RESEARCHER-IN-RESIDENCE
Terry has accepted BC History’s invitation to sit as Researcher-in-Residence throughout 2023 as he continues to learn about the story of his great-grandmother and the personal legacies of colonial and federal policies. This is the second of four parts.
Who was she? Who was she to me?
Few people in history are considered representative of their culture, yet my great-grandmother Mejade’sse is one such individual. She was born between 1871 and 1873, of Kaska Dena-TahltanTlingit ancestry. Personal correspondence documents her migrating throughout the territory, north to Ross River, Yukon, south to Fort St. James, east to Fort St. John, and west to the coast throughout the 92 years of her life. Her belongings are held today by the Canadian Museum of History and multiple other museums and private collections used by scholars to glimpse past times and cultural practices in British Columbia’s north.
She was more than her belongings, and my work seeks to piece together the documentary evidence other life and to examine the enormous changes she navigated during her lifetime and their legacies in my lifetime. My research is exploring some of my great-grandmother’s life challenges. My deep ancestry DNA, identified by National Geographic’s Genographic Project, identifies traced connections to diverse cultures, including several First Nations. By focusing on my family, Canadian history becomes relatable. This does not mean history is easy to understand; I am curious how the imposition of a dystopian authoritarian order that eliminated Mejade’sse’s culture in one generation could have been done with such moral certainty.
Born Ki stagotena
Mejade’sse’s birth identity was Kaska Dena, and her specific community was the Ki stagotena. Her roots stretch back to the glacier retreat over 10,000 years ago with area cultures being established for at least 4,500 years.
The Kaska Dena Council and Liard First Nation websites describe the five Kaska Dena traditional territories and note that “the fourth government is Kistagotena or Mountain Dwellers or Dease River Kaska. These people dominated the southeast of the Naatitu a gotena Kaska. Their traditional range
included the valleys of the Dease River south from Net I Tue to the northern part of Dease Lake.”1 The nameís tah gūtʼīne.2
