02 - What’s in a name?
A Yukoner is more than just a birth certificate
The scene is the Inuvik airport. It’s the second day of an epic effort to fly from Whitehorse to the tiny Gwich’in village of Old Crow. The Hawker Siddley sits idly on the tarmac, waiting out the ice fog that thwarted the previous day’s attempt to land and another attempt today. As we mill about the terminal, I strike up a conversation with a fellow passenger who, just like me, lives in Whitehorse and is excited about visiting the Yukon’s most remote community for the first time. The two of us are entwined in one big adventure, subject to the same fickle forces of a northern winter.
“How long have you been here?” he eventually asks, referring not to the Inuvik airport, but to the territory we both call home.
“All my life,” I reply.
“Oh,” he says. “You’re a Yukoner.”
In the span of a week, I will hear similar observations from no less than three different people who live and work alongside me in this place. They include both new acquaintances and old friends. And this unmistakable pattern soon gets me thinking about what, precisely, a person has to do—or be—to wear the label “Yukoner.”
Clearly, there are those who define a Yukoner as someone who was “born and raised.” And perhaps it was someone like me who gave these people the impression that the absence of this all-important birthright meant they couldn’t clip on the nametag, so to speak. It might even explain why a former Yukon government, presumably in a bid to foster a greater sense of inclusiveness within the population, went to painstaking efforts to officially refer to “Yukon people” rather than Yukoners.
Yukon people?
Strangely, Alberta people don’t seem to suffer from this identity crisis. Nor do Manitoba people, Ontario people or Newfoundland people.
While I’ve always enjoyed the rare distinction of being born in the Yukon—relatively few of us ever are—I’m not sure it confers exclusive rights over the label of Yukoner. It doesn’t matter whether your initiation to Yukon life takes place at Whitehorse General or Whitehorse International; what matters is how you embrace everything it has to offer. In this sense, those of us who arrive in the Yukon with roots already attached may have a lot to learn from those who make the choice to plant new roots where none existed before. That takes some serious love.
The truth is, there are as many versions of Yukoner as there are people who inhabit this wild and storied space. The fact that I have lived my entire life here means, for example, that I am a Yukoner who can see the ghosts of this city’s long-gone landmarks where others may not. On the other hand, I’ve never worked a placer claim, owned a dog team, spent the winter in a tiny cabin with no running water, taught school in a remote fly-in community, climbed Mount Logan, or paddled the Snake River. But I know people—Yukoners all—who have come from across the country and around the world to connect to these amazing aspects of the Yukon experience.
Of course, I also grew up with people who couldn’t run far enough or fast enough to escape this place. Maybe they’re Albertans now. Or Ontarians, or Manitobans or Newfoundlanders. Or perhaps they remain Yukoners forever. I’m not sure.
But I do know that a state of mind defines a Yukoner as much as the statement of a birth certificate. So, for those who join the party a little later in life, bear in mind that there’s room enough for everyone—not just in the Yukon, but in the name by which we can all attach ourselves to its beguiling soul.
Wear it well.
First published in the March/April 2007 issue of above&beyond magazine. Photo by Derek Crowe.
