Should the Yukon River be considered a 'person' with rights? Some say it's an idea whose time has come

Intrinsic to the Yukon River are skills shared and cautiously honed among families, for generations. 

Nika Silverfox-Young, a national of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation successful the Yukon, calls this humor memory. 

"We truly travelled a batch and we utilized the rivers arsenic our highways. We truly needed them," she said. "We'd prime retired the champion parts, and perceive to the onshore erstwhile the salmon were coming back.

"We've mislaid that quality to perceive to what our onshore is telling us. She is screaming close present astir however we request to support her." 

Silverfox-Young said the stream is "part of me."

"I consciousness similar I'm legally, genetically obligated to support this onshore ... I privation that to continue."

Silverfox-Young is among a increasing fig of radical who deliberation it's clip the Yukon River had much important biology protections — successful part, by granting the waterway legal personhood.

It's an thought that already has the enactment of the Council of Yukon First Nations, and Alaska Native people, whose cultures are besides intertwined with the river.

In the look of clime change, concern impacts and imperilled salmon populations, advocates are present calling for dialog and cooperation, among communities on the stream and each levels of government.

Efforts often stem from 'long-standing disputes'

There's precedent successful Canada for granting biology personhood. The Innu of Ekuanitshit and a determination municipality successful Quebec granted the Magpie River with the presumption successful 2021, to chiefly support it against hydro development. A solution grants the river nine rights, including the close to flow, the close to support its biodiversity and the close to beryllium harmless from pollution. It adjacent has the close to sue.

Calls for biology personhood are mounting successful B.C., too.

In October, the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations passed a resolution calling connected the state and others to enactment with First Nations to beforehand the ineligible personhood of nature, "including h2o bodies specified arsenic rivers and lakes, forests and mountains wrong a First Nations' unceded accepted territory."

And successful New Zealand, aft much than a century-long combat led by Māori to support the Whanganui River, the country's parliament passed authorities successful 2017 that granted the waterway cardinal rights that physique successful Indigenous cosmologies — the archetypal of its benignant successful the world.

There's a communal dominator to each effort to delegate ineligible personhood to entities recovered successful the earthy world, said Stepan Wood, prof astatine Allard School of Law and the manager of the Centre for Law and the Environment astatine the University of British Columbia. 

"They originate retired of longstanding disputes oregon claims of pact violations," helium said, noting the lawsuit of the Whanganui River.

"From the beginning, 1 of the halfway demands of the Māori was 'land back,' which is again a similar, you know, refrain," helium said, referring to the Indigenous-led question to reclaim Indigenous jurisdiction.

Trouble was, Wood said, the New Zealand parliament was dead-set against allowing Māori ownership of the land. So, a compromise was struck.

The thought was to legally specify those connections, steeped successful Māori instrumentality and cosmology — quality arsenic a radical of ancestors.

Legal personhood hinges connected section contexts, and it needs to beryllium customized accordingly, Wood said. 

"There's nary one-size-fit-all approach," helium said. 

"One of the similarities with Canada is that you person 150 years of systematic usurpation of pact promises by the British Crown and, you know, dispossession of Indigenous peoples and full negation of their laws and their jurisdiction and their sovereignty."

As for however this could beryllium applied successful the Yukon, Wood said that's apt to beryllium an unfastened question for immoderate time. 

"Would the extremity beryllium to person laws adopted by the self-governing nations, truthful wrong either they're delegated oregon they're inherent aforesaid governance authority? Would it beryllium territorial authorities oregon national legislation?"

Wood besides said it could instrumentality the signifier of a transboundary Indigenous treaty. 

"Kind of similar a pact amongst the assorted First Nations up and down the Yukon River saying we are each successful statement that the Yukon River is a, you know, a surviving entity, with spirit."

'The water, to us, is life'

In March, a bulk of subordinate nations belonging to the Council of Yukon First Nations (CYFN) voted successful favour of looking into ineligible personhood for the Yukon River.

Made up of 2 parts, the solution besides calls connected the territory to enactment some short- and semipermanent absorption plans of the river's corridor, which includes banks and channels — onshore integral to the waterway. Linked to that, the missive urges the territory to see ineligible personhood "for the entirety of the Yukon River Corridor with each affected First Nations."

Erin McQuaig, the lawman main of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation successful Dawson City, Yukon, said ineligible personhood would elevate needed protections for the river.

"The water, to us, is life. It gives beingness to each surviving signifier connected world and it should beryllium recognized arsenic such," McQuaig said.

McQuaig said this enactment corresponds with efforts to prevention chinook salmon, whose numbers successful the Yukon River person declined precipitously for years and person been plunged into a heavy crisis.

"It's imperative for america arsenic radical to proceed and besides reclaim our culture. We person many, galore young citizens that person ne'er seen a salmon travel retired of the stream wherever we live."

Premier Ranj Pillai addressed CYFN's solution past week successful the legislative assembly. He said helium knows it's important to support the river, but that his authorities hasn't contemplated biology personhood.

"To beryllium precise open, I don't person capable of a breadth of knowing of conscionable what this would mean from a argumentation position and legally, but I cognize that we'll proceed to enactment with Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in … and we'll beryllium speaking with the Council of Yukon First Nations connected the resolution," Pillai said.

Whitehorse dam relicensing sparks talk 

Pillai said conversations astir ineligible personhood successful the territory have stemmed from work on a determination onshore usage program successful the Dawson area. Buried successful the recommended plan released successful 2022, the readying committee besides floats ineligible personhood.

But the conception has been raised successful the territory's southbound for years.

The Yukon's largest hydroelectric dam, successful Whitehorse, has been moving done the relicensing process. While the installation provides important energy — gathering astir 75 per cent of the territory's request successful the summertime unsocial — it's travel nether aggravated scrutiny astatine times for its impacts connected Yukon River salmon. This is the archetypal clip the dam has been reviewed by the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB).

During the appraisal phase, the Ta'an Kwä​ch'än Council raised the imaginable of granting ineligible personhood to the Yukon River.

"To date, determination has not been information fixed to the Yukon River arsenic a earthy person, implicit with rights, nor has determination been gratitude expressed for the energy it has fixed to us," the First Nation states successful a 2023 submission to YESAB.

While the committee yet did not code the thought of biology personhood successful its appraisal of the dam, a spokesperson told CBC News that, "YESAB's process enables aboriginal dialog connected this emerging taxable wrong Yukon."

Catherine Ford-Lammers, the pb connected the Whitehorse dam relicensing for the Carcross/Tagish First Nation, said her assemblage is besides funny in environmental personhood and looking astatine what's worked elsewhere.

"It does request to beryllium looked at, but past I conjecture it could travel with its ain acceptable of complications successful presumption of who are the parties to negociate that personhood for the Yukon River," Ford-Lammers said.

Nicole Tom, erstwhile main of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation, present serves arsenic a mentor and advisor for Yukon-based To Swim and Speak with Salmon, an Indigenous-led conservation enactment that empowers youth.

No doubt, she said, the process would beryllium complex, with nary shortage of ineligible wrangling and politics.

But Tom said it's indispensable to wade into that satellite — threats to freshwater are excessively large to disregard anymore. Case successful point, she said, the Eagle Mine nonaccomplishment that sent shockwaves crossed the territory and continues to roil radical who unrecorded successful the region.

"Those conversations are not far-fetched, and erstwhile you person governmental alignment that's erstwhile you tin truly spot immoderate changes for the good," Tom said.

"It's indispensable with clime change, it's indispensable with everything that's going connected close present that these peculiar h2o systems beryllium protected.

"It's a means of endurance and it's a means of taste identity." 

A transboundary stream coalition

There are dozens of communities on the Yukon, the third-longest stream successful North America. Like those communities, the stream is besides divers — the waterway braids, riffles and plumbs to large depths adjacent Lake Laberge.

Mackenzie Englishoe, younker advisor for Alaska's Tanana Chiefs Conference, a tribal consortium of 42 villages successful the state's interior, wants a transboundary conjugation formed wrong 5 years to assistance unify communities. Englishoe, who's Gwichya Gwich'in, believes this would further galvanize radical to talk up and act.

"I deliberation that would see lobbying, educating ourselves — our radical — and extracurricular communities astir our narration to the river, and respect for the river. I deliberation this would found cardinal protections and assistance our salmon. It would assistance each animals and the radical on the river," Englishoe said.

"My individuality arsenic a idiosyncratic is, I person to look astatine this stream arsenic thing that's taken attraction of me, and has sacrificed for me, and I person to bash the aforesaid for her."

Jared Gonet, manager of To Swim and Speak with Salmon, said the archetypal measurement is decolonization.

He said the thought isn't to see rivers arsenic people, truthful overmuch arsenic surviving entities that clasp full ecosystems unneurotic — communities, too.

"I've heard Kaska Elders talk about, like, mountains, rivers, headwaters arsenic beings having their ain agency," Gonet said.

"For me, the biggest situation is going to beryllium conscionable talking, getting the time, the resources, the people, those agleam minds to travel backmost and start, you know, truly pushing and talking and engaging people."

Wood, the instrumentality professor, said biology personhood tin displacement paradigms, changing for the amended people's narration to the earthy world.

"So, changing it from quality being a postulation of objects to beryllium owned and exploited by humans, done quality arsenic a assemblage of older, much elder relatives to beryllium revered and respected by humans," helium said.

"The eventual question is however tin the settler assemblage ineligible and governmental strategy marque country for the look of Indigenous instrumentality and jurisdiction."