggests that the
nature of the non-Native - First Nation cultural encounter resulted in the social health
problems of Aboriginal people, the existence of participants in the cultural encounter

14

without these problems suggests that these people experienced the encounter in a
different way. Recent research and occasional media reports have focused on the
resilience of Aboriginal people in withstanding the colonial agenda with small acts of
resistance (Fumiss, 1995) and in supporting the health of Aboriginal people with
traditional health strategies (Kelm, 1998; Stephenson et al, 1995; Waldram et al, 1997).
Personal communication and anecdotal evidence have suggested that some Aboriginal
people survived the cultural encounter with their health intact, including their spiritual
health. The story of Mary John, as written by Bridget Moran, is just such a tale of healthy
survival (Moran, 1988), as are the stories of Angela Sidney, Annie Ned and Kitty Smith
(Cruikshank, 1990).
Scientific studies confirm a relationship between community socio-economic
conditions and suicide. The Cooper et al (1992) study in B.C. found a relationship
between suicide rates and socio-economic characteristics of the areas in which those rates
occurred. However, Chandler and Lalonde (1998) relate B.C. community statistics on
Aboriginal suicide to “cultural continuity” factors present in the local community.
Suicide rates were found to be lower in those communities with cultural continuity.
Some anthropological literature has documented ways in which cultural
encounters have not resulted in cultural and spiritual loss. This literature deals with the
concept of cultural continuity. Anthropologist Ann Fienup-Riordan explores the concept
of cultural continuity in the cultural encounter between Moravian missionaries and the
Yup’ik First Nation in South-East Alaska. Here cultural continuity was achieved in a
variety of ways - by holding to traditional beliefs, by embracing the new beliefs or by
integrating the two in a process referred to as metaphorical incorporation or

15

indigenisation (Fienup-Riordan, 1991 and 2000). Fienup-Riordan’s work follows a recent
trend in anthropological literature of looking at the Aboriginal response to the Christian
missionary endeavour not as passive reception judged successful or not from the point of
view of the missionary agenda, but as an active engagement of Aboriginal people in
transforming the two belief systems (Fienup-Riordan, 1991; Mills, 1992).
Catherine McClellan, an anthropologist working in the Yukon in the late 40’s and
50’s looked at the way Yukon people integrated new and traditional beliefs in a process
she referred to as syncretism (McClellan, 2001 [1975]). Jean and John Comaroff also
looked at the process of integration in their study of the Aboriginal response to
colonisation in Africa. They referred to it as the colonisation of consciousness and the
consciousness of colonisation (Comaroff & Comaroff, 1992).
Another example of successful integration of different belief systems may be seen
in the Celtic-Christian cultural encounter in the third to eighth centuries A.D. in Britain.
An artistic expression of this integration is seen in the Book of Kells, an eighth century
Celtic manuscript of the Four Gospels illuminated by Celtic pagan symbols and images
interwoven with Christian images. Theological reconstructions and recovery of Celtic
Christianity demonstrate an integration of beliefs (Newell, 1997) and archaeological
research demonstrates an integration of Celtic and Christian sacred sites (Pennick, 1996;
Thomas, 1981 and 1997).
Cultural continuity illustrates one way in which culture is not lost but retained in a
transformed model. It is a process which may well be applicable to spirituality, especially
where spirituality and culture are seen as one and where the dynamic nature of spirituality
is recognised. It is one process whereby spiritual health as a component of health may be

16

maintained. It should be noted that the literature suggests that it is the process of
integration which has the potential for health maintenance rather than being a statement
about the relative merits of a specific set of beliefs.

17

Chapter 3: Methodology

Since this study is focused on the participants’ view of cultural encounter, both
their experience of it and their reflections on its relevance to their health, I situated this
study within the theoretical framework of Constructivism. The ontology and
epistemology of the Constructivism theoretical perspective seemed to me to describe
exactly what I wanted to study and how I might do that. Constructivism assumes a
relativist ontology (a local, specific constructed reality) and a transactional / subjectivist
epistemology (created findings) (Lincoln and Cuba, 1994). By this I understood that
knowledge is contained within the meanings people make of their social reality and that
knowledge can be gained through people talking about their meanings (Creswell, 1998).
Within the Constructivist theoretical framework identified as appropriate to this
study, I chose to use qualitative research methods, since their philosophical assumptions
accord with those of Constructivism (Mason, 1996; Creswell, 1998). Although Linda
Tuhiwai Smith asserts that indigenous people have distinctive ways of knowing which
cannot be captured by non-indigenous research with indigenous people, she does
acknowledge that qualitative research comes closest to the indigenous perspective in that
it “makes space for” those indigenous ways of knowing (Smith, 1999). These
philosophical assumptions may be classified as ontological (reality is subjective and
multiple as seen by participants), epistemological (the researcher attempts to lessen the
distance between his/herself and the participant being researched in deciding what
constitutes valid evidence), axiological (the researcher acknowledges research is value
laden and biases are present), rhetorical (the language is informal, using the personal

18

voice, qualitative terms and general definitions) and methodological (the researcher uses
induetive logic, studies the topic within its context and uses an emergent research design)
(Creswell, 1998; Mason, 1996).
Such assumptions seemed to me to be particularly appropriate to a respectful
exploration of the topic of cultural encounter, a complex and not quantifiable reality
situated between my eultural perspective and that of the participants. The assumptions
were also appropriate to the nature of the research questions which asked both what
happened and how it was experienced. My questions value the context and the setting.
They seek a deeper and mutual understanding of the cultural encounter as a lived
experience (Mason, 1996; Creswell, 1998; Marshall, 1995).
Within qualitative methods I chose to follow the phenomenological tradition of
inquiry since this seemed to me the most likely means of answering the research question
(Creswell, 1998). In the phenomenological tradition the research seeks to understand a
phenomenon or concept, which in this case is cultural encounter. The focus is on that
cultural encounter as a subjective experience imbued with meaning by the participants
(Van Manen, 1990; Mason, 1996.)
The phenomenological tradition recognises that research is value-laden and that
bias is present. These values and biases were acknowledged and made explicit at the
beginning of the study. In this sense 1 was situated within the study. 1 acknowledge that 1
approached this study from a Western cultural perspective, but 1 position myself on the
fringe of that perspective. 1 grew up in the “Celtic fringe” of Britain - British, yet always
aware of the underlying Celtic cultural traditions. My own faith development has drawn
on a wide variety of ideas following a spiral of recapitulation as described by Fowler

19

(1981). I belong to a Christian church but one with broad traditions and an inclusive
theology; faith in its own beliefs is not dependant on others’ being wrong. I value
spirituality in general rather than one specific faith tradition. When studying cultural
encounter it seems to me appropriate to have both cultural perspectives represented so
long as researcher bias is acknowledged.
In the following section I enlarge upon the ways in which I see the
phenomenological tradition of Qualitative Research was applied in this study. These
ways are categorised according to the assumptions of Qualitative Research as described
earlier: ontological, epistemological, axiological, rhetorical and methodological.
Ontology, the reality being studied
In the phenomenological tradition the research seeks to understand a phenomenon
or concept, which in this case is cultural encounter. The focus is on that cultural
encounter as a subjective experience imbued with meaning by the participants. I asked
three healthy First Nation people for their subjective account of the experience of their
encounter with the non-Aboriginal world and to reflect on how that may have affected
their present positive health.
Epistemology, the nature of the evidence
The phenomenological tradition seeks reliable data about the phenomenon by
lessening the distance between the researcher and the researched. The distance manifests
itself as hias in the collection of data in one direction or the other, usually in the direction
of the researcher. Whilst acknowledging that bias may be present, measures can be taken
to minimise researcher bias. One such measure in this study was my use of chain
sampling, where one interviewee suggests the next. This method ensures that the

20

relevance to the research question is the main criterion for selection (Patton, 1990). The
first person who expressed an interest in being interviewed was a Kluane First Nation
woman whom I have known as a neighbour and friend for 30 years. She referred me to
my next interviewee, who referred me to the next. Although it is not possible in chain
sampling to predict precisely the final sample, it was, as I had hoped, drawn from three
different First Nations. Other than being suggested by the previous interviewee, the only
criteria for seleetion was that they were healthy First Nation people who had encountered
the non-Native culture and were interested in sharing their experience and their
reflections upon it. As it happened, they were in the 60 - 80 year old age group and had
encountered the non-Native culture in their own homes. Since Aboriginal perceptions of
health are the only reliable indicators of health, I sought a sample which was self­
assessed as healthy in the holistic sense, or so assessed by the person making the referral.
Another measure to minimise bias concerns the presentation of the authentic
voice of the participant, authentic being defined as what they really mean to say, the truth
as they perceive it. I used an unstructured interview format to give free rein to the
interviewees’ ideas and eonstructs and to allow elaboration in depth and in any direction
chosen. I preferred women interviewees to men since they were likely to be more
comfortable communicating their ideas to a female researcher and I might be better able
to understand the interviewee. If however, a male had been suggested by an interviewee
as the next link in the chain sampling procedure, I would have followed that up. English
had to be the language of the interview since it is the only one I understand. Therefore the
interviewees had to be able to express their thoughts in English well enough for me to
understand, which they did. As I had hoped, they also understood, if not spoke fluently.

21

their own Aboriginal language, since cultural concepts and language are so closely
related (Brody, 1975; Smith, 1999). I recognise that this dependence on the interviewee’s
ability to translate Aboriginal concepts into English is a limitation of the study. I
proposed a series of two or three interviews with each participant to allow in depth
coverage of the topic. At each interview I verified with the participant the previous
interview’s data and my understanding of it and also invited the participant to reflect
further upon it. This verification played an important part in presenting the authentic
story of the participant, their story from their perspective.
The phenomenological tradition values the individual’s perspective over that of
pre-existing theories, but uses theory as a preparation for the research. In this case, the
literature on cultural continuity suggests that one way continuity is achieved is by the
integration of ideas at the individual level, hence my focus on the individual as the unit of
analysis. Reviewing the literature on similar cultural encounters alerts me to elements
which may be present in individual interviewees’ accounts (Fienup-Riordan, 1991 and
2000; Comaroff & Comaroff, 1992; Mills, 1992). Similarly, I have consulted historical
accounts of the context of the phenomenon of cultural encounter, but with caution, since
history is often written from the cultural perspective of the historian (Smith, 1999). I
think the above measures aid the authenticity, as defined above, and reliability of the data
collected concerning the phenomenon of cultural encounter.
Axiological Assumptions
The phenomenological tradition recognises that research is value-laden and that
bias is present. These values and biases are acknowledged and made explicit at the
beginning of the study. My personal interest in this study and my cultural values are

22

acknowledged above in the Introduction and in the fourth paragraph of this section. In
this sense I am situated within the study.
Rhetorical Assumptions
Studies in the phenomenological tradition are written using informal qualitative
language and definitions which are not too specific. Hence I refer to authenticity and
reliability rather than validity, meaning rather than facts. I am exploring an understanding
rather than documenting. I made the necessary definitions as general as possible in order
to allow for individual interpretation by the participants. More precise definitions
emerged from the interview discourse.
Methodological Assumptions
The process of phenomenological research studies a topic within its context using
an inductive logic and an emergent research design. The focus of this study was on
people who had experienced cultural encounter and had maintained their health. Their
account of the experience and the meaning they drew from it I assumed to be capable of
producing the essence of the experience. I therefore conducted lengthy unstructured
interviews with these people to study the topic of cultural encounter from within a
healthy First Nation perspective.
Following the chain sampling procedure as described above, the process I used
began with the collection and tape recording of accounts from participants about their
experience of encounter with the non-native culture. The questions to start the
conversation were very general but became more specific as the conversation proceeded.
My questions were prompted by my preliminary analysis of emergent themes and
requested clarification or elicited the meaning participants drew from their experience.

23

particularly its healthiness. I transcribed the recorded data and returned the transcript to
each participant for their verification of it. I asked if they had anything to add, delete or
change, and if they would clarify anything which was unclear to me. I then used the
revised transcript to analyse the themes and write a thematic summary of their account.
This was the second phase of analysis. The thematic summary was then verified and
revised by the participant and re-written. This process of verification and re-writing was
repeated until the participant was satisfied with the result and that it was their story as
they wanted to have it told. The tape recordings, transcripts and summaries will be stored
at Yukon Archives under access restricted as agreed with individual participants. Copies
will be provided to the participant as requested.
In the final stage of analysis, I assembled common themes from the participants’
stories, organising them as played out in the lived dimensions of time, space, body (self)
and relation (other) ( Van Manen, 1990). This assembly of themes described the essence
of the experience in the final narration of the findings (Lincoln and Guba, 1985;
Moustakas, 1994; Creswell, 1998).

Summary of Methodology
This phenomenological study sought authentic reliable data eoneerning how three
First Nation women survived their cultural encounter. I value the perspective of the First
Nation people who experienced cultural encounter and maintained their health. I
celebrate the strength of First Nation people and I sought direction for the future health of
both cultures. I tried to carry out this study in a way which was respectful and blurred the

24

distinction between researcher and “subjeet.” I aimed to produce an aecount that
represented our mutual understanding of the essence of the experience.

25

Chapter 4: Data Collection and Analysis

I collected data between April 2004 and January 2005 with three Yukon First
Nation women, following as closely as possible the underlying assumptions of the
phenomenologieal tradition within qualitative methods as outlined in the Methodology
chapter. The plan for my data collection was to establish a comfortable situation in which
to seek a mutual understanding of how healthy First Nation people experienced cultural
encounter. At every stage of data collection, from initial contact to final verification of
the story, I gave priority to the participants’ wishes and direction. They were equally
considerate of my goals, selecting accounts and reflections which would be useful to the
topic of my thesis. Our hope was that the product of these meetings would be an accurate
picture of the participants’ view of cultural encounter.

Ethical Approval
Before beginning this research, ethical approval was sought from the Research
Ethics Board of the University of Northern British Columbia and was granted (March 3,
2004). Permission to do this research in the Yukon was granted by the Heritage Branch of
the Yukon Territorial Government (License # 04-22S &E). In granting this licence, the
Yukon Government had consulted all Yukon Eirst Nations and received their assurance
that they had no concerns with the research.

Selection of Sample

26

I followed a chain sampling procedure in the selection of my sample, in order to
minimise researcher bias and to give priority to relevance to the research topic. The chain
has to start somewhere and in this case I selected Josey, a woman from the Kluane First
Nation who, from my own experience with her as friend and neighbour for 30 years, and
from her reputation with others who knew her, was healthy in every holistic sense. I had
always found that she met all challenges with sanity and a positive attitude. Josey had
recently been awarded the Order of Canada for service to the community, and had earlier
been appointed to the Polar Commission, which was further corroboration of her healthy
status. She herself concurred with my designation of her healthy status and further
acknowledged that she had a story of cultural encounter to tell.
Towards the end of the subsequent interviewing process with Josey I asked her to
refer me to my next interviewee, a healthy First Nation person who had experienced
cultural encounter. I asked for two or three names, in case the first was unavailable or
unwilling to participate. Josey had several suggestions, but her first choice was a Vuntut
Gwichin First Nation woman now living in Haines Junction. This woman I refer to by the
fictitious name, “Wendy,” since she elected to keep her identity confidential. After
interviewing Wendy I repeated the request for a referral and again interviewed her first
choice of two or three names, a Tetlit Gwichin woman now living in Whitehorse, named
Betty. After interviewing Betty I received from her another referral, similarly solicited. I
did not follow up on this referral since my preliminary analysis of the data at this point
indicated that I had plenty of rich relevant data for my thesis. Common themes from three
respondents were emerging and I was anxious to write the composite picture of the
experience while it was still fresh in my mind.

27

My selection procedure therefore yielded three participants, two of which were
chosen with an absolute minimum of researcher bias and one (Josey) with slightly more,
but supported by sources exterior to the study. With chain sampling it is not possible to
ensure a range of sample characteristics but fortunately the participants came from three
different First Nations, one of which was in the Northwest Territories and the rest in the
Yukon. They covered a range of ages, Wendy being in her late fifties and both Betty and
Josey in their seventies. Interestingly, my request for names of healthy First Nation
people who had been through cultural encounter yielded all women (no men were
suggested) and all with Christian affiliations - Josey is affiliated with the Roman Catholic
Church and Wendy and Betty with the Anglican Church. Wendy was the niece and Betty
the daughter of Gwichin Anglican clergy.

Preparation for Interview
My hope for the interview was that the location would be comfortable to the
participant and the timing convenient. All three participants were interviewed in their
own homes. Although I knew my first participant, Josey, very well and had talked in
depth with her over many years, I did not know the other two participants at all.
However, I reached a certain level of comfort through our common grandmother
experiences, and in Wendy’s case, through her knowledge of members of my family. We
had all lived a long time in the Yukon and all the participants had some connection with,
and trust in, the person who had referred me to them. There was no remuneration offered,
so I tried to at least take gifts of food to the interviews, and, to Betty I gave a book. With

28

all participants I felt there was common ground between us and a common understanding
of language.
It proved to be extremely diffieult to arrange the timing of the interviews around
the very busy lives of the participants. Josey and Wendy had family reereational
commitments to be fitted into the very short Northern summer. All three participants of
course gave priority to their work and to precious time with their grandchildren. During
the time period of my interviews with Josey, she organised a large funeral for a very dear
aunt and made a presentation at a centennial anniversary celebration for her deceased
father.
Wendy and Betty’s verbal agreement to take part in the project followed my
general description of it by telephone. More detailed written partieipant information and
consent form were explained in person in all three cases. In Josey’s case, I had first
talked with her about this projeet as much as a year before I began reeording our
meetings. Wendy requested a list of questions, an agenda, before agreeing to participate.
These questions (Appendix #3) were given to her 6 weeks before the first meeting. The
same set of questions was given to Betty about two weeks before the first meeting.
I had originally resisted drawing up such an agenda beeause I wanted the
interview to be entirely unstructured and unrestricted. The interviewee would be free to
explore whatever avenue of thought occurred to them on the general topie of cultural
encounter and health, thus giving them the initiative and minimising researcher bias. It
would “make space for indigenous ways of knowing” as Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) put
it. I began using the term “participant” rather than “interviewee” to reflect their freedom
to direct the eourse of the conversation. Similarly, I used the term “meeting” rather than

29

“interview.” However, my participants demanded far more focus, Josey suggesting I
keep her on the topic with questions during the meeting, Wendy requiring questions
before even agreeing to participate in the study and Betty suggesting a re-run of the
meeting when the first one did not keep closely enough to the questions. I followed these
directions.

Meeting
Information and Consent:
At the beginning of the meeting process, a Partieipant Information Sheet was
presented and explained to each participant (Appendix #2). It contained details of this
project, the rights of the participant, how the information would be recorded, transcribed
and summarised, how the information would be reviewed and edited by the participant,
and that the information would be stored at Yukon Archives under restricted access.
Access would only be gained on condition that use of the material would be by
permission of the participant. Contact information for the University of Northern British
Columbia and for me as the researcher was noted on the sheet.
Also at the beginning of the meeting process, a Consent form was presented and
explained to each participant (Appendix #1). This form gave the participant’s permission
for the collection, storage and use of the information as described in the Participant
Information Sheet. A separate part of the form gave the participant’s permission to attach
her name to the stored information. Only one participant (Wendy) elected not to give her
permission for this. This part of the form was discussed and signed (or not) at the
conclusion of the verification of the transcript and summary. At this point Josey gave me

30

her instruction to store at Yukon Archives only the summary and not the original
transcript because she thought the summary more accurately reflected her story. She
thought she had not expressed what she really meant in the transcript. Accordingly, a
revised Consent Form was drawn up and signed (Appendix #4).
A defining feature of my emergent research design was the collection of data
(both account and reflection) concurrently with analysis. A preliminary analysis occurred
during the interview when many of my questions were prompted by on-the-spot analysis,
referring back to my preparatory reading on the topic of cultural encounter and on
definitions of health.

Account and Reflection:
As I described above in “Preparation for Interview” a set of questions (Appendix
#3) was presented to Wendy and Betty prior to the meeting. These questions followed the
same content covered by Josey. The course of the meeting matched the general order of
the questions beginning with, “Where were you bom?” The participants’ accounts of
their early life established the cultural situation from which they experienced cultural
encounter. The rest of the interview followed the chronology of the participants’ life
through the cultural encounter experience, with pauses for reflection both backwards and
forwards. All three participants were grandmothers and they often linked the present
status of their grandchildren to their own life experiences. All three participants talked
easily, Josey thought she talked rather too much and off the topic, and urged me to keep
her on track with my questions. My questions were mostly for clarification, so that I
understood exactly what was being said, but many contained an element of analysis.

31

Analysis:
My preliminary analysis occurred during the interview process concurrently with
data collection; this analysis prompted questions or comments with an interpretive
character. Some of these commented on the effect on the participant’s health of
statements in the narrative and were informed by my preparatory reading on the holistic
definition of health; my comments invited reflection. Other analytic questions were
informed by my reading in the literature of cultural encounter. Other questions related the
narrative statement to my reading of the context of cultural encounter in the Yukon. At
other times my questions might be for clarification, to gain depth or insight into the
flavour of the experience being described. The process of concurrent data collection and
analysis became clear to me in the practice of it. I would describe the process as a spiral
of listening, reflecting, questioning, listening, reflecting, and so on, until an image of the
experience appeared in my mind’s eye.
1 am fairly confident that the participants gave me their view of cultural encounter
and were not led by any preconceived notions of my own. They all selected parts of their
life story which they saw as being relevant to my topic. Sometimes there were surprising
omissions in their account, but I did not press for information, only for clarification of,
and reflection on, the information they volunteered. They told me all that they wanted me
to know.

Recording
All the narrative meetings were recorded on tape. Josey’s meetings were recorded
on small size tapes which proved to be difficult to hear, so subsequent meetings were

32

recorded on standard size tapes using a Sony tape recorder. Verification meetings with all
participants were recorded by note-taking in the margins of the transcript, in my journal
or on file paper. All were later typed. Betty’s verification meetings were partially
recorded as well as noted since they contained additional information.

Transcription
The tapes were transcribed by a local typist whose work and confidentiality I
trusted, having used her transcription service before. There were inevitable “inaudible”
parts, most of which I was able to supply from my own memory or notes. I corrected the
transcripts for spelling of names or other obvious mistakes before giving them to the
participants to review and edit. I asked them to correct any mistakes, fill in the
“inaudibles” if they could and also to think about any deletions or additions they would
like to make, which we could discuss at our next meeting.

Verification
A week or so after I had given the transcript to the participants I arranged to meet
them to verify it. Betty was unsatisfied with her whole meeting and wanted to re-run it
sticking more closely to the questions. This we did and I repeated the transcription
process and gave the new transcript to Betty to review. She was much more satisfied with
this transcript and agreed to meet to verify it. At these meetings we reviewed the
transcript page by page, correcting, adding and deleting. Wendy and Betty were unhappy
with the informality of the language in its spoken form, but mostly we agreed to let it
stand, correcting only the confusing statements. Josey’s transcript was very long and as

33

time passed by without an indication that she was ready to discuss it (it was also at a very
busy time for her) I wrote a first draft of the thematic summary and gave it to her. Our
first verification meeting therefore focused on this summary more than on the transcript,
which Josey thought meandered too far from the subject.
The verification process, although time-consuming, often sparked other stories
and reflections. It was an important contributor to depth and accuracy of data. When the
transcripts had been verified I made the changes as directed and gave the corrected copy
to the participants. New material I typed from my notes and used it together with the
transcript in the next step which was the writing of the thematic summary.

Thematic Summary of Story
I decided to call the next step in analysing the transcripts “thematic summary"
because it describes the application of analysis to the participants’ narrative. It is still
their story but organised into emerging themes. To draw attention to this hybrid nature of
the story I wrote it in the third person rather than the first. The themes seemed to fall
naturally into chronological stages in the participants’ lives so the form of the summary is
narrative. To write the thematic summary I used the transcripts and my verification notes
and reflected upon them.

Verification of Thematic Summary
Following the writing of the thematic summary I gave a copy to each participant
and arranged to meet them for verification of it. I asked the participants to review the
story for accuracy and to consider whether anything had been left out or whether there

34

were additions or deletions whieh they would like to make. Had I got it right? Since
Wendy had elected to remain anonymous, I asked her if she would like me to make any
changes to ensure that her identity could not be guessed. She said it was fine as it was. I
also asked her if she would like the summary stored at Yukon Archives and if she wanted
to change her mind about attaching her name to it or to the original tape and transcript.
She still wanted to remain anonymous.
With Josey, as described above, it was at the thematic summary stage (Draft 1)
that I began the verification process, rather than at the transcript stage. We began the
review one evening and when I returned the next morning to continue Josey was
completing an explanatory writing of her story herself. As we reviewed this document I
could see that Draft 1 needed to be entirely re-written to include this interpretive material,
and did so. Draft 2 was then reviewed and rewritten as Draft 3. Finally after another
review Draft 4 was completed and accepted by Josey as the final Story. She was much
happier with this than the original transcript and gave her instruction that this thematic
summary be the document to be stored at Yukon Archives and that the transcript and
tapes could be destroyed. Accordingly I drew up a revised Consent Form which we
signed. Josey requested a typed version of the story she wrote herself to keep and also an
outline of my thematic summary which she could use when giving talks to groups of
tourists and students. I was happy to comply with these requests.
Betty verified Draft 1 of her story with just a few changes. She accepted Draft 2
as final. The verification process ensured that the participants had the last word on what
constituted data for this project. It was their story of their cultural encounter.

35

Length of Interviews
The length of interviews varied between one and a half hours and two and a half
hours. The total time spent with each partieipant was as follows: Josey: 15 hours, Wendy:
five hours, Betty: 12 hours.

Respondents’ reaction to process
I found that my hope was somewhat fulfilled that the process of story telling
would be of benefit to the participants as well as to myself. Josey found enlightenment in
putting events together which she had not hitherto realised were connected. She
maintained that everyone had a story to tell and should tell it. Wendy said she appreciated
the happy memories it brought back and Betty loved the story I had written - “it just
about made me cry.”

36

Chapter 5: Thematic Summaries of
Josey’s Story, Wendy’s Story and Betty’s Story

Thematic Summary of
Josey’s Story

Introduction
Josey was born in Burwash Landing, Yukon, in 1927, the youngest of three
children born of the marriage of her father, Louis Jacquot, to her mother, Mary Copper
Joe. Louis Jacquot was a chef who had emigrated from the troubled Alsace-Lorraine
region of France in the late 19^^ century. Louis had worked his way across Canada, plying
his trade as he went. When he had earned enough money, he brought over his brother,
Eugene. Eugene took over Louis’ job, and Louis moved on. The brothers were attracted
to the Burwash area by the Gold Rush of the early 1900’s, arriving in 1904 by dogteam
over the Kluane Trail. Realising that other miners needed supplies as they supplied their
own needs in Whitehorse, they began to run a store out of their cabin on the creek. As
their business grew, they moved to Burwash Landing and established a trading post there
to supply the local miners and to trade in furs, fish and game with the local First Nation
people. With the later addition of Big Game Hunting to their trading, expediting and
mining business (about 1916-1918), the Jacquot brothers became prosperous
businessmen closely tied to the local First Nation economy, so it was no surprise when
both Jacquot brothers married local First Nation wives. All were in agreement that the
marriage of Josey’s mother to her father was a good thing.

37

Josey’s mother was the daughter of Copper Joe, a trader in copper, among other
things, from Copper Center in Alaska. Copper Joe traded in the Kletsan Hill area of the
Upper White River and then moved to the Nisling River area to raise his family. After the
death of his wife shortly after the birth of Josey’s Aunt Jessie, he was aided in the nurture
of his children by his extended family. The family were expert hunters and gatherers,
adept at living well off the resources of the land. They were invaluable guides and
suppliers to the Jacquots’ burgeoning business. The marriage of Louis and Mary created a
home Josey remembers as very happy where two vibrant cultures melded seamlessly
together. So seamless was this melding that Josey, as a child, was unaware that a very
special encounter between the two cultural backgrounds of her parents was taking place
in her home.
The First Seven Years
Josey has fond memories of the first seven years of her life, spent at home in their
cabins on Burwash and Bullion Creeks or in the Trading Post in Burwash Landing,
according to the season. When she was two years old her brother and sister, then 7 and 4,
left home for school in France, living there with her father’s sister. Aunt Josephine, and
her family. Josey’s mother could not bear to part with her too, so she remained at home,
the only child, until she was seven years old.
Being the only child she was the apple of everyone’s eye and benefited from the
undivided attention of her parents and her extended family. She remembers going hunting
and berry-picking with her mother and Aunt Jessie, with whom she formed a particularly
close bond. If her mother were going somewhere Josey could not go, she would leave
Josey with her aunt. Aunt Jessie never married but played a crucial aunt role to many

38

children in Burwash. Josey has clear memories of sharing her sleeping bag under a
favourite tree in the Duke Meadows where they would go to pick berries or to hunt
gophers. On some expeditions, perhaps when returning to her father’s mine on Burwash
Creek, a larger family group would go and then they would take turns carrying Josey,
over a foot trail leading to the summit at the upper part of Burwash Creek. “Put her down
on the ground - she can walk, you don’t have to carry her,” her mother once said as Josey
was getting older. Her Uncle Jimmy replied, “What do you think her Dad would say if I
made her walk?”
Josey was also particularly close to her Grandpa, always asking him to go do
things with her, and he always agreed to go. He joked about being at the beek and call of
a tiny child, once making up a song he sang at the campfire, imitating Josey, “Grandpa do
this. Grandpa do that. Grandpa follow me, let’s go here, let’s go there.” Grandpa,
“Copper Joe”, had the second sight, which proved to be crucial to Josey’s father
surviving a near-fatal accident on the creek. When Josey was five or six years old, Louis’
mining partner. Ole Erikson, came running over to their cabin on the creek, saying that a
rock had fallen down the shaft and had hit Louis; he could get no response from him.
Using the windlass Louis was eventually rescued, but Josey recalls her horror at seeing
the Y-shaped wound which covered his head and the blood eascading over his ears.
Fortuitously, Josey’s uncle and aunt arrived with two dog teams shortly after, having
been sent by Grandpa who had “felt” a serious accident had happened to “Josephine’s
family.” Louis was transported to Whitehorse and thence to Vancouver where he was
treated and took a long time to recuperate. In fact, he was never the same afterwards, but
he owed his survival to Grandpa’s second sight.

39

The hunting must have been good in those days because Josey remembers
everyone, whether First Nation or not, depended on wild game, which was the only meat
to be had from the land. Not only did Josey eat well from the land, but her father and
uncle also grew a huge and abundant vegetable garden. Being established at Burwash,
unlike the more nomadic First Nations people, they were able to tend a garden. Josey
remembers potatoes, carrots, parsnips and beets being stored in bins of sand in a cellar
under the trading post, and sauerkraut being made and stored in barrels. They had lots of
vegetables to eat throughout the winter, and in the spring there was rhubarb growing
outside every homestead, which was enjoyed as the first fruit of the season.
Josey’s home was blessed with a loving, respectful relationship between her
mother, Mary, and her father, Louis. She describes her mother as a very loving dear lady
as far as her father was concerned whilst he himself was a very gentle person and a
devoted husband. They had been together for some time when Mary became pregnant
and Louis suggested they should get married in church. Mary wanted to know why,
because in her mind they were already married - she had made that commitment. She did
however agree and they were married in the Anglican Church in Whitehorse in 1922.
Although many marriages between white miners and First Nation people had foundered
when the gold ran out in many areas, Louis assured Mary that their commitment was to a
life-time partnership.
Mary and Louis’ relationship was characterised by an equality and an acceptance
of each other’s culture which Josey marvels at. Each was ready to adopt new ideas from
the other. In their common enterprise of living close to the land, each had skills and
knowledge to share. In the preparation of food, for instance, each had their own expertise

40

and would share that with each other. Louis showed Mary how to bake and prepare meals
according to his training and she showed him how to cook wild game. He admired
Mary’s way of cooking and was quite ready to experiment with new things. He once held
up a freshly cooked leg of a spring gopher and told her, “Mary, this is the finest meat in
the world.” The fact that Louis relished wild meat Mary felt was a big compliment to her
cooking. She understood that their method was not only different but also certain species
of game animals would be an absolutely new introduction to his taste. It was therefore
important to her to apply her best skills in the manner of preparation so that he would like
it. It must be understood that Mary was connected to the functioning of the land. When
her senses beckoned her in this direction, be it hunting, snaring, fishing or berry-picking,
she would take part in these family expeditions at will. Louis had no problem with that,
so she would just go. She was, “free as the breeze,” as Josey put it, and thus Louis never
robbed her of her identity. They each retained their own culture but still managed to meld
their lives together.
This melding was so seamless that Josey was unaware at the time that their
lifestyle inclined more to her father’s background than her mother’s. It was only later, in
her fifties, when she had time to talk to her mother and hear her stories, that she realised
the extent to which Mary had selectively adopted aspects of her husband’s lifestyle whilst
still retaining important aspects of her own. It was her mother’s successful handling of
cultural encounter which enabled Josey to sail serenely through her own experiences of
the world she later met away from home.
Perhaps another example of this melding was their use of language. When
together, Mary and Louis spoke English, but Mary spoke Southern Tutchone around the

41

children and her family whilst Louis spoke French with his brother and English to the
children. Mary never intentionally taught Josey her language but to this day Josey
understands but does not speak it, just as she also understands French. Her mother’s
culture was an oral culture whereas her father’s culture was written. Her mother told
stories and Josey herself was a “chatterbox” as a child (“and I still am, I guess,” she
says). Her father began teaching her to read and she memorised as a rhyme the spelling of
the words.
Josey’s home was bi-cultural, with an inclination to European ways, and her
community was multi-cultural. Besides Frenchmen other than her father and uncle, Josey
remembers there being Swedes and Norwegians mining the creeks who used to come to
Burwash for Christmas dances. The Swedes were very good dancers, her mother once
remarked. There was also a Scotsman named Tom Dickson, originally an officer with the
Northwest Mounted Police, who settled in the Kluane district. He played Scottish music
on his fiddle, much to the enjoyment of the local people.
Josey understands that people think the local First Nation people were coerced
into giving up their own beliefs in favour of Christianity. “There was no coercion,” she
says. Her mother saw no conflict between Christianity and First Nation spiritual beliefs.
Perhaps the missionaries did not ask what their beliefs were, but equally the First Nation
people delicately refrained from dwelling on the differences, they did not “dump them in
your lap.” They kept on believing what they had always believed but took in the new
Christianity as well, because they could see that the basics were the same. Josey thinks
her mother respected all “believe people” (spiritual people, those who believed there was
something beyond the physical world) whether First Nation or Christian.

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Mary and Louis Jacquot also did not get involved in differenees between different
branches of the Christian church - they were all the same to them. Louis had been keen to
get married in church and had chosen the Anglican Church for reasons of availability.
But when a local Roman Catholic priest suggested he should get married again in the
Catholic Church he refused, feeling that one official ceremony was adequate. Whether it
was an Anglican or a Roman Catholic missionary who came to Burwash, they were each
allowed to baptise the children. “It was the courteous thing to do,” Josey says. She
remembers being baptised several times.
Josey believes that the good work done by the churches is not emphasised enough
in accounts of the missionary days, that a few “bad apples” have given a poor impression
of the church activity. She tells several tales, which she heard from her mother, of
practical aid being given by the priests to the local people in the arduous physical work of
making their daily living. One Roman Catholic priest, Father Morrissette, told Mary and
her sister to “always come two” when they came to visit him or any priest. In this advice,
Josey believes he was in accordance with the local custom of maintaining a respectful
distance between adult males and females. They did not have private intimate
conversations. Even within the family they did not address each other directly. Josey’s
grandfather used to address his daughter obliquely in terms of her relationship to Josey.
Such avoidance of over-familiarity also characterised communication between the local
priest and community members because priests were esteemed and therefore accorded the
same respectful distance.
Transition: Building a Bridge between Home and School

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Josey believes that the strong bond between her parents, and Mary’s trust in
Louis’ judgment served them well when their son reached school age and it was time to
decide the vexatious question of the children’s schooling. “What is this school?” her
mother asked her father, “And how long does it have to go on for?” Louis explained that
their children would grow up in a very different world than the one they had experienced.
Having failed to engage a teacher to come to Burwash to teach the children, Louis and
Eugene decided that the children would have to go away to school. Lifelong family
togetherness was a dearly-held value of local First Nation people and Mary was reluctant
to let her children go. A solution was found in the idea of sending their son to Louis’
sister, Josephine, in France. Since they were not comfortable with the idea of sending him
alone, they sent his sister with him, although she was only four years old. This would
have the additional advantage of enabling Louis’ French family to get to know his Yukon
family. Josey’s father took the children to France and stayed a while with them while
they settled in. On his return he brought with him photos of his family in France. These
photos Mary put up on the wall of their living-room. Their faces became as familiar to
her as those of her own family. She could visualise them as part of her family and be
more comfortable with the thought of her children being with them. Josey always felt
close to her siblings in France because they were often spoken of and letters and photos
were mailed back and forth.
Josey believes that sending her children away was an act of great personal
sacrifice by her mother and one which took its toll on her. Louis knew that Mary was
lonely for her children and tried to make up for it by taking her with him everywhere he
went. It was hard also for Louis to have his family thus severed, but for the mother who

44

had borne the children, it was a greater sacrifice. But Mary was a spiritual person of
exceptional vision who trusted her husband. She made the decision with him to forego
family togetherness for the benefit of the children. Josey asked her mother once why she
did it and Mary replied, “Because it was the right thing to do.”
When Josey reached seven years of age again the question of schooling was
debated. France was just too far away so arrangements were made with the Cyr family in
Whitehorse to board Josey so that she could attend school there. Josey’s parents prepared
her for this new experience by describing in detail the “Young Momma” with whom she
would be living. As her mother had done with the family photos from France, Josey
could therefore visualise the home she would be entering. Contact with home was limited
by the distance and difficulty of travel, but Josey’s father or uncle would make three
visits to Whitehorse over the course of a winter in connection with their trading and
supply business.
In 1937, when Josey had lived with the Cyrs for three years, returning to Burwash
each summer, there were rumblings of war between France and Germany and fears that
the Alsace-Lorraine area, where the children were living, would once more be the site of
fighting. Already eight years had passed since Josey’s brother and sister had gone to
France. It was never the intention that it would be that long before they visited home but
now it was urgent that they should return. Again Josey’s parents showed their awareness
that this change would be traumatic for the children and made plans to mitigate this.
Mary would not make the trip over such “big water” so Louis took Josey with him to
collect his children. He arranged for her to attend school in France with her siblings for
the last four months of the school year. She would learn French and thus be able to

45

converse with her siblings and ease their transition back home, since they no longer knew
how to speak English. This plan worked very well and she adapted easily to life in
France. It was only later that she became aware of how her parents had eased the way for
her and her siblings.
The School Years
Josey’s reports of her school years reflect a very positive experience. She boarded
with “Young Momma” Cyr for five years in all, the last two being in the company of her
sister (newly returned from eight years in France) and her cousins. Her brother elected at
this point to become a cowboy and joined the family business in Burwash. Boarding with
14 children, including the Cyrs’ own, was a lot of fun. The other boarders came from
several other rural areas of the Yukon. The Jacquot parents, like other parents in their
remote situation, were relieved to find a place where all the children of one family could
stay together. So seamlessly had Josey’s mother adopted her father’s lifestyle into her
own, that Josey has no recollection of “feeling any different” from the other children at
school, who were all officially classed as “white.” Her mother had been proud of Josey’s
“half and h alf’ cultural background, and that was the proud identity which Josey took
with her to school. Josey felt tmly balanced with neither more of her father’s nor of her
mother’s cultural background. She feels fully First Nation and fully European.
When looking after so many children became too burdensome for Mrs. Cyr, the
Jacquot brothers found another boarding situation in which the children could stay
together. This time it was in Dawson, which was several days’ travel downriver from
Whitehorse and longer in the winter over a poor trail. Here they boarded at the Anglican

46

Church’s hostel for “half and halfers” like themselves and attended the Dawson school.
There were about 50 children at the hostel from as far away as Teslin.
Josey reports more fun times in Dawson such as snitching bits of turnip or carrot
when on kitchen duty and sharing them at night in the dormitory, giggling at the sound of
scrunching coming from the other beds. They were well looked after by a kindly nurse.
Besides vegetables from the hostel’s own garden, Josey remembers the food as being
different (which they had expected) but nevertheless good. There was lots of macaroni
but meat too and even peanut butter. One girl played chequers with the Bishop and
always won. She says no one went to bed crying, but they did feel more acutely the
distance from home. When the riverboats were running they would always run down to
the docks when the boat came in to see if there was any mail from home. When the
riverboats stopped running at freeze-up, there was a feeling of desolation as they realised
there was no possibility of communication with home until the spring.
Josey’s sister, Rosalie, now 14, had a much harder time adjusting both to school
and to home. She once expressed disbelief that Josey could have enjoyed the year in
Dawson because she felt it was the worst year of her life. Josey believes Rosalie’s
problem in adjusting stemmed from her having formed an early attachment to her French
aunt and that early teenagehood was an inopportune time to wrench her away. It was easy
for the children to adapt to each other but harder for the older ones to adjust to being back
at home, since they were more conscious of the differences. Unlike her brother, Louis,
who found a new role for himself as cowboy in the family business, Rosalie never did
reconnect with her mother, a hard thing for them both.

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Josey only spent a year in Dawson because the Jacquot brothers now faced a new
challenge in schooling their children. Eugene’s oldest son, Young Gene, had contracted
rheumatic fever which had left him with a weak heart. After two years’ convalescence
with a nurse under the care of a heart specialist in Seattle, and the failure of a trial winter
back in Whitehorse, it was concluded that he would have to be educated in the South. The
solution to this health challenge was unique and creative and also solved the problem of
the other Jacquot children’s schooling. Josey’s father bought a house in Vancouver where
he installed Young Gene’s nurse, Grace Smith, and all the children (Eugene’s five sons
and Louis’ two daughters) were sent to her as their guardian. Josey lived with her for
eight years and attended the local school. The solution again met their twin goals of
family togetherness along with education for the children.
Josey describes “Aunt Grace’’ as a wonderful lady with high principles. She put
tmst in the children and taught them how to travel and go on their own. On Saturdays
they would all take the tram the 14 miles into the centre of Vancouver where they would
have a fine time, including going to a movie. Aunt Grace also had expectations of good
behaviour from the children - they were taught manners, “so that you could dine with the
King and Queen” and they had to check in with her by telephone when they were away
for the day. She was not a domineering person at all and very much a lady. Already a
confident child, Josey learnt new ways of making her way in the world and acknowledges
a great debt to her Aunt Grace.
Josey asserts that they did not suffer by being away from home. They were
flexible and adaptable children and interested in what was going on around them in their
daily lives. Contact with home was limited to mail, and they went home for the summer

48

only every two years. Josey’s uncle Eugene would visit only once, at Christmastime.
However, there was plenty to do. The house was in a salubrious situation at the mouth of
the Fraser River, a dairy, fruit-growing and fishing area. They had their own apple
orchard, a marvel to children who had not known before apples grew on trees. When they
went home for the summer, Josey’s mother did not see this as an opportunity to teach her
daughter First Nation traditional crafts, such as sewing moccasins. She believed that
school was enough instruction, the summers were for play. When it was time to return to
school in the fall, she would urge the children to put on a brave face. “No crying,” she
would tell them.
One more cultural experience was added to Josey’s multicultural childhood: she
became firm friends with a Japanese girl. Japanese people were numerous in the area
working in the fishing and canning business. Their children attended Japanese school for
two hours after regular school. Josey is puzzled as to why she did not attend this school
with her friend when she would have been welcome to do so. Josey admires the way the
Japanese people valued their culture so much that they made this arrangement on their
own initiative without requesting the Government to do it for them. When the Pearl
Harbour invasion took place and the Japanese people were sent off to labour camps in the
British Columbia interior all the children in the school felt a traumatic loss. Josey
believes the dispossession and treatment of the Japanese people was grossly unfair, and a
black mark against the BC and Canadian governments.
Josey’s school years were not marred by any illness. She was a healthy child who
ate well of the good food provided to her, both at home and away. She remembers no
tuberculosis in the Yukon until the 1940’s by which time she had left the territory. There

49

were other health hazards to which her family had fallen prey. Her cousin had rheumatic
fever, as mentioned before, and her brother contracted encephalitis during his time in
France, with lasting effects on his ability to concentrate for long on one activity. Other
children in the Burwash area met accidental death when no medical aid was at hand to
treat their injuries. Not all were so lucky to have the benefit of second sight and the
transport resources necessary to effect a speedy medical evacuation.
Conclusion
Josey’s secure and happy childhood was continued into her school years. Her
mother’s adoption of her father’s cultural lifestyle without losing her own, achieved a
successful melding of the two cultural heritages which prepared Josey for cultural
encounters at school where she felt no different from other children. Although their
remote situation limited the possibility of contact between home and school, her parents
used their insight and considerable resources to ease the way for Josey, thereby making
schooling a rich and happy experience for her. They sacrificed their own time with their
children but made sure the children had the comfort of each other in their homes away
from home.
To have achieved such a melding of cultural lifestyles was no mean feat. To now
label Josey as either “First Nation” or “White” makes her unhappy because it negates the
awesome efforts of her parents in this regard. It negates her mother’s ability to assess and
appropriate new ideas, and her freedom and right to make those choices. It minimises her
love for and trust in her husband which inspired her to try his ideas. It also negates her
father’s love for her mother and his gentleness in not interfering in her life but according
her the freedom to do as she pleased without coercion or domination. It negates his

50

respect for her culture. Josey acknowledges that it was her parents’ successful integration
of their two cultural backgrounds, as well as the personal sacrifice which that entailed,
which enabled her to maintain her health and happiness.

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Thematic Summary of
Wendy’s Story

Introduction: the context of Wendy’s cultural encounter
Wendy was born in the 1940s in Old Crow, a small remote community in the
Northern Yukon, inside the Arctic Circle. Old Crow was then a recent settlement of
mostly Vuntut Gwichin people, which was the First Nation of both Wendy’s parents. The
Yukon was administered from Dawson, over 300 kilometres to the south, but the
administration moved to Whitehorse, a further 300 kilometres south, in 1953. The Vuntut
Gwichin were not cut off from the rest of the world, in spite of their isolated location,
since they were used to travelling long distances in extreme weather to maintain contact
with relatives in the Northwest Territories and in Alaska. They travelled by dogteam in
winter and by boat in summer, with occasional trips on a once-a-week airplane.
Explorers, traders, missionaries, teachers, nurses and administrators all used the same
modes of travel to access Old Crow, furnishing the outside world with remarkable tales
of adventure and hardship. They found the local people tough, fit and healthy, leading
active outdoor lives well nourished by wild meat, for which they hunted and trapped, and
by berries, which they picked and preserved in the summer.
By the 1940s visiting Anglican and Catholic missionaries had been in the territory
for 70 years, and the Hudson Bay Company and other traders for 90 years. White
administrators, teachers and nurses took short terms of employment in Old Crow; they
were politely received by the community and accorded hospitality. Their cultural
backgrounds were mostly French and Scottish, the latter bringing to the community much

52

appreciated jigging fiddle music and colourful tartan clothing. The Anglican Church had
a strong following with services, prayers and the Bible all translated into Gwitchin, the
local language. The church was led by First Nation ordained ministers and “Christian
Leaders.”
Father Mouchet, a French Catholic Oblate priest was sent to Old Crow in 1955.
He chose to minister to the community by means of a Cross Country Ski program for the
children rather than by more classic evangelism and competition with the Anglican
Church, which marked Catholic ministry in other parts of the North. His choice was
prompted by his realisation of the connection between body and mind, how the body’s
senses enter the thinking process. For 25 years Mouchet aimed to raise the ehildren’s
self-esteem by means of his ski training programme which, he believed, capitalised on
the Vuntut Gwichin’s senses-based connection with the land and their natural physieal
potential already developed by their active lifestyle. He thought that raising the children’s
self-esteem would buffer them from the impact of the eoming eultural invasion from the
outside world. The context of Wendy’s childhood offered her family a lifestyle whieh
was traditional First Nation with multi-cultural additions in spiritual, physical and artistic
dimensions.

Childhood Life at Home
Wendy counts herself fortunate to have been born and raised in Old Crow. Her
childhood was characterised by positive health in all its aspects. She was physieally well
nourished by a mother who regarded her primary purpose as the care of Wendy and her
five brothers and sisters. Her mother worked hard to preserve and prepare wild meat and

53

berries for the family year round. They had a variety of meat: caribou, fish, ducks and
geese, and a variety of berries: cranberries, blueberries, blackberries and others. In winter
they ate dried meat, homemade jam and pies made from berries preserved in wooden
barrels. There was no junk food except for candy at Christmas. Wendy was well outfitted
by her mother who sewed all the children’s clothes herself, using a hand crank sewing
machine whieh had belonged to her mother.
Wendy enjoyed her active life, participating in both the traditional hunting and
trapping and the newly introduced ski program. Hunting and trapping involved a great
deal of walking and snowshoeing for the children as well as the adults. The children did
most of the berry-picking in the summer - the only outdoor activity Wendy did not enjoy,
since there was just too much of it. Wendy recalls the sensory pleasure of running up Old
Crow Mountain in the freshest of air. This was part of the year-round intensive training
for the ski program, where they worked out every day, summer and winter, except on
Sundays. Not only did Wendy appreciate the ski program getting them out in the fresh
air, but it also got them out of school. The training complemented their active lifestyle so
that all the children were very fit.
The ski program cared for Wendy’s mental health as well as her physical health.
Father Mouchet encouraged her to push herself to realise her potential and that’s what she
did. She was a confident and purposeful child. When she was offered the opportunity to
go to France to ski for 6 months, her mother refused her permission. Wendy appealed to
the local RCMP officer to “talk some sense into her.” He, however, was unable to help.
“You’re under age,” he told her, “so your mother’s the boss.” Wendy understood that her
mother did not want her to miss so much school, which she envisioned being useful to

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her children when eventually they would leave Old Crow. Wendy credits her mother’s
example in working hard for her own positive mental attitude to hard work. Her own
experience was that there was “no time to lay around.”
Wendy’s childhood was happy and secure; although there was a lot of hard work
it was carried out in an emotionally supportive community. When the families moved to
Crow Flats for the muskrat trapping season, Wendy enjoyed the camaraderie and fun of
camp life. They travelled there by dog team and set up camps, walking miles each day to
the muskrat houses. By the end of the 3-month trapping season the snow was gone, so
supplies were moved whilst snow travel was still possible to the riverbank. Here, boats
were eonstructed to move dogs, people, supplies and furs back to Old Crow. She recalls
the excitement of the return to Old Crow when all the boats would be strung together and
pulled by one motor-boat. Wendy’s ski training was also carried out with the full
cooperation of the community. Since skiing was the only sport in Old Crow all the kids
skied and they had a great time competing together. All the parents supported the ski
program, preparing food for lunehes at the races and sewing their ski uniforms. It was a
wonderful family thing. Wendy’s emotional health was guaranteed by family and
community support for all her efforts, both traditional and modern.
Although Wendy’s life at home followed a traditional First Nation lifestyle of
hunting, trapping and gathering, her family had embraced certain multi-cultural elements
available to them in Old Crow. She was raised in the Angliean Church since her family
were staunch Anglicans and her father’s brother a minister. Even though the ski program
was run by a Catholic priest there was no question of their attending the Catholic Church.
Only a few teachers and nurses were Catholic. Gwichin was sometimes spoken at home

55

and at church, but mostly Wendy spoke English at home and at school. She had no
problem learning English but regrets not having spoken Gwichin more at home. She now
understands it 100%, but has only 50% fluency in speaking it.
Wendy loved the Scottish fiddle music which was played in Old Crow and the
colours of Scottish tartans, which she describes exactly as “raven black, blue-green and
gold.” She remembers the skirts and pants her mother sewed for her in the various
tartans, so colourful and so easily washed. Wendy’s grandmother made sure her doll was
equally smartly dressed with several changes of clothes in both traditional and modern
styles - the list included parkas, skirts, pants, mukluks, slippers and mitts.
Wendy’s family had met, appreeiated and even adopted rituals and artistic
expressions from cultures other than their own. Wendy’s mother taught her that there was
no difference between people of different races, and that when they came to Old Crow
they were part of their community, and were to be treated as “one of us.”
The community of Old Crow kept a balance in Wendy’s life between the
traditional lifestyle and the lifestyle they envisioned their ehildren would lead in the
world outside. In Old Crow the sehool year was adjusted so that it accommodated the
traditional muskrat trapping season and the ski season. Children attended school
throughout the summer, fall and winter, apart from ski trips outside Old Crow during the
winter, and took a holiday from school when they moved to Crow Flats for the muskrat
trapping in spring. When Wendy’s mother refused her permission to go to France for 6
months’ skiing, she was asserting the value of this balance, because taking the trip would
have meant Wendy missing too much school. Moreover, she felt that Wendy was too
young to be travelling abroad. Accommodating school and skiing into the traditional

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seasonal round kept a balance between activities which were a significant preparation for
their traditional world and for the world outside Old Crow. It was an accommodation of
which Wendy approved.
Balance was also maintained between the various aspects of health. The ski
program spanned physical, mental, and emotional health and was not allowed to interfere
with cultural health. Likewise mental achievement at school was not achieved at the cost
of culturally significant activities and the traditional economy. Each aspect
complemented another. The physical aspect of skiing complemented the mental aspect of
raising self-esteem. The physical aspect of trapping complemented the emotional and
cultural aspect. Even berry-picking was kept in its place, Wendy having a strong notion
of how much was “too much.” All Wendy’s experiences formed an integrated web of
holistic health.

Transition: Preparation for cultural encounter.
Wendy’s experiences in Old Crow fully prepared her at the individual, family and
community level for her later immersion in the non-Aboriginal world outside. Her
personal health was very good: she was well nourished and physically fit, she had high
self-esteem and self-confidence and knew how to push herself to achieve her goals. She
had been encouraged, supported and guided by her family and community and she had a
good balanced sense of her own cultural and spiritual identity amongst the multi-cultural
elements in Old Crow.
At the family level, Wendy’s mother was influential in preparing her for life in
the outside world. Her mother’s vision of this life led her to place a value on schooling

57

and education, so when Wendy was 13 she sent her to Inuvik for high school, although it
saddened her to be parted from her daughter. Wendy did not like Inuvik and had hoped to
go to Whitehorse, the new capital of the Yukon, which she had visited with the ski team.
It was her first Christmas away from home and all she did was cry. She spent one year in
Inuvik but on returning home for the summer threatened to quit school altogether if she
was sent back. She spent the following year at home in Old Crow. At this point her
mother formed an alternate plan for her daughter’s education and arranged for Wendy to
attend school in Whitehorse the next year, staying with her aunt, her mother’s close
cousin.
At the community level, Wendy’s experiences with the ski team and with people
of other cultural traditions which she had met in her hometown, prepared her for her life
in Whitehorse. Father Mouchet’s program not only bolstered Wendy’s self-esteem and
confidence but he told the young people what they might expect in Whitehorse. When he
took them there on ski trips they stayed at the First Nation student hostel, Yukon Hall, but
the skiers were kept to their all-day rigorous training schedule which did not give them
the opportunity to socialise with the other students. Father Mouchet was afraid that
mixing with the other students would disrupt their training. At the individual, family and
community level, it would be hard to imagine a better preparation than the one Wendy
had for the move from a traditional First Nation community to a non-First Nation one.

Life in Whitehorse, a non-First Nation community.
Wendy moved to Whitehorse when she was 16, already a self-confident, healthy
young woman. Her personal health, coupled with family and community support

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continued to serve her well in her happy adaptation to life in Whitehorse. She was able to
continue with ski training since Father Mouchet had now moved to Whitehorse and was
extending his ski program to non-First Nation children. The ski team had considerable
community support with in-kind donations of everything they needed, from a bus to take
them to ski races to movie tickets. The trips to ski races in Fairbanks, Inuvik and Prinee
George were a lot of fun; in this travelling the ski team followed the Gwichin tradition of
far-flung travel, a tradition whieh was particularly strong in Wendy’s family.
Wendy enjoyed living with her aunt, although she was strict, and stayed with her
until she was “kicked out” in her mid-twenties. Her aunt inspired her to do a lot of things.
In that time she did not return to Old Crow, but saw a lot of her relatives sinee her sister,
brother and nieees followed her to Whitehorse. She also maintained contaet with her
mother, who would visit once during the winter sinee she no longer had children at home
to care for. Wendy had notieed that some students at school showed prejudice against her
and the other First Nation students and she asked her mother on one of these visits,
“What’s wrong with them?” Her mother replied, “There IS something wrong with them.”
This affirming teaehing stayed with Wendy all her life and she now passes it on to her
grandchildren.
Wendy had been raised to see the value of hard work and schooling and these
values continued to bring her success in Whitehorse. Wendy had been used to being busy
all her life, so when part-time jobs at a local hairdressing salon were advertised at school,
she and a friend applied for them, and they were hired. Between school, her skiing and
her job, Wendy’s time was fully employed, including after school and the summer
vacation. The part-time job led to hairdressing sehool after she had graduated from high

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school. A rewarding career in hairdressing followed, culminating in her setting up her
own business. Even after she married, she continued working as well as raising two sons.
Her husband was in politics so was away much of the time in Ottawa, leaving her with a
lot of the family responsibilities. She did not look for a career in politics, as many of her
family had done before her, but was eontent to support her husband’s career. They did,
however, spend many weekends at Klukshu, a small village in the southern Yukon
wilderness, of cultural significance to her husband’s family. They had much fun with the
several other families who also lived there, playing, fishing, cooking big suppers and
eating together. Here her new life was enriched by the emotional and cultural pleasures of
her traditional life. Wendy has continued to learn throughout her life. When she wanted a
change after 20 years in hairdressing, she took an accounting course and now works as an
accountant. Her current project is to learn Southern Tutchone, the language spoken in the
First Nation community where she now lives and works. Her goal is not just to learn it,
but to learn how to teach it, so that she ean be a language teaeher in the local school.
When Wendy reflects on what has made her so healthy in spite of the turbulent
changes she has lived through, she credits her mother’s eneouragement and vision. It was
she who taught Wendy how to survive in the outside world. She says, “I wonder where I
would be now, if it weren’t for my mother.” The activities she found pleasurable and
rewarding as a child continue to reward her now. She still walks to work when she can,
although she no longer skis. She likes to do the beadwork and sewing she learnt as a child
in preference to watching TV. She still has her mother’s sewing maehine, which she used
to sew dog booties for her brother’s entry in the Quest Dog Mushing Race. While she
sews, she likes listening to the fiddle music which was, and still is, popular in Old Crow.

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Her nephews recently made a CD of fiddle music, dedicating one song to her brother who
was killed in a boating accident. Wendy loves to retreat to her cabin at Klukshu,
sometimes by herself to enjoy reading, sewing or just staying quiet. She tries to pass on to
her grandchildren the value of the outdoor lifestyle such as she had when growing up in
Old Crow. It’s a struggle to get them out of town to experience the rewards of that
sensory connection with the land which accompanied her active lifestyle. She takes her
grandchildren to the cabin at weekends whenever she can, as she and her husband used to
take their sons. There they can go skidooing, motorbiking or fishing instead of playing
video games indoors. She looks forward to the opportunity to go fishing with friends at
Haines, drying the fish in the old way and also fishing for crab to share with her family at
Christmas - an exotic addition to the dried fish of her childhood diet.

Conclusion
Wendy entered into cultural encounter in Whitehorse from a position of strength.
She was strengthened by the healthiness of her childhood experience which nurtured her
physical, mental, emotional, cultural and spiritual health, keeping all aspects in balance
thereby making her physically fit with strong self-esteem and a sense of her cultural
identity. She was well prepared for success in the outside world by the vision of her
mother who emphasised the value of hard work and schooling. This preparation was
balanced by the experience of her own culture so that at the same time that she was
nurtured in one culture she was prepared for success in another. Consequently when
Wendy moved to Whitehorse it was not a big shock to her as she already possessed the
skills and attitudes required. These she was able to apply, bringing her happiness and

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success. In applying what she had learnt from her childhood she was helped by her aunt
and by continued contact with her mother and siblings. She was also helped by continued
participation in Father Mouchet’s ski program which, based as it was in the strengths of
the traditional Gwichin culture, formed a bridge between Wendy’s home life and her life
in Whitehorse.

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Thematic Summary of
Betty’s Story

Introduction: the context of Betty’s cultural encounter
Betty was born in Ross River, a small remote native community in the North
Eastern Yukon, where her father was the Anglican minister. He was one of a substantial
group of Gwichin people recruited as ministers or Christian Leaders by the Anglican
Church (Sax and Linklater, 1990). The Gwichin people were hunters and gatherers who
travelled widely over a huge area from Alaska through the Northern Yukon to the North
West Territories regardless of national and territorial boundaries. Both Betty’s parents
were originally from Fort McPherson in the North West Territories which had been the
centre for Christian missionary work by the Anglican Archdeacon MacDonald. They
were the first generation of Christians in their families.
When Betty was two years old her father was sent to build a church and minister
to a small native village a mile downriver from the town of Mayo, a trading centre of
some significance at that time in the Yukon economy. The village comprised about 20
families who spoke the Northern Tutchone language, not the Gwichin language, Takudh,
which was spoken by Betty’s parents.
Travel in winter was by snowshoe or dog team but in summer Mayo was
connected to Dawson, then the capital of the Yukon, by a steamboat on the river. Mayo is
one of the coldest places in the Yukon in winter and the warmest in summer. There was
no school in the village but Betty’s oldest sister held reading classes at the church for
adults. The nearest schools available for native children were at Hay River, Aklavik and

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Chootla in Carcross, all at a considerable distance, necessitating residence there. Betty
grew up in a traditional Gwichin family which was already incorporating the world of
white people into their own through their connection to the Anglican Church.

Childhood at Home
Betty’s earliest memories of her childhood are of the village close to Mayo where
her father was the Anglican minister. She was the youngest of a large family from which
only she and her older sister were still living at home.
Betty speaks of a physically well-nourished and active childhood. Her diet
consisted mainly of local country food with no junk food. Her father was a good hunter
who provided them with plenty of meat and enough to share generously with the rest of
the community. Her mother was adept at gathering and preserving berries and drying the
meat and fish which her father brought home. Betty’s father also grew his own garden so
they had fresh vegetables - onions, celery, lettuce and radishes in summer and potatoes,
carrots and turnips for the winter. She remembers the pleasure of running to the garden
and picking a carrot to eat raw.
Betty’s talented mother, who wasted nothing, made them good warm beds from
caribou skin mats covered with duek down comforters, filled with feathers saved from the
spring duck shoot. They lived well off the land and, “seemed not to worry about
anything.’’
Betty and her sister enjoyed an active outdoor lifestyle, making their own fun with
their friends in the village, sliding on a “big” hill or setting up their own tent and
pretending they were eamping. They were always going somewhere and doing

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something. They were well-dressed for the weather in traditional parkas, mitts and boots
so were not bothered by the cold temperatures, even though it might be 60 below.
Betty’s mental health was nourished by a family who cherished her. Even though
her oldest siblings were married with families of their own they still enjoyed each other’s
company when they got together, playing all kinds of games. They gave Betty a new doll
every Christmas. Betty’s next oldest sister was the one with whom she spent most of her
time. This sister looked after her physical needs and was the best sewer of the family. She
once made a doll and, taking Betty with her, walked into Mayo where she traded the doll
for a big bag of candy at the store. Betty’s oldest sister, who taught reading classes to
adults, would sometimes bring her books over and teach Betty the alphabet.
Sometimes Betty’s parents took some time off in the summer and went by boat
down to Dawson to visit her father’s blind brother who was also a minister. Betty felt
lucky to be taken along on these trips, being too young to be left behind. Being young did
not stop her being assertive, however. She remembers once travelling on the boat with
her blind uncle who was teasing her. His dark glasses scared her since she did not know
he wore them because he was blind. She appealed to her father, “Dad, throw him
overboard!” “My daughter, sh,” he replied, “that’s my brother you’re talking about.”
Daytime was playtime for Betty since she was too young for chores or sewing but
in the evenings, after supper, when all the work was done, the family had Quiet Time.
Her father sat in his chair, thinking and smoking, probably reviewing his day and feeling
a sense of achievement, a good feeling. Her mother sat sewing while Betty and her sister
played quietly with their dolls in the corner. Her sister later recounted the time she had
talked back to her father - an unheard of event. Her father had told her it was time to go

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to bed but Betty wanted to prolong Quiet Time, which she loved, and was happy playing
with her dolls. Her father told her again to go to bed. She said, “I heard you the first time,
don’t tell me twice!” She was not an acquiescent child at home.
The whole community was emotionally supportive of the children. In the summer
all the families moved downriver to the fishing camp. Seventeen Mile, where the women
were busy drying fish and picking berries. The children were always included and were
allowed the freedom to do pretty much as they pleased. No-one seemed to worry about
bears. The men sometimes came too and camped with their families: it was a very social
kind of gathering. People were closely connected to the land, something people miss
nowadays, Betty believes.
The greatest cultural and spiritual influence on Betty in these early years was her
father. He was very well loved and respected in the village and in the wider church as a
spiritual man of great integrity, since the way he lived matched what he taught from the
Bible. Being a minister did not mean he no longer followed a traditional lifestyle. He rose
early to go hunting, believing that if you get up early you live a long life, one that’s not
wasted by lying in bed. He would return with enough meat for the family and to share
with the community. His children were taught to respect not fear him as they learnt
respect for other people, not being allowed to speak negatively about them or laugh at
them. He treated all people as alike in their importance. The children were also shown
that they should help each other. Betty’s father brought orphans into their home, where
the orphans lived with them for a while as brothers and sisters. Betty describes her father
as being, “like a big sturdy tree.”

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Betty also admired her mother who, like the other women she knew, never “lazed
around” but were always working. She was immensely competent in all the skills
necessary for raising a large family. Betty felt she was never in need of anything when
her mother was around. She was a woman of few words but Betty was aware of her great
spiritual strength, seeing her as being, “neither helpless nor hopeless.” Betty never heard
her say she was too tired or that she could not do anything. Betty’s parents were a model
of good healthy living in all its aspects and planted the seeds of her own later health.
Betty had an early introduction to people of other languages and cultures, firstly
to English, through her father’s long connection with the Anglican Church, and secondly
to Northern Tutchone, which was the First Nation language spoken by the people in the
village. Although Gwichin was her family language, Betty first heard and spoke English
in her own home with people in the mission field who were frequent visitors. Her parents,
especially her father, were quite comfortable speaking English and were used to white
people’s ways. Betty’s siblings all made their living with white people. Her sister Effie
worked for Bishop Green and his wife in Dawson and married a white man, Louis
Brown. Because she was with white people so much, she moulded her outer self to them
but still fit in with the family at home. Her brother, Robert, left home early to go and
work for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Carmacks. Sometimes he would surprise
the family with a visit. Then the family would joke, “Who’s this white man coming?” He
had become comfortable with white man ways and no longer spoke Gwichin. Betty’s
oldest sister played the organ in her father’s church, having been taught by an RCMP
constable in Ross River.

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Betty showed an early knack for language and had no trouble picking up Northern
Tutchone from the other children she played with in the village, and spoke this language
at home too. In the church, her father used the Gwichin Prayer Book and Bible, but was
careful to choose Gwichin hymns with which the local people were becoming familiar.
Betty therefore had a multilingual childhood, speaking Gwichin at home and in church.
Northern Tutchone at home and in the community and English at home and in church.
She knew her own culture, their traditional way of life, but she was also becoming
comfortable with other cultures, other ways of living, which she met in her own home
and family.
Betty notes that Mayo people class themselves as a separate First Nation (the
Nacho Nyak Dun) although they come from many different places - Fort McPherson,
Old Crow, Fort Selkirk. People are all the same everywhere, they gather themselves into
little groups and give themselves a name. This is the perspective Betty gained from her
multilingual and multicultural early experiences.
Betty had a happy healthy early childhood and gained a good foundation in values
from her parents. She needed all her strength when her adored father caught pneumonia
and died when she was only five years old. The whole community mourned the loss of
their dearly loved minister. Betty’s mother, without complaint, took over all her
husband’s work in hunting, trapping, running a dog team, hauling her own water and
chopping her own firewood, in addition to her previous work of cooking, sewing and
beading. Her fortitude and resourcefulness in the face of such adversity made a lasting
impression on Betty, such that it sustained her later through struggles of her own.

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Betty’s mother soon decided that she would move back home to Fort McPherson
in the Northwest Territories and sent for her brothers to come and get her and her two
young daughters. The brothers eventually arrived after a journey of several months by
dog team over the mountains which separated them from Mayo. Game had been scarce
and they had had to go out of their way to find meat to feed their dogs. They were
strangers to Betty and to people in the community but her mother packed up her dog team
and the three of them set off back home, accompanied by Betty’s two brothers with their
dog teams, as well as her uncles. Betty was by now seven years old and remembers the
Journey as being long and difficult, with a lot of deep snow and overflow. Finally over
the mountains, they were greeted by a group of families from Fort McPherson who had
come some way out to meet them, being worried by the extended absence of the uncles.
Now Betty’s mother had another decision to make: where to send her daughters
for schooling, which was “almost mandatory” at that time. Two of Betty’s brothers had
gone to Hay River School but one of them had died there and their father had pulled the
other out and brought him home. The other nearest school was in Aklavik, so it was to
this school that Betty’s mother sent her daughters. Not liking the prospect of being parted
from them, Betty’s mother had an innovative solution: she moved to Aklavik herself and
set up house “two steps from the school.”

The School Years: Not Quite Away From Home
Betty spent eight years at the Anglican All Saints School in Aklavik, residing in
the school although her home was close beside it. The knowledge that her mother was

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close by was heartening to Betty as she struggled through classes and chores and she was
allowed a brief visit home once a week. It was painful to go back to school after such an
enticing taste of home, but the visits were better than nothing. Many of the other students
at school came from the High Arctic and saw nothing of their parents for a whole year;
they were very homesick. Betty also had the comfort of her sister’s company in the
school and the anticipation of their long summers back out on the land with their mother.
School was not a really difficult place to be, but she still missed home.
The education provided at All Saints School was not up to standard, in Betty’s
opinion. Only very rudimentary reading, writing and mathematics were taught and a great
deal of time was spent in learning to cook and clean as they did the chores necessary for
running the school. The main value Betty was taught here was unquestioning obedience
with no input possible into decision-making. The students were never asked what they
thought about anything, they were told. Mostly they were told to be quiet. Very little
thought was given to the preparation which was needed for a career or indeed what was
the goal of the education. All the students could do at the end of it was either to return
home to living off the land, or compete for the very few low-paying jobs in local
restaurants. Betty worked at one of these jobs one summer and knew it was not what she
wanted to do with her life.
Sometimes sickness afflicted the whole community including the school. Betty
remembers a flu epidemic when many people died. In the school only she and her
girlfriend were unaffected by the flu so they looked after everyone else. They were so
small they had to stand on a stool to stir the oatmeal or the soup and then they carried the

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meals upstairs to the sick students. Betty does not know why she did not get sick but
surmises that she must have had a good immune system.
English now became Betty’s first language, since she had left Northern Tutchone
behind in Mayo and the students were not allowed to speak Gwichin at school. It did not
seem a loss to her at the time not to speak her language since she was already fluent in
English. At home, she still spoke Gwichin with her mother and she knew her mother
hoped she would not forget her own language although she did not say so. In the
community Betty would switch between Gwichin and English according to who was
present or the subject of the conversation. Language had never been a challenge for
Betty.
The brightest spot in Betty’s life at school was Christmas. This was when parents
who lived some distance away came to visit their children and attend the Christmas
concert and service at All Saints Cathedral. The cathedral was packed with people,
including some of Betty’s relatives from Eort McPherson. Betty had always loved the
church atmosphere, with which she had grown up, but Christmas was an especially joyful
time. Everyone was dressed in their best new clothes, beaded parkas, mitts and
moccasins. Betty was soon singing in the choir which made her feel even closer to the
centre of activity; she loved going to church. Christmas morning was also a joyful
occasion in the dormitory of the school with the students excitedly falling over one
another as they opened their stockings. After such a Christmas it was dispiriting to return
to the drudgery of classes and chores, but Betty always kept the memory of it as the very
best kind of Christmas.

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When Betty had completed Grade 9, the final grade offered there, Canon
Montgomery’s wife, from the Anglican Church, asked her if she would like to go away to
high school. Neither she nor her mother had been involved in the formation of this
proposition and Betty had no idea what high school was, but since she was by now used
to acquiescence she said yes. She does not know why she was selected and it had never
been done before. Two boys were also selected - an Inuit named Alec Illsiak and Angus
McPherson, a Slavey Indian, whose mother worked at the school. She thinks it was an
experiment to see how this “little Indian girl” would do at high school. They were just
beginning to wonder for what they were educating these children, and their hope was that
she would eventually return as a teacher. Betty however had always found classes at the
school a struggle. She had had a late start because of the lack of a school in Mayo and
never liked “desk work.” Since she was having such a hard time learning, how could she
be a teacher? She does agree, however, that she and her sister had always been treated as
special in the school. Later on in life other students at the school with her have
approached her and told her so. She thinks this was due to her father’s status as an
Anglican minister and because her mother was very well respected.
The high school selected was Shingwauk School in Sault Ste. Marie. When Betty
consulted a map she could see it was an incredible distance away, right across Canada. It
was probably chosen because a former teacher at All Saints School was now teaching
there and would be a link with home. So it was that Betty, a “little Indian girl,” took off
from Aklavik in a twin engine float plane as a thin ice was forming on the river. She
knew only that she was to get on a train in Edmonton; apart from a name on a map she

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did not know where she was going or how she was going to get there. She just knew it
was a very long way from home and she was on her own.

Shingwauk School: Far Away From Home
Unlike the journey over the mountains from Mayo to Fort McPherson, this
journey of Betty’s was not the result of a family decision nor was it undertaken in the
company of her family. Everything was strange and new. She had never flown in a plane
before, had never seen a city like Edmonton, nor had she ever seen a train. She felt
overwhelmingly anxious not knowing how she was to reach her destination. In this
strange situation Betty found people who befriended her. On the plane were the local
RCMP constable and his wife who looked out for her needs. In Edmonton she was met
by a woman who took her home with her overnight and then put her on the train the next
day for Winnipeg. There were several more transfers and overnight stays, all arranged by
different women who met the train. On the train she met a group of elderly women who
offered her a cup of tea and something to eat. Finally she arrived in Sault Ste. Marie
where the principal of Shingwauk School, Mr. Wickendon, met her. She was totally
bewildered and disoriented.
That night she began her residence at Shingwauk School, situated in a somewhat
rural area. The first person she saw was the teacher from Aklavik. She was so relieved
she burst into tears. The next day came a new cultural shock: Mr. Wickendon took her
downtown to the technical high school where she would be taking classes. It was
lunchtime and the entire school of 900 students was assembled in the lunch hall. She had
never seen so many students in her life before and she despaired of ever being able to

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find her way about the school to her classes. She wondered if they would accept her and
if she would be able to cope with the work.
Even though she repeated Grade 9 Betty found the classes very hard. Now she
could see how poor had been her academic preparation at All Saints School in Aklavik;
the curriculum was entirely different. There was no help from the homework supervisor,
a hard and unapproachable woman, and the teacher from Aklavik only taught the younger
grades. The thought of asking for help did not enter her head. The assertive tiny child had
become an acquiescent silent adolescent who did not know how to ask for help.
Emotionally she felt very lonely. The other students were from different First
Nations, mostly Cree from Moussinee, Sioux Lookout and Walpole Island; they all spoke
English, not their own languages, but they were not quite like folks at home. Here she
was not treated as special, she was just another little Indian girl. As always when she was
lonely, Betty looked for a friend and found one in a girl who attended the technical
school but lived at home, not in Shingwauk School. She helped Betty find her way
around and mitigated somewhat her lost feeling.
Contact with home was restricted to letters; Betty’s sister wrote to her all the time.
Her mother sent money but it was doled out to her a little at a time. Betty was horrified to
discover she was not to be going home for the summer holidays. Instead it was arranged
that she work as nanny for a white woman, Mrs. Durling, who had a holiday home on
St.Joseph’s Island, situated in Lake Huron. She did not mind the work but it was not a
good feeling that she had no choice. The house was out in the country, but nothing like
being out on the land in the North. She made the best of it, however, finding a friend
nearby who was also a nanny for another family. This friend sometimes took her to

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dances, which Betty thought were not much fun, since the dancing was all sedate

waltzing. Betty was used to the lively dances in Aklavik with square dancing and the
Red River Jig. St. Joseph’s Island offered another opportunity to Betty: the Durling home
had a dock on the lake and here Betty taught herself to swim. Betty was always able to
find something good in an unpromising situation.
After two summers of being a nanny, Betty looked for something else and found a
job working in one of the local hospitals. The hospital was run hy nuns and one of them,
being also named Martin, took Betty under her wing. Here she had some training on the
job as a nurse’s aid. This job was a revelation to Betty: here were women with careers in
nursing, something Betty had never thought of as a possibility. She felt a strong calling
for the work.
Back at school, Betty was wrestling with Grade 11 classes. She felt lonely,
discouraged and frustrated. She dreamt of becoming a Registered Nurse but found that
this would necessitate switching from the technical school to the Collegiate and
continuing through to Grade 13, followed by another three years of Registered Nurse
training. It would be five or six years before she could go home. Her mother’s example in
coping with the tough demands of widowhood had kept her going so far and she was
determined not to fail. If she could have gone home to see her mother, she could have
faced it, hut five more years was just too long. She was by now 19 and felt too old to be
still in school. There was no career counselling at Shingwauk School, no one asked her
what she wanted to do when she finished school, no one helped her to match what she
could do with what she would like to do with her life. Someone rescued her from her
dilemma: a woman who worked in the laundry suggested that now she had completed

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Grade 10 she could do a practical nursing course which was only 10 months long, and
enter nursing that way. Here was the solution, one which built on her strength, what she
could do rather than what she could not. She told Mr. Wickendon this was what she
wanted to do and enrolled in the nursing course.
For the first time since Betty had left home she was happy. Her heart was in her
work in the healing field and she discovered that she had a knack for nursing. Her marks
were good and her instructors told her she was doing very well. Her self-esteem soared,
knowing she could do what she set her mind to. The sense of achievement she had when
she accomplished something difficult always were the best times of her life. She realised
that if she were to make something of herself she would have to do the making, because
who else was there for her? Once she could see the way forward she was able to take
control of her own making. A lot of prayer gave her the necessary strength for, having
come from a church background where spiritual needs are met and strength given, she
always found it a source of strength. She became increasingly independent and selfsufficient.
When Betty looks back on the Shingwauk years she feels grateful for the
opportunity they gave her to further her education and find a career which suited her, a
possibility she did not even know existed. The school could have done more, however, to
help her when she was struggling. If it had not been for the spiritual strength her mother
had passed on to her she would have foundered. They should not have left it to a chance
meeting to find her purpose in life. When she later heard of the abuse some students
suffered at residential schools, she was shocked that the schools would have broken the
trust parents had placed in them. Remembering her own loneliness and despair at the

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school, Betty understands what the residential school syndrome is all about, but she
thinks, “if you become too attached to it, it can give you some miserable moments.”
Betty herself prefers to remember the good things.

A Career in Nursing: Returning Home
The nursing course led to a career in the healing field which Betty found very
rewarding. It fitted with the value of caring for other people which she had learnt as a
child. Her mother was just as happy to see her a nurse as a teacher. Betty now lived in her
own tiny apartment and set about fitting in with city life. She watched how people she
admired did things. She had always cared about her appearance, about colours and what
looked good on her; she had always dressed well. She had enjoyed the greater freedom at
Shingwauk to wear her own clothes. Now she changed her dress to fit in with those
around her and cut her hair. She chose her friends with care amongst those in nursing
school with her or from the hospital where she worked on graduating. She did not look
for friendship in bars, not having grown up with that sort of thing.
Sometimes nursing friends would take her to their home on the Six Nations
Reserve for the weekend. Their families were kind and generous to her but still Betty
yearned to go home and see her own family. She had changed her outward appearance
but her inner self had not changed. She had selected lifestyle elements from her new
situation but she still believed in the values with which she had grown up: do your best to
make use of what the Good Lord gives you, do not give up, and respect and look after the
people around you.

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The longing to connect with home dominated Betty’s thoughts as she began her
first job immediately on graduating from the nursing school. She wanted to visit home at
Christmas, to recreate that wonderful Christmas she had known as a child in Aklavik. As
soon as she had saved enough money she booked herself onto the plane and flew all the
way home to Aklavik.
As she compared home now to her childhood home, Betty found many things had
changed. Her mother had not changed: she still spoke to Betty in Gwichin but Betty
responded in English. Her sister frequently disappeared from home and Betty discovered
that she was with friends in the community who were drinking. She could not understand
why she would have changed her lifestyle so much from that of her childhood, a
childhood they had shared together. This was the sister who had looked after her needs,
played dolls with her, wrote to her while she was at Shingwauk, but was now engaged in
drinking. It was very distressing.
The weather seemed colder and darker than she remembered it - Betty had
forgotten what it was like. She had returned home in her city clothes - no hat, mitts, boots
or parka - and froze her face the first day home. She had not realised before this visit
how she had become used to turning on a tap for water and flicking on a switch for light.
She missed being able to shower every morning: she missed the city. Having been at
school all those years she had not learnt traditional ways of hunting, gathering, preparing
and preserving food, nor how to sew and bead the traditional way, the things that made
life interesting and rewarding for her mother. She had not learnt these ways and she
discovered that she did not want to start learning them now.

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In the difficulty of cultural encounter she had drawn on her spiritual strength to
learn a new way of being in the city which felt good to her. This way of being brought
together the identity she had formed in her childhood and school years with a purpose
which suited her. She had found her place in the world. It had been affirming to return
home and reconnect with her mother, but the visit had crystallised for her the way both
she and home had changed. Her new self was not comfortable in the old situation. If she
had not gone away from home she would not have known there was a choice, nor had the
opportunity to make it. Now that she had a choice of lifestyles - traditional or city - she
chose the city.
Betty speedily took herself back to the city and her nursing. She worked all over
the country and by this time she could, “face just about anything and fit right in.” She got
married and had two children. Her husband was in the navy and as she sat with him in the
bar every night, little by little and without realising it, Betty became addicted. She
searched for appropriate resources for help and was referred to AA.
During the course of her treatment she became aware that she had become
separated from the spirituality with which she had grown up. This awareness came to her
through several dreams which were repeated once or twice. The dreams were all of places
she had been in her childhood; they were beautiful, good dreams. In one, she was walking
along a lake or river edge with a thin ice on the water. Here and there she could see grass
through the ice and knew she could step there but not on the dark spots which were air
holes. She made it across the ice without falling in. In another dream, she was travelling
on a boat down the river; she got off the boat onto the land and was greeted by many
people she recognised from Mayo.

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In a third dream, she was walking along a road near Aklavik. The houses were
familiar to her as she walked by them. From one log house she could hear music: people
were singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Something told her not to go in there, but
because she had heard this hymn she thought it must be a good place to go. So she went
in, but sitting around the walls were a whole bunch of animals, singing. She thought they
were maybe the Devil because they did not look very good and gave her a bad feeling.
She thought she had better get out of there really fast because this did not look right and
she did not feel good in there; although they were singing a hymn, there was something
evil behind it. She got out and continued walking and walking down the road towards a
light.
In another dream she was at home in her mother’s house washing her long hair.
Her mother was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the empty living-room. As she
wrapped a towel around her hair and threw back her head, she saw through the open
doorway a colourful picture of the Last Supper strewn right across the heavens. She
exclaimed at the beautiful sight and turned to tell her mother, but her mother had gone.
She understood from the dreams that she was recovering, that she had reconnected with
her childhood spirituality, because her soul was being nurtured. “That’s where it all
began and so that’s where 1 wanted to be. 1 lost that for a while but then it all came back
to me.”
Betty moved back to the Yukon twenty five years ago and found work in
Whitehorse at a Women’s Transition Home. Her work there was so satisfying that, after
retiring at 65, she decided to go back to it and is still there now at 72 years of age. Two
years ago she received the Commissioner’s Award for community service, something she

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appreciates but which was quite unexpected. She has reconnected with the beautiful
natural surroundings of the Yukon and believes in the mentally healing capability of
sitting by a stream and listening to the water. She has also reconnected with her language,
taking Gwichin language classes at Yukon College, because, “talking English sort of
takes away who you really are.” These classes focus on the modem form of Gwichin
since the old form, which was used in the original translations of the Bible and the Prayer
Book, are no longer understood by people. With her return to the Yukon, Betty feels that
her life has come full circle. Although there were good and bad times there is not too
much that she regrets and she looks back now on only the good things.

Conclusion
Betty’s present health has blossomed from the seeds of healthy living sown by her
parents. When Betty was growing up, her parents had already incorporated the spirituality
and language of the Anglican Church into their values and lifestyle. Betty formed her
identity from her parents’ values and spirituality. When thrown into the white world she
used these values and spirituality to strengthen her through the difficult times of cultural
encounter and to discern a purpose for herself in the new situation. When free to do so,
she lived out this purpose by selectively adopting lifestyle elements from the new
situation which accorded with the values of her childhood. When Betty’s mental health
was challenged by alcoholism she recovered by reconnecting with the spirituality of her
childhood through dreams. Betty’s healthy childhood carried her through the turbulent
times of cultural encounter with its challenges and opportunities, finally forging her own
healthy cultural lifestyle and finding her place in the world.

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Chapter 6: Conclusions - Composite Picture of the Healthy
Survival of Cultural Encounter

Introduction
In this chapter I will describe the common themes which emerged from the stories
of my participants presented in the previous chapter. These themes form a composite
picture of what it was like to experience healthy cultural encounter from their initial
cultural experiences in childhood, through the construction of a bridge to the cultural
encounter they were about to experience, to the cultural experience itself and finally to
the recapitulation of the early childhood experience. The picture is one which covers all
aspects of holistically defined health - physical, mental, emotional and cultural/spiritual.
The aspects combine in ways which define individual identity and purpose and their
sense of lived time, space, self and other.

Health and Cultural Strength in Childhood
All three participants started from a position of physical and cultural strength in
their cultural encounter experience. They all talked of a healthy, happy and active
childhood. They ate well of a variety of meat from the land, their fathers and/or mothers
being successful hunters and gatherers. All the families picked berries in the summer and
preserved them for winter use. Two of the participants in addition benefited from
abundant vegetable gardens, unusual in their communities at the time, which gave them
crisp and delicious vegetables to eat through the summer and root vegetables which could

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be stored to eat in the winter. They all had competent and committed mothers who could
prepare and preserve the harvest from the land, producing tasty meals year round.
All the participants enjoyed an active outdoor life. They travelled with their
parents on foot and by dog-team as they helped with hunting, snaring, fishing and berrypicking. Josey also travelled with her parents to their mining claim. Wendy worked out
every day with a cross-country ski program, and Betty recounts sliding and playing
outdoors with her friends however cold the temperature. The children were well-dressed
for these activities, often in clothes their mothers made for them. Betty slept at night
under down comforters filled with down and feathers from migratory geese. All the
participants enjoyed good physical health throughout their lives, Betty being even
immune to a flu epidemic which flattened the entire community.
In all their childhood activities, some of which might be seen as hard work in a
difficult environment, the mental outlook of the respondents was positive, secure and
happy. To them it was a normal, natural way of life. All the stories were recounted with
relish and humour; all was enjoyable, sociable and fun. Their parents had a physical
competence at making themselves comfortable which seemed to give them peace of
mind. In Betty’s words, “they seemed not to worry about anything” and nothing was too
hard. She was never in need of anything when her mother was around and she saw her
father as being, “like a big sturdy tree.” Even when Betty’s father died, a serious blow to
the family’s health, Betty’s mother showed fortitude and resourcefulness in coping with
the loss, an example which made a lasting impression on Betty.
The participants’ emotional health was guaranteed by families and communities
who cherished and supported them. Josey was the only child at home from the age of two

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to seven and therefore benefited from the undivided attention of her parents and extended
family. Wendy’s ski program was fully supported by the time and donations of the
community. Betty was the youngest of a large family, whose older siblings had families
of their own but who returned home frequently for fun family times. They made her dolls
and taught her to read. When Betty’s father died, her mother was able to call on her
uncles, her mother’s brothers, to help her relocate closer to her own family. Josey’s
father’s life was saved by the timely arrival of his wife’s family at the scene of his mining
accident, having been sent there as a result of her maternal grandfather’s second sight.
All the participants grew up in families who led a traditional lifestyle closely
connected to the land. The children were always included in the traditional huntergatherer activities and so had an opportunity to learn from the adults’ example. They also
experienced their cultural heritage through games and story-telling. Josey went on berrypicking trips with her favourite Aunt Jessie and listened to stories her grandfather told.
Wendy joined the seasonal trek to Crow Flats for the muskrat trapping season and learnt
sewing from her mother and grandmother. Betty moved down-river with the rest of the
community to the summer fishing camp. The cultural lifestyle was vibrant, rich and
strong and the respondents were able to fully appreciate it because none left home at an
early age. Their experiences in childhood formed an integrated web of holistic health.

Building the Bridge
The different aspects of their strong health combined in ways which gave them an
awareness of their experience in relation to the dimensions of time, space, self and other.
In all these dimensions, building on their cultural strength, this awareness developed

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abilities which built a bridge between their traditional lifestyle and the new world they
were about to encounter. These bridging abilities carried them over into cultural
encounter and enabled them to cope with it.
The participants were aware that they lived in novel and turbulent times and their
parents told them that from now on the world would not be as it always had been. This
required a visioning ability, the ability to project into the future, and all the respondents’
parents possessed it. Josey’s father, Louis, explained his vision of the future world to
Josey’s mother, Mary, in support of his conviction that their children needed to leave
home to be educated. One wonders if Mary drew on her father’s shaman ability to
envision this situation which was not before her eyes, both the situation of her children in
France and her children in their homes-away-from-home. Conceptualising her husband’s
family in France, “Young Momma” in Whitehorse and Aunt Grace in Vancouver as
members of her family was an important part of Mary’s acceptance of her children being
away from home, something which ran counter to the traditional value of family
togetherness with which she had grown up.
Wendy’s mother could also envision the world of the future outside Old Crow.
Her conclusion was that education in the modem institutional sense was of great
importance to her children. Although schooling had to accommodate the traditional
seasonal trapping, it was given priority over the attractions of skiing in France. Betty’s
mother, too, accepted the new idea of schooling, although with the modification of
moving herself close beside the school. Father Mouchet’s ski program was also the result
of visioning. He could see the vulnerability of the Gwichin children in the coming

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cultural encounter and devised his ski program to bolster their self-esteem which would
buffer them against the coming trauma.
Like their mothers’ envisioning the future of their children, in telling the story of
their childhood the participants sometimes switched forward in time to their
grandchildren in the present, comparing and contrasting their grandchildren’s lives to that
of their own childhood. Wendy was particularly engaged in improving the health of her
grandsons by taking them back to the land, to outdoor activities closer to those she
enjoyed in her childhood, although with a modern motorised twist. Josey talked of her
mother giving a prayer of protection to her grandson before he went on trips in the bush.
Betty enjoys playing games with her grandchildren when they visit on the weekend.
Perhaps it was only because my participants were all of grandmother age, as I am myself,
that they mentioned their grandchildren, but this visioning and switching forwards and
backwards seemed to me a modelling exercise, utilising mental, emotional and spiritual
experienees, taking a concept from one context and applying it in another. The ability to
do this served the participants well when they later plunged into cultural encounter.
The participants’ stories spanned vast areas of space. As their families had done
before them, they travelled over huge distances made even greater by the new modes of
transport available to them. Their travels brought them into contact not only with distant
relatives but with other cultural lifestyles and traditions. Josey travelled to relatives in
France and to school in Whitehorse and Dawson (within the Yukon but several hundreds
of kilometres away) and to Vancouver (1800 kilometres away). She travelled by dogteam, boat, wagon and train. Wendy travelled to ski meets in Inuvik, Edmonton, Prince
George and Fairbanks, a span of two thousand kilometres, and to school in Whitehorse. If

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she had had her way she would also have travelled to France. She travelled by dog-team,
train, bus, boat and plane. Betty travelled from Mayo to Fort McPherson by dog-team,
perhaps the longest and most difficult journey undertaken by any of the respondents. She
also travelled thousands of kilometres by train to go to school in Sault Ste. Marie, a
distance probably outside the bounds of possibility to her immediate ancestors, even
though they were used to long journeys.
The participants shared their space with a variety of other cultural lifestyles and
languages, including some within their own homes. Josey’s home combined French and
First Nation cultural lifestyles and used the English language in addition to French and
Southern Tutchone languages. Josey’s community also included Norwegian, Swedish and
Scottish people. Wendy’s home was traditionally Gwichin with some Scottish artistic
incursions. She spoke some Gwichin at home but mostly English. Wendy’s community
encompassed Scottish and Euro-Canadian people. Betty’s home and community included
Gwichin and Anglican Church lifestyles and values. She spoke two First Nation
languages (Gwichin and Northern Tutchone) as well as English. It was clear that the
space the respondents regarded as comprising their sphere of influence was exceptionally
large.
The participants’ mental, emotional and cultural experiences combined to give
them a firmly anchored identity, an awareness of self. The influence of the positive
outlook of their parents, their flourishing within the emotional support of their family and
community, and their inclusion in traditional cultural activities, as detailed above, all
created a clear sense of who they were. In addition, Wendy’s ski program was
specifically designed to raise her self-esteem in cross-cultural situations. The program

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capitalised on her connection with the land and her physical stamina already developed
by her active lifestyle. The firmness of their identity is revealed by the participants’
stories which show them as assertive children within their families from an early age.
Josey was known as a talkative child who was always inveigling her Grandpa in some
project of hers. By the time she left home for school in Vancouver, she was a selfconfident child, having already spent four months navigating her way through a foreign
land, culture and language, and several years boarding with a French family and in a
school boarding house.
Wendy had enough self-confidence to appeal to the RCMP to support her in
persuading her mother to let her go to France. She was insistent on attending school in
Whitehorse rather than Inuvik. Betty demanded drastic action on the part of her father to
deal with her uncle’s teasing and resisted bedtime with unheard of aplomb. She
acknowledges that she was treated as special at school and ascribes this to her being the
daughter of a minister, a proud identity. The participants now feel the loss of their First
Nation language, which gradually slipped away from them as they spoke more English at
school, although they were not conscious of it as a loss at the time. Betty has recently
begun classes to recover her Gwichin, albeit the modern form of the language, because as
she says, “talking English sort of takes away who you really are.” Wendy is also taking
language classes but in Southern Tutchone, the language of the community in which she
now lives.
The inclusion of children in all aspects of cultural life gave the respondents a
sense of their relationship to the land, to others and to God. They were all aware of the
cultural values imparted to them in the course of these relationships. The land was the

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source of their sustenance, sensory pleasure, socialising and spiritual significance.
Respect for the land runs all through the respondents’ accounts of their lives from
childhood to grandparenthood, as does sharing the fruits of the land among the
community. Other people were also to be treated with respect, as they were respected
themselves. All people were to be treated alike. Caring for each other was espeeially a
feature of Betty’s upbringing as was maintaining a close connection of family in Josey’s
upbringing. In Wendy’s community people from other cultural traditions were to be
treated hospitably, “as one of us.’’ There were also values concerning making a
contribution to the family and community, doing their part by working hard either in
subsistence, adornment or education. Sewing and beadwork were valued as creations of
beauty and usefulness. Education was seen as imparting skills which would enable the
respondents to make their way in the outside modern world.
Christianity was by no means a foreign spirituality to any of the respondents.
Josey’s father was Christian and her mother found no basic difference between
Christianity and her own First Nation beliefs. She respected all “believe people,” people
with a sense of the spiritual, whether Christian or First Nation. If there were any
differences she did not dwell on them. In Wendy’s and Betty’s families the Anglican
denomination of Christianity was firmly entrenched as Wendy’s uncle and Betty’s father
were Anglican ministers. Christianity was a choice their families had made - they had
embraced a spirituality which accorded with their relationship with God.
Given these values, it is not surprising that other cultural lifestyles and traditions
both in their homes and in their communities were approached with an open attitude and
a balanced judgment. The strength and maturity of their own cultural position enabled

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them not to be threatened by new ideas but could selectively adopt other cultural
elements without relinquishing their own cultural identity and health. There was a
freedom of choice in this selective adoption with no sense of coercion. They were
negotiating from a position of strength, making choices which accorded with their values
and answered their needs.
The act of choosing among and balancing two cultural lifestyles was carried out
in different ways in each of the respondents’ homes. In Josey’s home selections were
made by her mother and her father based on mutual respect and mutual dependence. For
instance, food was selected, gathered and harvested according to the appropriate season
and in traditional ways, but might be prepared in new ways. Growing vegetables
provided an innovative addition to the diet but it was embraced because they tasted good.
European hunting technology was dependant upon local knowledge of the land for
success. One cultural lifestyle did not dominate the other and Josey’s mother was “free as
the breeze” to follow her instinctive choices. The balance here was like that perfect point
of balance at the fulcrum of a weigh scale.
In Wendy’s home and community the non-traditional cultural lifestyle was
accommodated according to the needs of the seasonal round. Hence the school year was
moved to allow the children to take part in the culturally and economically significant
muskrat trapping season at Crow Flats. Both schooling and skiing were new ideas but
integrated because they answered their needs. Schooling answered their need for skills
for their children to bring them success in the modern world. Skiing answered a need for
active recreation in a community where there was no other. Wendy’s home was a creative
and artistic one where sewing and beading gave them useful items which were also

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beautiful. When Seottish tartan cloth became available it was enthusiastically adopted;
not only were the colours attractive but the fabric could be washed easily. Scottish
jigging music was an instant hit in Wendy’s community striking a chord with their love
of lively dancing. The balance of lifestyles and values achieved in Wendy’s home and
community was like a circle divided into sectors with each sector given appropriate
attention.
In Betty’s home, her parents often received visits from people connected with the
Anglican Church because her father was the local minister. Because of this work, her
parents mixed easily with all kinds of people. Several of Betty’s older siblings had found
employment in the white world and were used to white ways. Although Betty’s father
was an Anglican minister he still followed a traditional hunting lifestyle and was wellrespected locally for both his ministering and his participation in the local economy. Her
parents’ beliefs and way of life were fully integrated - the way they lived matched what
her father taught from the Bible. Betty was used to switching between the local language.
Northern Tutchone, her family language, Gwichin, and the language of the church
people, English, as the occasion or conversation demanded. Betty’s view of
multieulturalism is that people are all the same everywhere, but just their customs and
language differ. With Betty, the balancing act was more like the double gyre of Yeats’
poetry, quickly oscillating between two cultural languages and lifestyles, the one
receding as the other advances and back again, but the central core, the people, was
always stable (Yeats, 1990: xxxviii).
The relationship of the participants to others was clearly defined in their cultural
values, balanced and adjusted by their parents. These values led to the participants’ sense

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of purpose, the way they found their plaee in the world. Josey was early given the role of
interpreter to her siblings. She had experienced a home where French and First Nation
lifestyles had combined in a mutually respectful and dependent way so she was well
placed to perform this role. Betty’s home had also incorporated Anglican traditions in a
spirit of mutual respect and care for others. She chose a lifetime career in nursing.
Wendy’s home valued hard work in subsistence and in creating beautiful items of
adornment. She found a place in hairdressing. The respondents later drew on their sense
of purpose, and the balancing act which their families and communities had deployed in
relation to the treatment of people of other cultures, to find their own way in the world
they encountered.

The Cultural Encounter
For all the participants, the major cultural encounter occurred when they left
home for school. For two of the participants this happened in stages, first a little way
from home and then a great distance. All the participants came from families which were
able to modify the trauma of the separation from home in significant ways. All the
participants utilised what they had learnt from their early childhood experiences and the
vision of their parents in the preparations they had made (the bridge) in dealing with
cultural encounter. Their utilisation of the bridge was greatly aided by bridgehead
personalities who maintained their contact with home and supported and encouraged their
efforts.
For two of the participants, leaving home for the cultural encounter at school
occurred in two stages, each progressively farther from home. Josey first attended school

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in Whitehorse and Dawson before going to Vancouver. Her father’s status as “white”
meant that she was able to attend local public schools which were only for “white”
children at that time. Betty’s first taste of residential school was in Aklavik, with her
mother living close by, before going the huge distance to Sault Ste. Marie for high
school. She resided in the two schools for First Nation students only, but attended a
public technical school. Wendy travelled from Old Crow to Whitehorse to attend public
school which by this date was available to First Nation students. Betty was the only
participant to comment on the greatness of the distance - even for the well-travelled
Gwichin this was unusually far.
All the participants’ parents were able to modify the trauma of the experience so
that all the children were able to adapt to the new situation. Josey’ s parents tried several
successful homes-away-from-homes strategies - her father’s family in France, a French
family in Whitehorse, and Anglican boarding house in Dawson (brief and not so
successful) and a family house for her, her siblings and her cousins in Vancouver, run by
their own appointed guardian. Aunt Grace. Wendy boarded with an aunt in Whitehorse
and Betty’s mother moved house so that she was “two steps from the school.” Betty’s
mother was not able to modify her Shingwauk School experience - it was just too far
away.
All the participants entered the cultural encounter experience as healthy, happy
and self-confident children and teenagers. Josey was seven when she first left home and
13 when she went to Vancouver. Wendy was 15 when she went to Whitehorse and Betty
was 16 when she left for Sault Ste. Marie. None of them experienced health problems,
Betty even staying well when a flu epidemic affected the entire school and community.

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resulting in many deaths. They all had a firm sense of their identity and were proud of
their heritage. None mentioned any crisis of identity. Wendy continued to ski and Josey
continued to have fun and luxuriate in eating fruit straight from the trees.
Cultural encounter to these participants was by no means new and strange in all
respects. Euro-Canadian lifestyle elements had already been incorporated into the homes
they had left, in spiritual, physical and artistic dimensions which lessened the impact of
the new situation. Josey did not feel any different from the other students. Wendy felt
some “prejudice” from other students, but, after discussing it with her mother, dismissed
it as there being something wrong with those students. In Aklavik, Betty had status as an
Anglican minister’s daughter and so felt she had special treatment. At Shingwauk she
was concerned that the other students would not accept her but soon found a friend.
None of the participants had a problem speaking English since they had learnt to
speak it in their own homes and were already fluent by the time they left home for high
school. Josey and Betty spoke other languages as well as their first language and English,
so the idea of fitting the language to the occasion or to their collocutor was familiar. Later
in their lives they made efforts to recover their first language, but at the time of their
cultural encounter they were not conscious of it as a loss.
The participants’ vast distance from home limited their contact with home to
occasional visits and letters. Josey’s father or uncle would visit three times during the
school year when she was in Whitehorse but not at all the year she was in Dawson. She
describes the desolation all the children felt when the last riverboat left Dawson before
the winter freeze-up and they knew there was no possibility of contact until Spring. In

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Vancouver her father or uncle would visit only once a year and she returned home for the
summer only once every two years. In spite of this limited contact, Josey felt that they did
not suffer from being away from home because children are flexible and adapt easily to
the situation in which they find themselves. In Whitehorse, Wendy received occasional
visits from her mother but never went home herself until after her sehooling was finished.
She had plenty of family in Whitehorse as her siblings and cousins followed her there.
When at the All Saints Sehool in Aklavik, Betty visited home for a few hours each week
and spent every summer at home or out on the land with her mother. The brief visits were
painfully short and it was hard to go back to school but she felt they were better than
nothing. At Shingwauk Betty’s contact with home was confined to letters and she was
desperately lonely and homesick. She was horrified to discover she could not even go
home in the summer, but had to take a job in the general loeality of the school.
The participants acknowledged a great debt to the people they stayed with while
attending school. These people aided their successful adaptation to living in their new
situation and maintained their contact with home. They were significant bridgehead
personalities. Josey’s Aunt Grace taught Josey how to make her way in the world and
looked after her, her siblings and her cousins in the family house. She had expeetations of
reasonable behaviour from them but gave them freedom to explore Vaneouver. She was
not a dominating person but a “real lady.” Wendy’s Aunt Clara was strict but Wendy
liked her well enough to remain living with her into her twenties. She encouraged Wendy
to do all kinds of things. Father Mouchet, the instigator of the ski program, was another
bridgehead person for Wendy as she continued to ski under his eoaching. Betty was the
only respondent without a bridgehead person. The teaeher from Aklavik who had moved

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to Shingwauk should have filled this role but Betty hardly ever saw her. She felt very
much cast adrift.
As the participants set about dealing with their new cultural situation they were
starting from a position of strength. They were healthy, secure in their identity and well
prepared by their parents and communities. They applied the preparation they had
received at home in finding their place in this new world. To do this they made choices
which were based on the values they had grown up with and their identity and which
answered their needs in the current situation. They focused on the positive aspects of the
new situation, seeing opportunities rather than challenges, asking, “What can this do for
me?”
Wendy, with her strong, healthy personality, found plenty to do in Whitehorse.
The ski program carried over from Old Crow and gave her much social pleasure, trips,
the support of the community and maintained her fitness. The values she brought with her
concerning hard work and the value of schooling found expression in a hairdressing
summer job, continuing high school, and later learning hairdressing as a profession, then
accounting and another language. There were other carry-overs from her childhood life
too - she continued beading, helped her brother with dog-mushing and found new sports
after her skiing days were over. She was able to enrich her new life in urban Whitehorse
with weekends in the rural traditional community of Klukshu. She used the skills and
attitudes she had brought with her and re modelled them to find success and happiness in
her new world. The re-modelling was an exercise in active integration.
Josey, also healthy and self-confident, had a great time in Vancouver. Her home
had already perfectly balanced two cultural lifestyles and values so she had no trouble in

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applying the model and she fit right in. She sailed through school and secretarial course.
She also found a husband with whom she returned to the Yukon and raised a family,
contributing to her family and community in a myriad of volunteer ways and providing
the cross-cultural component in environmental courses for youth and others. She also
provided support to the French community in the Yukon and always resisted being
treated as a token First Nation person on the committees on which she sat - including the
Canadian Polar Commission - or in the awards she has been given, such as the Order of
Canada. She maintains that point of perfect balance, fully First Nation and fully EuroCanadian. Her support has always been given to what she perceives as the good in the
situation - again employing that active integration of the new situation with her own
values.
Betty’s experience of cultural encounter was a lot more traumatic and
disconnected from home than that of the other two participants, and she at first
floundered as she tried to find her place in this new world. Betty found the school in
Aklavik not a hard place to be but Shingwauk School was quite another matter. She was
used to the ways of the people at Shingwauk and to the language but the technology and
sheer numbers of people in the city overwhelmed her. She felt bewildered and
disoriented. Her schooling in Aklavik had not been up to standard so she struggled with
her classes. The Anglican-run school, which gave her the opportunity to see the careers
available, fell short in its academic preparation for those careers and in emotional
support. Betty had no bridgehead personality to see her through, as the other respondents
had, and her disconnection with home was extreme.

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In the difficult situation she found herself, Betty called on her spiritual upbringing
and found strength from the memory of her mother’s example - her fortitude and
resourcefulness in the face of adversity. She searched for a career which accorded with
the caring values she had grown up with and which accepted the reality of the skills she
possessed. Teaching was not a realistic choice but nursing was. It was where her heart
was. As soon as training for this career became possible for her she could see her way
forward and she was able to take control of her own making, becoming independent and
self-sufficient. She had progressed from feeling lonely, discouraged and frustrated to
feeling happy and purposeful.
Betty continued to make other lifestyle choices which accorded with her own
values. She chose friends from nursing and not from bars. She made a distinction
between her inner self (her values) and her outer self (her appearance) changing her dress
and hair to fit her new place in the city. The distinction reminds me of T.E. Lawrence,
Lawrence of Arabia, whose lifestyle contemporaries described as having “gone native”
but which he himself described as “merely an affectation” (Lawence, 1935). Betty’s inner
self, her fundamental values, had not changed, only her outer self looked as if she had.
Caring about her appearance, her appreciation of a beautifully-beaded pair of moccasins
became appreciation of an attractive pair of high heels, which so much better fit her city
image.
Betty could model, actively integrating her own values and sense of self with the
choices available to her in her new situation. She did not give up in despair but focused
on the positive, what she could do rather than what she could not. She always found a
friend in the most unpromising situations. She seized the opportunity to learn to swim

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when her job offered her little else of value. This focus on the positive was a feature of all
the respondents’ accounts of their integrating their new world with the old one. As they
reflected on the cultural encounter experience they remembered the good things, and let
go of any bad memories.

Returning Home: Recapitulation
A theme common to two of the accounts of cultural encounter was the yearning to
return home, physically and mentally. This seemed more than homesickness and the
desire to again be in familiar circumstances, enjoying respite from the new and strange in
the comforts of home. There seemed to me to be an instinctive need to run the new
experiences by their mothers, to affirm their identity and be renewed in the path they
were pursuing. This reminded me of Fowler’s theory of recapitulation. He applied this to
people moving from one stage of their faith development to the next, but he thought it
might also apply to people changing denominations within one faith. In essence the
theory highlighted the necessity of re-working their previous stage of faith (their life
history, beliefs and images) in their minds to integrate it with the concepts of the next
stage. The recapitulation was necessary for movement to the next stage and Fowler
believed nihilism, or loss of faith, was the result of its absence. Recapitulation is a term
also found in the biological theory of recapitulation, now discredited except in general
terms. It proposed the idea that the development of a foetus mirrors, or recapitulates, the
evolutionary development of its species. Recapitulation is also a musical term, referring
to the reworking of an early theme which occurs later in a musical work.

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Betty physically and mentally returned home. Her physical return home came as
soon as she was able to save enough money for the journey. She spoke of how wonderful
it was to see her mother again and that she had not changed at all. Other things had,
however, and so had Betty’s perspective on the lifestyle. Her mother understood why she
no longer wanted to live in Aklavik and Betty was able to return happily to the city and
pursue her life and career there. Betty later had a mental return home when she was
taking treatment for her drinking problem. She had a series of dreams which recaptured
the spirituality of her childhood. These were therapeutic dreams and Betty knew she was
on the road to recovery. She had become disconnected from her childhood spirituality but
the dreams reconnected her.
Josey also physically returned home and expressed how good it was to have 25
years in which she could talk with her mother, reliving the events of their lives and
asking her questions. Betty felt she could have persevered with high school if only she
had been able to go home and see her mother. Not all the respondents needed to
physically return home - Wendy talked with her mother when she came down for a visit
- but all noted the crucial importance of contact with home, whether by letters, visits or
through the intermediary of their bridgehead personalities. Betty’s later recovery of her
language and Wendy’s enjoyment of rural lifestyle at the weekend were all returning
home actions which gave them satisfaction. For Josey’s mother, Josey believes,
“everything came right for her” when Josey returned home with her children and her
mother was able to watch them growing up. It felt right to Josey too.
Whether it was recapitulation or just reflecting on the past with significant family,
it seems to have had an effect on the health of the respondents. It was an adult exercise.

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undertaken at their own initiative and necessary for them to move forward with their new
lives. It touched the dimensions of time, space, self and other and swept them all into one
integrated whole. It concerned the relationship between early family experiences and later
holistic health - and the danger, therefore, of severing that relationship. You have to be
able to go home.

Conclusion
Accounts of the participants’ childhood experience were about relationships relationship to the land, to time and space, to others, to God. Cultural encounter
challenged those relationships and the participants coped with the challenge by
reconnecting them. There were certain common themes in the healthy experience of
cultural encounter. The participants all began from a position of physical, mental,
emotional and cultural strength. Their parents’ preparation and vision built a bridge
which lessened the impact of the encounter. Their experience of diverse cultural lifestyles
in their communities and particularly in their homes made the encounter not as strange
and new as it might otherwise have been. All learnt to speak English in their own homes
and usage at school made them fluent. They learnt or employed particular skills which
were useful in dealing with the innovations they found in the outside world - modelling,
balancing and active integration; these skills too were part of the bridge. They
instinctively carried out an exercise which might be described as recapitulation, returning
home across the bridge. Bridgehead persons ensured their welfare, eased their way in the
encounter and embodied their connection to home. Contact with home was the crucial
lifeline which enabled them to sink or swim.

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Chapter 7: Usefulness of Research and Suggestions for Further
Research

This research painted a picture of the healthy way the three participants dealt with
cultural encounter. What are the useful elements of that picture and for whom might they
be useful?
Firstly the participants approached cultural encounter with a positive attitude.
Their stories all focus on the positive and ignored or downplayed the negative. They
looked for benefits which accorded with their values, their vision of what was desirable.
When governments consult with communities (to make Plans, assess needs for
programming, do socio-economic assessments) they often ask, “What do you lack? What
do you need? What’s wrong with your world? What might go wrong with it if this
development goes ahead?” Perhaps they should ask for the people’s vision, how they see
their world unfolding. Why should First Nation communities bother telling the Yukon
Socio-Economic and Environmental Assessment Board what they don’t want? Perhaps
they should tell them what they do want.
When we read stories of abuse in residential schools and the consequent loss of
Aboriginal identity and culture, we are paralysed. We weep, but what should we do?
Those stories tell us what not to do but these stories of health show us what we can do.
Churches have similarly been paralysed in horror at the stories of abuse and criticism of
their evangelising efforts. The image from Betty’s dream of ugly animals sitting around
mouthing Christian hymns whilst a feeling of evil lurked behind them must resonate here.
Betty was focused on her vision, the light at the end of the road, so was able instinctively

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to identify and avoid the evil. The scholarly definition of health focuses on the positive
(what positive health is) but research commonly focuses on the negative (what ill-health
is). This research fills in the positive side of the picture.
Another element in the healthy picture was that of the cultural strength from
which the participants started their encounter. Their early cultural strength, which gave
them a firm identity and a sense of purpose, served them well. First Nation communities
might be heartened by this strength and see how the participants were not threatened by
encounter but engaged it. They did not retreat into their shells but made choices which
took into account the reality of the outside world. The outside world presented a
tremendous challenge, but these women were equal to it.
This cultural strength made possible the recapitulation exercise, another element
of the healthy picture. The participants reconnected with their cultural base and used
those values to assess the ehoices open to them. It was an adult exercise. Churches might
note, not undertaken by children, and there was no coercion. There was no church
clutching at the souls of babies and children. Might it not be a good idea for churches to
take a look at Infant Baptism in general? What is this saerament all about? Jesus, after all,
was an adult when he was baptised. Non-Aboriginal people can respect Aboriginal
people’s need to reconnect with their cultural heritage, however that might be
individually defined, and have patience while Aboriginal people reassess their choiees.
Like the element of early cultural strength, recapitulation points to the
importance of early childhood education within the child’s own culture. Educationalists
might see here confirmation of the vital role parents and grandparents play in being
present in the schools and conducting culture camps. Churches might note how important

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for health was the close connection of the Aboriginal minister with his congregation’s
way of life. In matching his life to his Biblical teachings he presented a picture of
integrity and a model they could follow.
The active role respondents played in integrating items of individual choice was
another feature of the healthy picture of engaging cultural encounter. Current Yukon
Government programs to build capacity in the communities support active integration
because they ensure that realistic choices are truly available for selection.
One of the limitations of this study is that it is by no means an exhaustive survey
of healthy First Nation people, but it does present a model of the way these three healthy
people coped with cultural encounter. There is plenty of scope for further exploration,
since healthy First Nation people are seldom sought out to tell their stories. It might be
interesting to use the same research design but another researcher with consequently a
different bias. I suspect the findings would be similar. I am confident that the rigorous
attention I paid to the verification process produced the true story of these women, as
they would have it told.
The applicability of the research can only be tested by trying it out. Here I can
only present a picture and speculate on its usefulness, indicating questions which various
groups of people might ask themselves. Perhaps an RCMP supervisor is contemplating
the placement of an officer in some First Nation community. Might not the image of the
RCMP officer teaching a First Nation youth to play the organ give him pause for
thought? What qualities should the officer possess? Finally, I should emphasise that this
research was not about the survival of a particular culture, but about the survival of health
and sanity in times of cultural turbulence.

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APPENDIX #1
Interview Consent Form
Interview #
1. I understand that Carole Williams is conducting research for a Master of Science in
Community Health thesis and is interviewing a number of persons with respect to their
experience of cultural encounter. The Master of Science program is a graduate program
of the University of Northern British Columbia in partnership with Yukon College.
2. This consent is given on the understanding that Carole Williams, Yukon College and
the University of Northern British Columbia shall use their best efforts to ensure that my
identity is not revealed, whether directly or indirectly, unless 1 have signed paragraph 6.
3. 1 understand and agree that the information 1 have given to Carole Williams in our
interview o f ______________ (date) may be;
(a) recorded and transcribed; which recording and transcription will be stored by
Yukon Archives under restricted access. A copy may be kept by me.
(h) used by Carole Williams in the production of a thesis.
(c) only be further used by application to me or someone 1 designate.
4.1 have had the opportunity to ask questions and discuss this study as outlined in the
attached Participant Information Sheet.
5.1 hereby waive any claim against Carole Williams, the Yukon College, UNBC, their
employees, directors, officers, agents and publishers with respect to the use of said
information, provided it is used in accordance with this agreement. 1 do this freely and
with full knowledge of the legal consequences of this consent.
Nam e:______________________________ D ate:_____________________
Signed:______________________________ Witness:
6.1 hereby give my further consent to the use of my name, and/or details about my life
which may directly or indirectly reveal my identity.
D ate:____________________
Signed:________________________ Witness:
(copy to records, copy to interviewee)

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APPENDIX #2
Participant Information Sheet
MSc in Community Health thesis:
Factors Enabling Health in First Nation - Non-native Cultural Encounter

This is a qualitative research study into cultural encounter as experienced by healthy First
Nation people.
It is being carried out by Carole Williams, a graduate student in the joint Yukon
College/University of Northern British Columbia master’s program.
This research project will assist the student in writing a thesis and gather information
relevant to the research topic. The research will gather information on the experience of
cultural encounter. Participants in this project have been selected by chain sampling with
the first participant being selected by personal connection to the researcher. Subsequent
participants are suggested by the current interviewee.
Your participation in the project will be tape recorded, transcribed and summarised. You
will receive a copy of the transcript and summary to review and edit.
Your rights as a research participant:
You may change your mind about participating at any time, you can refuse to answer
individual questions, and it is your choice.
Your story is important to understanding this issue. Your information will be used but not
in a way that will reveal who you are. Other people will read your words but no-one else
will read your actual interview unless you give your permission. Your interview will be
kept in Yukon Archives under restricted access. You will have a copy. Further use of the
interview may only be made by application to you or to someone you designate.
This research will help the participants, the researcher and the wider society in
understanding what factors contribute to health in cultural encounter. The final published
thesis will be available at Yukon College and / or at the University of Northern British
Columbia.
If you have any questions, or think of other information you would like the researcher to
have, please call Carole Williams at
If something happens that you don’t like and you think something should be done, please
feel free to call the Vice-President of Research at the University of Northern British
Columbia

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APPENDIX #3
Questions
Where were you born?
Who was in the family which brought you up? Did you have brothers and sisters?
What kinds of things did you do as a young child? What was it like for you?
What language did you speak at home?
What kinds of things did you eat?
What did you learn early on about the way to lead a good healthy life, and how did you
learn it?
What did your family think was important in life?
What was “school” for you - learning at home or away?
When and where did you first meet people other than your family and how were they
presented to you?
How old were you when you left home?
Did your parents make the decision about your leaving home? If so, how did they make
that decision, what was it based on? What was the plan?
Where did you live, with whom, and what kinds of things did you do?
Were you surprised by what you found outside the home, or did you know what to
expect?
What was different, what was the same and how did you feel about it?
How did you keep in touch with home or other family members? What or who helped
when you felt lonesome for home?
When did you begin to feel you had a good idea about who you were?

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APPENDIX #4
Revised Consent Form
Consent for storage of summary in place of tape and transcript
I have reviewed the recording and transcription of my interview on April 7, 2004
and I have verified and revised the summary of this interview with Carole Williams. I am
of the opinion that the final draft of the summary is the best documentation of my story. I
therefore request that this summary be placed in the Yukon Archives and that the original
tape and transcript be destroyed, after any required review by Carole’s academic
supervisors.
Signed__________________________________ D ate_____________________
Witness_________________________________ D ate______________________

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