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 third 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-Tahltan-Tlingit ancestry and lived until 1963. 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 of her life and to examine the enormous changes she navigated during her lifetime and their legacies in mine. Her Indigenous lifestyle resonates with contemporary visions of a sustainable future.
Land
Mejade’sse was of both Kaska Dena and Tahltan ancestry. Her traditional Tahltan Talakoten territory includes multiple ecological reserves and provincial parks such as Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Provincial Park. Advocates for the planet’s biodiversity are working to legally protect the spectacular wilderness of Mejade’sse’s traditional Kaska Dena Ki stagotena territory.
The Kaska Dena’s visionary plan to protect a huge swath of BC wilderness is described in Sarah Cox’s work in The Narwhal1 and by the Kaska Dena Council: “Dene K’éh Kusan, which means ‘always will be there’ in Kaska, is a proposed Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA), which will preserve the ancestral territory of Kaska Dena from biodiversity loss and unsustainable development while creating economic opportunity for Kaska Dena and the surrounding communities.”2
Life skills
Life in this remote inland area with its challenging climate was difficult. Life skills were traditionally taught; a passing grade meant the difference between life and death. Surviving well into her nineties, Mejade’sse was obviously a lifelong learner.
Food was plentiful for part of the year, buttion to the seasonality and natural cycles observed in their surrounding ecosystems.”3 Resilient food self-sufficiency meant preserving the food for winter, and that required other knowledge and abilities handed down for generations.
