Mining on Unceded Territories
Transformative Mining and Alternatives Panel
As Yukon mineral legislation is being re-written, explore the history and future of mining on unceded Indigenous Lands in the Yukon.
This panel was held on March 6th, 2025 as part of a series of four public, virtual panels with thinkers and leaders from across the Yukon and beyond to ask: How can we transform mining to ensure disasters such as the Eagle Mine failure never happen again? What are the alternatives to resource economies?
Panelists included Testloa Smith (Kaska Elder), Josh Barichello (Ross River Dena Council Lands Department), Ann Maje Raider (Kaska Elder, Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society), Linda McDonald (Liard First Nation, Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society), and Hammond Dick (Kaska Elder). Moderated by Caitlynn Beckett (Memorial University) and Jared Gonet (Yukon University).
“Our land, we say, is unceded. It means no treaty, and we still maintain that today. [This] does bring the government to our table. It does bring industry to our table. But they have a process, YESAB, which is legislated to look at how projects are being developed and permitted to become a mine. Because of the time they have slotted to do their assessment there seems to be a big gap [in] what our nation understands about the land, about the animals, about the water, and about all the plants. Traditional knowledge has to be incorporated into these discussions. They’ve tried to, but still they’re not getting [it in] the ways that we wanted to see.”
— Testloa Smith, Kaska Elder
“Back in 2014, the Kaska Nation challenged Yukon government’s free entry into their mining claims and the claims [that] were staked by exploration companies without consultation, because it was adversely affecting aboriginal rights and titles and interests. To date, we’re pushing hard to make sure that any mining companies that have an interest in setting up shop in our traditional territory [are] going to be faced with that prospect of consultation and accommodation. We’re out there, and we’re quite observant about what’s going on.”
— Hammond Dick, Kaska Elder
“For the most part [the people who are there developing the land], they’re from all over the world, or from other parts of the world, whereas Kaska people and other people are living there. The word Kēyeh, for example, I believe comes from the word ‘foot’ or ‘boot’. We’ve walked on the land, we know the land, our ancestors knew the land, and that’s the relationship to the land. There’s a huge difference just in the perspective and the respect for the land.”
— Linda McDonald, Liard First Nation, Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society
“If you’re being compensated for something, is that, in a way, just an easy way for the mining companies and governments to [get] a green light to do the damage in the first place… How are you going to compensate for a caribou herd? What kind of dollar figure are you going to put on that?”
— Linda McDonald, Liard First Nation, Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society
“The mining companies and legislation do not allow looking at the gender-based analysis when it comes to mining and looking at perpetrators of violence coming into these mining camps. What’s not factored in YESAB is the cultural relevance, the social relevance of mining, what happens to our community, the addictions. None of that is factored. It’s time we look at YESAB and we look at mining legislation that really does protect our lands and our rights to the land.”
— Ann Maje Raider, Kaska Elder, Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society
“I think what has been happening in our territory is that they’ve been stomping on our aboriginal rights and title because they know we don’t have the money. They come and stomp more, [like] the most recent decision with a mine in our backyard. You know our people are saying no. But they don’t want to listen because it means money in the back pockets of government… Our people still live in poverty. The mines come and go, and who’s left with the toxins? We are. Our land is precious to us as it was to our ancestors, but they don’t want to hear [that], so our only recourse is always courts.”
— Ann Maje Raider, Kaska Elder, Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society
“When I listen to many stories of what happened during the land claims discussions, [there’s] rationale for that powerful decision that Kaska made. There were many reasons, but one thing that I hear again and again, is that dividing the land, putting boundaries and borders, and treating different lands differently, was a challenging thing to reconcile for those elders who had a responsibility to all of their territory, to all of their land. Cede, release, and surrender became part of crown lands, the lands that were not chosen to be settlement lands, [and that] was hard to reconcile.”
— Josh Barichello, Ross River Dena Council Lands Department
“They have applications to go and make their trail, to go and drill further on the same area as the [proposed BMC mine]. Now we say the same thing as [with] the mine. We say we got concerns about the caribou, about the water, about our plants, and our gophers, our small animals that we harvest. Yet [they] say you guys are talking about mine permitting, we’re talking about drilling. But it’s the same area, the same concept, the same thing. That’s what really frustrates us. That’s why you hear about colonialism, of things that they try to separate… Our people understand water goes out past the footprint; the animals go past the footprint of the mine.”
— Testloa Smith, Kaska Elder
“The Lands Department, especially in the context without a final agreement, are so underfunded and don’t have the mechanisms that came from the UFA to really get involved in the same way, and so everybody else sort of has a leg up in terms of their ability to engage. At the same time, we’ve been bombarded, absolutely suffocated with all these outside interests. If you look at a map of mineral claims in the Ross River part of the Kaska Nation, I think it’s about 16% of the area has been staked, the rocks have been given away with no treaty on unceded land, with no Kaska consent, or very little consultation in many cases.”
— Josh Barichello, Ross River Dena Council Lands Department
The next panel, Alternatives to Mining, is happening on Tuesday March 25th, 7:00-8:30pm. Click here for the join zoom meeting link.
Supported by CPAWS Yukon, To Swim and Speak with Salmon, and Research from the Front Lines. Organized by Jared Gonet (Faculty in Indigenous Governance and Science at Yukon University and PhD candidate at University of Alberta), Caitlynn Beckett (PhD Candidate at Memorial University), and Krystal Isbister (PhD candidate at University of Alberta and Yukon University); all of whom do research on mining or land relations in the Yukon.
Quotes edited for length and clarity.