My Story

Indigenous people live in two separate worlds. We live the stories of our elders and the values of our culture, we live in a modern society with a new cultural identity that is being rediscovered and defined by our people everyday. My story, I feel is a common one. Its a story of not always knowing where I fully belonged, but always knowing I was being called to be a part of something important, something bigger than myself.

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I grew up in Whitehorse, Yukon. I'm mixed heritage Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, and English, Swedish, Scottish, and Irish descent. My Dad is a miner and old school Indigenous bush man. My mom is an independent working, caring single mom. My dad was building our family business and was often away 10 months of the year. Mom raised my sister and myself by herself most of the time. There was a lot of challenges for me growing up, it never seemed like I ever could belong to any identity, including indigenous, no matter how hard I tried. School was difficult, family was impossible, the message of culture was definently present in the strangest places, but had been warped by colonization, addictions, the residential school system, rage, and pure denial. I barely managed to make it through school, I barely managed to stay out of trouble. I was a total class clown. I was hardly ever focused, or there to be at school. I got in trouble, but always seemed to be one of my teachers favourites. I barely managed to stay out of addictions, homelessness and the system that affects so many young people at that time. Yet miraculously I always made it. I could always connect with people and enjoyed making them smile and feel seen, it's never let me down yet.

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When I finished school I moved away from my home and travelled for a long time. I didn't know where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do, but I knew I had to get far away from where I had been. I met people from all over the world, and saw so many amazing things, but never felt like I was any closer to finding a place where I belonged, or finding a place where I felt I could know who I was. I stayed with families in huts, and partied with millionaires, worked in bars, taught English, surfed, hitchhiked, and slept in ditches, and eventually narrowly got out of a very sticky situation in Colombia (thank creator), and moved back home to Canada. I was lost and felt like I had been everywhere I wasn't from, so I decided to go where I was from. Where my family was from. So I went to Old Crow, Yukon, and my life changed forever. 

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As soon as my feet touched the ground on the land that birthed my grandma I felt (and still feel today) an energy that resonated deep inside of me, it was so magnetic and powerful, I knew that my spirit had been there for generations. I hunted and trapped and stayed in wall tents, fixed skidoos, and ATV's, cut meat and went flying in boats up the Porcupine River to my Great Grandma Sarah Abel-Chitze's summer camp to haul wood, check nets, hunt and gather. I learned my culture and worked with my people. I learned our stories and histories, accent, how to jig, joke, smoke, grieve and bead like a Vuntut Gwitchin. I realized I had these feelings within me the whole time, and just never knew it. I return to my home territory every chance I get, for better or for worse. I always am glad to see my people, all indigenous people, because we all share so many things.

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From there I continued on, it always felt like a mix of music, creativity, culture, exploration, and learning. I found fun in music festivals, travelling and worked in trades, support work, art spaces, culture, and writing. I always seemed to be either working or volunteering with indigenous youth in any capacity I could. It's never been easy either.

My home territory is an isolated, fly in community, far north of the arctic circle. I have seen and lived so much of the negativity and harm that has affected Indigenous people. I have been homeless, hopeless and lost. I worked with many people on the infamous downtown east side in shelters, and had to say goodbye to so many people I cared about due to the effects of drugs, alcohol, suicide, abuse, and neglect. But life was always good to me, even when I couldn't see it. I had friends, family, community, music and culture always, and it led me to work for a very special and powerful indigenous entity. I feel like a found a career path over these years that helped me understand that I wanted to pursue healing work through creativity and culture.

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Shilak Naii Coaching came to me from working with Yukon's First Nations Education Directorate, a company focused on using Jordan's Principle funding to empower Indigenous Peoples and communities, specifically ages 0-17. I worked for the Mobile Therapeutic Unit (M.T.U) of the YFNED, a team created to design programming for youth living in Yukon's Remote and underserved Communities. We travelled everywhere in the Yukon creating programming, support, education, and health aid, connecting with communities from all over the territory. We made murals, masks, danced, sang, made music, and performed in every capacity we could. Somewhere out on the road it started to dawn on me that although these programs meant the world to the young people we were serving, but they only represented a fraction of the care that they truly deserved. I also started to have an itch in my brain about another issue. What happens to these youth when they finish our programs, and are above the age of 17? I used my knowledge of indigenous programming and realized, in general, that once a youth was over the age of minority, the support programming they could access would either dramatically decrease, be for funding school or training, or they would have to seek out programming themselves. It all seemed to come together in one moment and I found myself floored by this concept because there are always ways to help people, often there's just a lack of people and programming to serve. I had been through this process, and had seen the drop-offs effect and outcomes on so many young people I've known and watched grow up.  

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The problem I knew I wanted to work on was finding a meaningful and collaborative way to support Indigenous youth that were out on their own for the first time. It's a difficult challenge because youth need support in different ways, and would have to pursue programming on their own, which feels like a prevalent problem for youth because young people need to be able to explore what they want to experience, to make mistakes, move, and grow on their own terms. No person is alike and our journeys to self discovery cant be blanketed. Indigenous youth also go from being raised in very problematic and beautiful places.  We often grow up in tight knit cultural dynamics, we are given some supports and opportunities as we grow to help bridge the gaps, but when we reach the age to leave our homes we no longer need emotional support? We no longer need help? It all brought me back to being 18 again and remembering how lost and powerful I was. I took on the world and was totally fearless, but there were many pitfalls that could have easily sent me down a dark path. I'm always amazed that I'm here right now and in a good place holistically. I can't even remember how many times I dodged bullets like addiction, homelessness, suicide, prison or becoming another statistic that indigenous youth are unfairly placed into. It's a huge problem seeing our young people leave home to pursue their vision and ending up coming home, angry and bitter, ending up involved in a negative situations, or even succeeding, but holding anger towards their homes, their world, or their situation. Something about this time seems to create imbalances in people. These are difficult scenarios but they happen disproportionately to youth all the time.

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Everything about discovering these gaps that I perceived made me realize that there were so many opportunities for me to help empower young indigenous people during a very exciting and dynamic time in their life! Realizing that I could create resources and provide safety, mentorship, friendship, and coaching to young people. It made me feel like all of my experiences in life were all leading me to being in the position I'm in now, and being who I am today. I also realized that I could empower other people who have life experience like mine to help young people, by giving them opportunities to showcase their skills and networks for youth who want to experience similar things. 

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Everything within this process and my journey feels like a blessing to me now. I feel excited everyday to expand and work towards helping young indigenous people feel totally free to experience and be anything that they want in their lives, in their way. I want to put them in a leadership role in their own journeys with consistent and meaningful support that helps serve a bigger purpose. Shilak Naii means "My Relations" in Gwitchin. Its an extension of my understanding that we are all connected and our cultural understanding moves us to act in cultural ways. I'm glad to have created a position of leadership and learning, to connect and grow along with young people and allow our young people to guide how their world should look. Thank everyone who feels called to be part of our journey. I would be lost without your support and belief in our people.

Mahsii Choo Shilak Naii!

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