 Hello, and 30 years old, I am a Kuskani or a white settler casket denna territory in the community of Tushidlini, what we call Ross River, southeast Yukon, but more importantly in the casket denna territory, between here and Whitehorse, in the north, sometime in Whitehorse and sometime up in this territory of the casket denna land. Can you tell me about the Indigenous land guardian program? I guess it starts with, I'm going to back up a little bit and give you some of the history to provide some rationale for the program I think, and this territory here is unceded and it's not part of the umbrella final agreement like a lot of the rest of the Yukon is, and there's of course as everywhere, there's a long-standing history of devastating impacts of colonialism that continue today being felt here, and there's been attempts to work with the Yukon government and the government of Canada in many different ways to, in order for the denna to have more say in what takes place on their land, so everything from mining activity to outside hunting activity, to research projects run by different universities, anything that's taking place on their land, the welders here, denna, here at the Center for Equity and Responsibility to make sure that human activity on their land take importance with their, with the way of this land, with the way of articulating how there's this relationship, so the denna here have a responsibility, the welders always remind us that they have a responsibility to make sure that these these ways are strong and to make sure that outsiders when they're coming into their territory walk well, land in respect of these kind of protocols and practices, and so for a long time that hasn't been happening with the way settlers and other visitors to this territory interact with the land, it often hasn't been in accordance with denna practices, behind this program is, we've spent a lot of time now, I work with the with the Elders Council and in the land department here and we've spent years, some winds there but there's been also not a lot has changed and things continue to many extents kind of things continue and so uh this is taking to the knowledge and relationship with their land, monitoring what's taking place, so everything from like I said mining activity to outside hunters to other visitors, they're that those people are operating or to the best of their ability making sure that those kind of jurisdictional like just living up to that responsibility that the elders articulate, that some of the rapture now bring these young denna people on the land in a training program with Elders and colonialism, historical impacts and content more skills and knowledge to be able to kind of visible presence taking that lead. That sounds like a pretty uh unique program and which would be great and I hope that actually happens is it is it happening right now today or is it in the process of? I think it's kind of it's starting through um like it we don't have employed denna guardians out there on the land like they do in some other parts of what and I think and I believe some of the west coast they've got a really strong program that I've heard stories about um where coastal indigenous peoples are are on their water and on their land and they're employed to be there and they're employed kind of by their nations to be monitoring what's taking place and and could just kind of taking care of their land in many different ways and we're not at the place yet where we have folks employed to be doing that like we want to be there in a few years but we are through this program it's more of um we're developing the educational component so okay we're putting some land-based programs that are that are targeted at training and educating those people to be able to step into those positions and also the elders council leaders taking some steps towards um towards this kind of guardianship initiative in general um such as uh requiring that outside hunters obtain a hunting permit from the rosser redenton council like they did last year before they they hunt here so it sounds like it'll combine traditional knowledge with western knowledge and and uh those two uh worlds would be coming together and uh past and present history yeah exactly you know it's principally driven by den of values and so um that yeah it I think it strives to combine those knowledges but really the the priorities on den of knowledge first and foremost and where western knowledge can come in and help with some of the the goals right that's great it will be used so where where science or other forms of western knowledge can lend themselves to some of the overall goals like water testing quality like water quality testing or maybe some different climate kind of climate monitoring that the guardians could be doing that adopts western scientific methods that's great but definitely there's always going to be um the denna here are very strong about the protocols of respect and so things like collaring caribou catcher release fishing or putting tags on fish or other animals are very much against the the elders wishes here and so that type of those types of practices definitely won't be won't be practiced by the guardians and also um I don't think the the idea is not to just kind of accumulate knowledge for the sake of having data or knowledge but really to to um seek knowledge and so it'll be like uh there'll be a series of I guess classes or courses that'll be on the land or and end in class like inability and ended on the land yeah mostly all on the land so like the training education programs going to be for between four and six weeks taking place on the land in the mountains and actually um in partnership with the uh with the sought to and with the chinta bush university who's a land-based indigenous led university program that offers students mostly indigenous students university credits uh to be taken to be uh on the land learning from their elders and from indigenous academics about kind of indigenous self-determination and um decolonization this program's going to be a partnership between between ourselves here roster we're down in council and um the sought to renewable resources board and the chinta bush university wow that's really cool um what what would the age group of of the uh training would be so I guess the measure of success for the program would be for the the students to be passing and completing all the on the land programs except yeah I think that the first and foremost like the measure of success is that the students at the end of the program feel comfortable on their land and feel comfortable and proud and more knowledgeable about respect and then a way of living on the land because that's first and foremost and hopefully students will also be more comfortable in their language but also that that students are comfortable as a community making governance decisions together in kind of a consensus way and in line with uh dinner practices and that students are are more kind of ready to step into some of these guardianship roles to to be an active visible presence on the land monitoring and living in a good way on their territory now I just would ask you uh how would what is what is indigenous education uh in your point of view well I think that that is probably going through it takes place so I wouldn't I wouldn't know how to answer that question for a generic answer to the question here I think that indigenous education uh necessarily takes place on the land in very close relationship with the land and with community on the land the practices for uh being on the land in a healthy respectful way with one another are kind of present throughout my next question is now um to is well is it is indigenous uh what term that you normally use um it depends on the audience I guess okay too but uh the preferred I think the preferred term here just be denna denna okay okay so because people here are denna right um but if talking about kind of these programs across across the continent or something like that then maybe indigenous is a better term right but yeah I think here typically when we're talking about local local population this this program and stuff okay how how would you define uh education from from uh I guess I should ask you you're you have an indigenous or denna uh background right or um well not no I'm I'm white white settler okay but only in the sense that I've uh spent a lot of time as community but partly raised by okay uh for for the program the the uh land guardians what what would be the vision uh for the future of that program in in in the community locally be for um well the community has been clear that they want to see a program that's sustainable that goes on for many years and it just kind of um offers young denna people the opportunity to go to school on the land in ways that were more similar with how uh people used to learn on the land here um from the land and from their elders and from each other so uh so that there's a kind of a sustainable program that's continually offered um and provides that opportunity and then also that that the uh alumni or the students that complete that program are able to step into some roles um in terms of these guardianship roles that we're talking about so that they're more more ready to step into some of those guardianship roles and which like I said explained earlier kind of lends itself to these other initiatives yeah for achieving that vision for the program local for the for the community is there anything um that would help achieve that vision is there anything that can help achieve that vision yeah to help make the make it a reality or or to achieve the uh the vision of the program well we always need uh we always need some money to make these things happen unfortunately right of course yeah travel to get there to help pay for gas and kind of from to buy food and rent spaces and uh employ some people to help run these programs teachers books and others um so yeah money is a big thing like here especially in this community we don't have any core funding without a final agreement um there's a lot of other um sorry can't quite hear you there monetary resources in this community without a final agreement especially and so um and so we're always kind of searching for um different pots of money to be able to deliver these types of programs um like for example we don't have a land's office here we don't have a funded uh land's office no renewable resource council or those other bodies that will born out of being a final agreement in the uconn and so money is always something that we're searching for