New video series highlights the Indigenous history of the iconic Chilkoot Trail

It spawned legends, helped define an era and gave rise to some of the most iconic photography of the 19th century.

But the popular myth of the Chilkoot Trail, its history and significance, has often kept people from looking and exploring beyond the well-used trail of settler history. A new art show in Whitehorse, including a new video series, aims to change that.

“We are always so busy promoting the settlers and the Klondike Gold Rush. We wanted the stories from our perspective, our points of view – from the perspective of the First Nations, the indigenous people,” said Gary Sidney Johnson of the Carcross / Tagish First Nation in Yukon.

He composed music for the “Precious Places” video series, which was produced by his First Nation in collaboration with Parks Canada. The idea of ​​the project is to explore the indigenous significance of the trail and area.

To compose his music, Johnson spent time walking the traditional trail that existed in the area long before the pistils arrived in the 1890s to carve their own way to the Klondike.

“In the past I composed music that I knew what I wanted to compose, I had a melody and then I added words. This, the words in the language came to me. It was not in English. That’s what threw me off,” he recalled.

“That was the first time that ever happened to me, and I just felt like I was in the right place at the right time. It was meant to happen.”

The famous Chilkoot Trail, used by the thousands of gold-hungry stampeders, is now a National Historic Site in Canada and a National Historic Trail in the US. It leads from Dyea, Alaska, up the Chilkoot Pass to Lake Bennett, BC

Thousands of tourists walk the route every year, although that flow of people has been slowed down in recent years by the pandemic. The numbers are just starting to pick up again this year.

Walking the trail is both a physical challenge and a history lesson – discarded remnants of the Gold Rush can still be seen along the way.

Edna Helm is an elder from Carcross/Tagish whose family has lived in the Bennett area for generations. She can be seen in one of the videos talking about the meaning of the path.

“To me, it holds a lot of history for my First Nations people who were here before the ‘golden age,’ as they call it, when they found the gold,” she said.

“You sit and you look and you kind of feel the presence of people who were here before, what they saw and what they were protecting.”

Helm also wondered if the storm-runners, in their frenzied rush to reach the goldfields, had ever really noticed where they were.

“I wonder if many of them have taken the time to look and see the beauty and feel the peace that is here when you stop and look around,” she said.

Natalie Haltrich of Parks Canada said hearing and sharing Helm’s stories and memories is what makes the new video series so meaningful.

“We’re trying to share the Gold Rush [story], and then there’s everything from before Gold Rush. And that story is — I can never learn enough — it’s fascinating,” Haltrich said.

“Here we now have a chance to dig a little deeper, through these videos, and hear a little bit more, and it’s really not only moving, but it’s mind-blowing.”

For Johnson, it’s “great” to be a part of changing the story of the Chilkoot Trail and to see the Indigenous experience more widely recognized and valued.

“Now, even tourists, when they come to our territory, they are more aware,” he said.

“And that’s the best part…before it was like, ‘oh, we didn’t know you existed.'”