If the Mountains Could Tell Stories

If the Mountains Could Tell Stories

A Journey of Life, Culture and Hope in Ivvavik National Park

What would we hear if the mountains could tell us everything they’ve seen?

Death, struggle, loss, perseverance, sweat and tears – the giants of Ivvavik National Park have witnessed it all.

Located in the northern Yukon and established as a result of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement in 1984, the park is home to wildlife, nature and history.

Porcupine Caribou cross this land to reach their calving grounds, while Inuvialuit and Gwich’in have lived, hunted and traversed these lands for centuries.

Besides the picturesque scenery and beautiful hikes, Ivvavik is true to its Inuvialuktun name – meaning ‘birthing place’ – and seems to impart some special refreshing energy on guests.

We joined three Grade 9 students from Moose Kerr School in Aklavik, along with Parks Canada guides and cultural hosts, on a trip here this June.

In the following pages is an account from Tusaayaksat editor Stewart Burnett.

Day 1 – Not easy access

We took two tries on Aklak Air to fly from Inuvik to Ivvavik National Park, which takes a little more than one hour all things going well.

The first time, we tried coming in from the coastal side to the north. We followed the delta of the Firth River up until the mountains began, but the heavy, low cloud cover forced our pilots to turn back.

Back in Inuvik, we waited a few hours for conditions to improve and went for a second try. This time, we went through the south, coming in between the mountains.

Despite substantial overcast conditions, our pilots managed to navigate this route, and after a few flyovers of the short, bumpy runaway at Sheep Creek, we landed safely.

The Biology 20 students and teachers from Inuvik, who just completed a week in Ivvavik, replaced us on the plane, while we carted our bags to the base camp and found our tents. The camp at Sheep Creek, which was once a gold mining site, is surrounded by an electric fence to keep out grizzlies. It has a series of tents, a washroom and shower, living quarters for some of the staff and cultural host, and a main kitchen and hangout building.

It was a cold, long day. Despite being June, Ivvavik wasn’t looking like summer yet, with snow lining the mountains and a biting wind. We’ve already seen caribou on the surrounding hills.

We spent the first night exploring around the camp, having an early dinner and making introductions.

The real trip will begin tomorrow.

After switching on the meagre heater in the Fort McPherson tent, we went to sleep wrapped in several sweaters and coverings.

Rachel Hansen

Rachel Hansen wasn’t very popular in school.

“I was always being bullied,” said Rachel, an interpretation officer for the Western Arctic Field Unit of Parks Canada.

She has been coming to Ivvavik since 2006, leading youth groups and tourists on adventures.

“I had no friends, nobody to hang out with, so when these youth come out here I see that in some of the students,” said Rachel. “I’m encouraging them and pushing them in a positive direction to where it doesn’t matter what people say or what people think of you, just do what you love to do and you will excel in it.”

High school was hard for Rachel, but she thanks husband Jeremy, a high-school sweetheart, for always sticking beside her.

“If I can help a youth go in a positive direction, that means the whole world to me,” said Rachel. “If I can reach one student, it’s a job well done.”

She remembers one student trip that included a boy known around town as one of the bad kids. She thought her hands would be full with him.

“But when he came out here, it was completely night and day. He was the most helpful, respectful, kind student ever. It was a totally different person. I think that’s what’s really good when they come out here – they can reflect on who they are and what they want to be in life without all the noise and distractions.”

Rachel leads Biology 20 students from Inuvik and Grade 9 students from Aklavik in youth programs at the camp each summer, which include education about the area’s history and nature.

“One thing I like to tell the students when we’re out hiking is whether you’re 13 years old, 20 years old, 35 years old, everybody has problems,” said Rachel. “On these hikes when we stop and take a break, I like to take a deep breath and take that moment in. It centres me, it brings me back to who I really am. When people are having a hard time in life, you just take a step back, close your eyes and remember why you’re up on that mountain. It’s peaceful, quiet and magical.”

She uses those memories of Ivvavik to calm herself down when things get stressful at home too.

Born in Ottawa and raised in Inuvik, Rachel is thankful to work with such a close connection to her history.

“I remember my first time walking out here, I felt so proud,” she said. “I was walking where my ancestors used to walk, and I could just picture them doing what they used to do – hunt, fish, survive. It really made me proud to be out here.”

Renie Arey

Seventy-three years young, Renie Arey has dealt with it all.

She lost her mother at a young age to pneumonia and lost two of her own children later in life.

Letting go of the past is the only way to move on, she says.

“Whatever happened in the past, forgive and live a better life for yourself and your family,” said Renie. “If you keep being bitter, you’ll never be happy. You have to let that go and start fresh every day. That’s what I was taught by the elders.”

Renie is a cultural host for groups visiting Ivvavik. She has extensive knowledge of Inuvialuit history and engages visitors in compelling discussions every day. Those talks range from the old ways of life to dealing with suicide and trauma.

“Each individual person has a different life,” said Renie. “You have a different life, I have a different life. The life that you’re living, that’s not my (position) to judge who you are. We were always taught not to judge people on this Earth. Some day God’s going to judge us and the things we’ve done in the past. We’ll see it all up there.”

Asking for forgiveness is better than being resentful. She hopes some of the youth who visit the camp can take that message away with them.

“It’s no good to feel bitterness against somebody, because your misery is inside you. You’re not hurting that person – you’re hurting your soul, you’re carrying that anger and all these things inside you. That person is not going to feel it. You’re feeling it inside you.”

Being out on the land in Ivvavik refreshes her soul.

“It gives me more energy, more reason for me to live longer and be proud of who I am,” said Renie, adding that relatives from both her mother’s and father’s side lived in this area.

“It makes me proud of who I am, and to know that they had roamed this place, where they had survived, where they had hunted, where they had trapped, where they did everything on this land. If they knew a person wasn’t doing good, they would help each other. They were always helping each other. Money was nothing to them. Today, it’s totally different. Now if you want meat or something, sometimes you have to buy it, sometimes it would be free. It would be different back then.”

Elders always seem to feel that refreshing effect coming to Ivvavik, she said, relaying a story about a man who stopped using his cane after a visit because he felt so much younger.

She says we need to lift children’s spirits up and reincorporate religion in Northern life.

“You can’t keep putting your kids down, you have to lift up their spirit,” she said. “When I lost my mother, I was brought up by my dad and my grandmother. My grandmother talked to me all the time. I am very thankful to my grandmother for raising me up and learning the old ways of cooking and my language as a little girl.”

It’s equally important to love your parents, even if they’re strict.

“You see some people nowadays answer back to their parents. That’s not the way we were brought up. You had respect for people, no matter who they were. If you went to a dance or had a feast, you sat beside your parents.”

She only wishes she could hear the stories the mountains of Ivvavik would tell if they could.

“I am proud to be who I am,” she said. “I am proud this is where (my ancestors) roamed, the hardship they went through. We may not know it all, but if the mountains could tell a story, each one would have so much to say.”

Day 2 – Sheep Slot

The morning was freezing.

A delicate layer of snow covered the ground outside our tents and smothered the mountains.

Arlene Kogiak, our camp cook, had been up since 5 a.m. readying a full breakfast of eggs, sausages, bacon and pancakes.

Over food and coffee, we immediately delved into stories of the land and Inuvialuit.

Renie Arey is our cultural host, and who could be better than that smiling, beautiful face always ready with a new story to tell? There is hardly a moment of silence around her.

She talked about how difficult life was in the old days, before technology, when Inuvialuit roamed these lands and had to use any means necessary to survive.

Renie’s not one to hold anything back or sugarcoat the world, either. She talked about the harsh realities when a group might be low on food and a new baby was born. Sometimes, she said, that child had to be left behind because the tribe couldn’t feed itself in the first place. The placenta was often fed to the dog team.

After breakfast, Rachel Hansen, our Parks Canada guide, led the three students in a learning exercise about some of the artifacts of the area.

We had a quick lunch at noon and decided we would make our first hike to Sheep Slot.

Bear safety is a major concern here. We keep all of our “smellies,” or items that have any sort of scent, inside the kitchen building at night, and our Parks Canada guides take guns and bear spray when we leave the base camp.

Our walk to Sheep Slot involved crossing the stream outside our camp and then walking through a partial forest along the Firth River.

There were signs of bears everywhere, with freshly dug holes in the ground and scratched-up trees.

So far, the trip had been cold and rather dreary, and you could see it in the quietness of the students.

But once we hit Sheep Slot, a truly majestic bank along the Firth River, the boys came alive.

One of the students, Mathias Elanik, had brought his fishing rod and immediately set off to see if there was any life in that river. He claimed his perch and almost never took his eye off his lure.

There wasn’t much action at first, as the rest of us walked around the beautiful rocks and ledges, inspecting the scenery. Then Mathias gave an “Ooh!” saying there was a big one chasing his hook.

It didn’t take long for him to hook his first Arctic char, yanking it out of the water with jubilation. After it flopped on the ground a few times, he grabbed it, took the hook out and held it straight up with both hands triumphantly, like a scene out of The Lion King.

That’s when it hit that this is what the trip is all about. The students were loving every second of chasing the fish and trying desperately to hook another. They were in their element. Nothing mattered but fishing.

Six fish were caught that day between the group. We headed home late at night, just before a torrential downpour.

After dinner, Parks guide David Haogak and guest Tom McLeod helped the youth and Arlene clean their fish in the workshop.

Arlene Kogiak

A group of nearly 20 students from Inuvik had Arlene Kogiak’s hands full as camp cook this summer.

“I was kind of overwhelmed with that, because I’m not used to cooking for such a big group,” said Arlene, who has been a cultural cook in Ivvavik since 2014.

“But I did manage. I’m proud of myself for making everything work out.”

Arlene is tasked with preparing fresh breakfast and supper each day, plus setting out an assortment of meats and breads for lunches. She’s usually up before everyone else readying the kitchen.

“It’s always tough at the beginning when a different group comes in, because you don’t know if they’re big eaters or not,” she said. “After the first day, you get a sense of how much you need to prepare.”

She loves meeting new people and hearing their stories.

Originally from Aklavik, Arlene enjoys the peacefulness of Ivvavik.

“I always love coming back here,” she said. “It’s nice here, away from all our technology. You have time to think about things. It’s just peaceful.”

From the cultural hosts, Arlene gets a better perspective of how her ancestors used to live long ago.

“It makes me more knowledgeable about respecting the land. When my kids were growing up, I taught them about respecting the land and animals. If you don’t treat it right, you’re not going to get a successful hunt in return.”

After four years working in Ivvavik, Arlene is proud to have handled a variety of challenges, including serving vegetarian and gluten-free guests.

“You can tell when the food tastes good, it’s just quiet in there, nobody is talking,” she said. “That’s a good sign.”

Edward Kay

Always popping out from around corners trying to scare people – not too often succeeding – Edward Kay is a curious young man from Aklavik.

He was enjoying the trip more than he’d let on in normal conversation. Renie found a journal he’d written about how beautiful the park was.

“I just wanted people to know about how great it is here, what new stuff you could learn,” he said.

His curiosity is reflected in his career ambitions, either to be a journalist or criminologist. He loved any chance he got to play with one of the adults’ cameras.

“I’m still young and have a lot of time to decide (on a career),” he said.

He was glad to learn more about his background and where his family used to travel.

“(I like) how free it is to be here,” he said. “It feels cool.”

Jayden Archie

The trip to Ivvavik had an impact on Jayden Archie quickly – by the end, he wanted to become a Parks Canada guide and work there in the future.

“It’s a beautiful place,” he said. “I’m learning a lot of things: where people used to live, gold mine, how the places got their names, learning about animals, where they migrate.”

His go-to tradition for any new ledge or body of water he encounters is throwing rocks into it. He just wished he could carve a baseball bat to hit the rocks.

Living in a small town and making friends isn’t always easy, admitted Jayden, but he thinks the trip made him stronger mentally.

“Just living out here with no TV, no internet, just clear your mind, quiet, not much trucks, not much pollution in the air,” he said.

Mathias Elanik

Even before he got out on the land, Mathias Elanik was sketching the mountain range outside the kitchen window.

“I really like the view,” he said. “It’s beautiful out here. (Drawing) keeps me calm.”

Being in Ivvavik made him think about his ancestors and how they used to live on the land, and how it’s going to be when he’s older and ventures out.

He thinks the trip connected him more with his Inuvialuit culture.

“I learned more about how my relatives and family were living in the Delta,” he said.

A skilled fisherman, he hopes to spend much of his adulthood hunting, trapping and living off the land.

Day 3 – Suicide

Rainy weather all night and heavy clouds mean there’s no hike on the horizon this morning.

Everyone gathers in the living room with coffee after another good breakfast from Arlene. As is becoming usual, a serious discussion emerges.

There’s no beating around the bush here. We talk about all of the problems in our home communities, from the culture of silence to domestic abuse, child abuse, threats, nepotism, murder and more. We talk about how difficult it is to expose some of these problems when you’re living in such a tightknit community.

Renie talks about the importance of spending time on the land to heal and forget about the past, because thinking about pain in the past will only increase your misery. She and David talk about the importance of religion, not necessarily even believing it, but the advice and messages in The Bible for living the good life.

David says people don’t share as much anymore. Nowadays everyone needs to be paid. Kids can’t eat lunch in school on a cold day – they get sent home instead. There used to be prayers before food.

Our conversation was as real and intense as possible, more so than any hike could be. We had brutal, frank discussion about suicide and people who have been lost, why it happened, how it can be fixed.

How can we reconcile our love for the land with the terrible truths of what goes on behind closed doors at home? That’s nearly impossible to answer.

Renie repeats that we must move on from the past. She says it’s so great to have these three youth with us, because everyone has problems, but being out here can help you move beyond them.

“Realize the past is the past,” she says to the youth.

She pounds this message into them. Some of the boys are still just waking up. They don’t say a lot in response. You know how teenage boys are. But either later on the land, or later back home, those words and that message will boomerang back through their minds.

That’s what this trip is about. The sights are pretty. It’s a neat experience. But the long-term impact is the goal. The students might not realize it today. It might just be a vacation today. But those messages received and the thoughts they have out here can last a lifetime and resurface just when they’re most needed.

Renie’s words, the beauty of the land, their cultural connection to it, the scents and sounds out here. All of these feelings may last just a moment, but they will keep circling back in their memory.

It’s those shots of hope and love and positivity that bring a long-term impact. It’s not about the material experience. Climbing a mountain is fun, but it’s about nurturing the next generation.

That’s a difficult science. No one knows how to raise youth to make sure they never fail or succumb to some of the darkness of the world. But this is the best attempt we can make now.

If a feeling, memory or message from this trip flashes back in one of these youths’ minds in a moment of great hardship, and it gives them that life-saving shot of hope, everything is worth it. You never know when this stuff will come back or what form it will take.

As we talk into the afternoon, the skies start to clear. We decide it’s safe enough to make a quick hike up to Lookout Point, which is a sharp mountainside just outside of the base camp.

Climbing the steep hill, we see caribou across the horizon, as well as a grizzly bear on the other side of the Firth River. We don’t spend too long at the top, because those grizzlies can cover ground fast.

Tom McLeod

With family history rich in Ivvavik, coming to the park is always a special experience for Aklavik’s Tom McLeod.

“My grandfather, grandmother and aunts and uncles would come here to mine gold, before there was industrial gold mining,” he said.

Tom has been to Ivvavik three times, since first coming to the park as a student in Grade 9.

“It was amazing,” he said of that first trip. “I was young and full of energy.”

Things can pile up for youth at that age, but there are no worries in Ivvavik, he continued.

“You feel lighter than a feather out here, but you also feel the weight of the history.”

Tom’s aunt has such close history with the park that when she came once, Parks Canada workers were digging up an archeological site where his grandfather stored gear, and his aunt grabbed her old paddle but let them keep the boat.

“Having that history really does have a little bit of a weight to it, but it also takes you away from the worries that you have in the towns and the school system,” said Tom. “It lifts everything off your shoulders.”

He came back the next year with Inuvik’s Biology 20 group, finding another angle – the scientific one – for why he loved the park.

Tom spent his third trip helping out the students from Aklavik any chance he could.

“We’re all the same, all us kids form Aklavik,” he said. “We all grow up in similar situations. The only difference is some of us get a chance to go out (on the land) and learn and experience, where some families can’t afford to hunt and trap all summer, trap all spring and hunt all fall and winter. It’s really hard for a lot of families that can’t do that because it’s what our people do.”

Spending time on the land is the bedrock of Inuvialuit and Gwich’in society, he said.

“You know who you are when you’re up here,” said Tom. “If you’re an Inuvialuit child or a Gwich’in child, this is the place where the caribou come through during the calving season, and they’re what fed both of our people forever.”

Though identities change over time, that bedrock of history is crucial, he said, especially because the land creates the people.

As for tackling suicide, Tom fears a mischaracterization of Inuit history is partially to blame for putting that idea in youths’ minds.

“You hear stories of these Eskimos throwing their elder onto an ice floe or walking out into the cold to die,” he said. “These are stories that would happen very rarely. In Canadian culture (they are) a very alive myth that that’s what Eskimos do, that Inuit would go out and they would all just commit suicide whenever anything got a little hard.”

It’s a cultural mistranslation, he said, when a group loses touch with its own culture and takes its cues from outside sources presenting an incorrect picture of it.

“I feel like it makes rationalizing it easier,” he said.

David Haogak

For animals or people, Ivvavik is a place of refreshment, birth and rebirth, thinks Parks Canada guide David Haogak.

“As far as landscape, there’s no other place in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region that’s like this,” he said. “This is where the elders from Aklavik used to come and still come.”

It’s not only an important region for caribou, but for many species of birds that make their nests in Ivvavik.

“It’s a place where you regenerate, or the next generation is born.”

David has been coming to Ivvavik since 1995.

“You can put all your negative thoughts that you were going through before you come into the garbage can and leave it there,” said David about coming to the area. “Don’t think about it no more. Tomorrow’s a new day. Start over, start fresh. You start from that day, not yesterday.”

He hopes to leave a legacy of hard data, including information about bird nesting, for future generations of Inuvialuit.

For David, bringing youth out to see their ancestral land is important.

“This is their homeland,” he said. “They don’t own it. We never said we owned the land. It’s God’s. But we’re the ones who occupy it, and we’ve got to take care of it.”

Those morning conversations at camp are important for developing the youth.

“There’s a point in time where the youth are going to have to mature, so we try and not lie to them,” said David. “We try and tell them how it is. Raw conversations, those sometimes hit some of them, because not all of them are educationally gifted. A lot of our youth still love to hunt. Those are the ones who learn by visualizing, but they also listen.”

Suicide is one of the biggest challenges across the Arctic.

“Us Inuit are really battling suicide,” said David. “How can you prevent it? We don’t know, but I really believe it starts with the leadership. They need to say enough of our people are dying.”

Religion and culture are a better solution than throwing money at the problem, he thinks.

And it goes beyond suicide, to abuse in the home.

“As a parent of an Inuvialuit family, I can’t imagine what some Inuvialuit students – and I hope and pray they’re not going through it – but what some of them might be.”

The ultimate goal is to let youth thrive, and David hopes trips to Ivvavik can help with that.

“We have so many unknowns as to what will drive a person to suicide and every situation is different,” he said.

“If we could just reach one (student), we’ve done our job. We’re not here to prevent suicide or anything. We’re here to enjoy the park, but if that’s what happens, then wow, we’re really reaching a new level here.”

Day 4 – Celebration

We wake up to a clean living room.

All of the adults had gone to sleep, and without prompt, the three boys stayed up washing the dishes and sweeping and mopping the main living quarters.

The boys don’t say much most of the time, but there’s a spark there beneath the shyness. You might think they’re unengaged, but then you see the mountains Mathias has been sketching, read Edward’s journal entries or hear one of Jayden’s inquisitive questions, and you realize they really do care.

Another morning of real conversations. We talk about how things used to be and how perceptions have changed. We talk about how the age of consent in this land used to be about 13, how many Inuvialuit had arranged marriages or sometimes people would have multiple spouses.

It makes sense for things to have been different then, when hitting age 40 meant you were an elder and average lifespans were much shorter.

Renie always talks about what a hard but beautiful life her ancestors lived, travelling on the land by dog team, giving birth with no hospital or medical care. She always says she’s not a queen, that she’s no better than anyone and is still learning herself.

There’s no one here who hasn’t dealt with loss. Someone’s cousin died by suicide, a relative was lost, another’s mother died young. And yet there’s no lack of humour or fun. They can go from talking about tragedy to slipping in a quick joke in an instant.

It’s a good lesson for the youth. You don’t need to mope about the past. We could all spend the rest of our lives moping if we wanted. But we only get one chance on Earth, and we may as well try to be happy, despite the challenges that come.

28There’s cloud cover this weekend. It’s been very cold. We wake up freezing and go to bed just warm enough to sleep. It’s not good hiking weather. Too wet and dangerous.

But somehow, the weather is almost perfect. We decide to make a second trip out to the fishing spot at Sheep Slot on our last night, unfortunately unable to go on any of the longer hikes.

As we’re preparing to leave, a few sprinkles of snow start coming down. Then more, and more.

Soon, we’re in a snow globe, with billions of heavy flakes surrounding and drenching us.

The snow is like fireworks. Everyone gets more energized. It feels like a real journey now, trudging through the forest to our fishing spot. The youth are running from tree to tree, trying to surprise and scare one another. The snow completely whites out the horizon. We have to stick close.

When we hit Sheep Slot, it’s pure jubilation. Everyone is smiling by now. Mathias goes straight to work at his fishing hole, and the rest of the group gets fishing too. It’s another bountiful occasion.

From one perspective, the weather for this trip was poor. It was early June, supposed to be summer, but freezing cold, overcast and nasty. We couldn’t do any of the signature hikes.

But in another way, the weather was perfect. It forced us inside, where we talked about things way bigger than what a pretty view we were seeing. And the narrative arc of the weather, culminating in an explosion of snow, couldn’t have felt more perfect.

We came out here thinking there might be some fun hikes and cool things to see. We left with life lessons.

The trip to Ivvavik National Park was so much more than recreation. It was a journey of life.