“The Great Upheaval”: Material and Cultural Change in the Relationship Between the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and the Local Environment in the Klondike Region, 1850-1940

• In Event: Northern Environments and Indigenous Communities

Abstract

The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, the indigenous population in Dawson City, refer to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899), and the immediate four decades following, as, “the great upheaval.” For them, the Gold Rush was not a single event, but a process in which outside forces brought rapid and profound change to their cultural, social, and economic lives which altered their relationship to the natural world. In three short years, the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in experienced a physical transformation of their homeland and the implementation of southern administration. Between 1900 and 1940, these environmental implications not only meant that the landscape of the Klondike looked different, but the ways in which the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in interacted with the environment were remarkably different as well.
This paper examines both the short-term and long-term material and cultural impacts that the Klondike Gold Rush had on the environment and the ways in which mining activity altered the relationship between the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and the local environment. Material changes that contributed to an altered relationship include environmental dismantling and destruction of the local ecosystem, which worked against the traditional subsistence lifestyle of the Hwëch’in. Widespread landscape reorganization included gold seekers clearing forests, changing waterways, and dredging in the pursuit of gold. Mining activity affected the water quality and the ability of creeks and streams to support fish, hence, the traditional salmon fishery suffered. Mining activity also drove away game, forcing the Hwëch’in to travel further away from traditional hunting areas. Culturally, elements of the Gold Rush era that contributed to an altered relationship between the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and environment include dislocation from ancestral land, integration into a new cash economy, and restrictions stemming from the implementation of fish and game regulation.

Author

• Heather Green, University of Alberta