Luke Campbell is from the Champagne Aishihik First Nation who works with his First Nation to revive the language, Southern Tutchone, and the culture of his people.
Click play below to hear Luke introduce himself in his language.
Luke grew up partially in Whitehorse and in a community which is called Champagne by Europeans. He works with his First Nation to increase fluency of his Southern Tutchone language amongst his people. He creates pride around Southern Tutchone and increases opportunity for people to have immersive experiences speaking the language. He also addresses the Canadian history which has taken the language away. "You don't really learn a language unless you can hear it and practice speaking it," he says. "It's sort of a hard thing for some of our people to start speaking the language again so I'm just really increasing a joy around it so that people feel good to hear it and to speak it."
To see a map of Champagne and Aishihik First Nation traditional territories with educational information please click here.
"Some change is actually starting to happen. I'm seeing people who two years ago wouldn't speak to me at all they'd only speak to me in english, and now I notice after two years that those people are actually starting to talk in our language. It's a long process, but it's all a part of reconciliation," Luke says.
Click play to hear Luke talk about his work, his sexuality, and queerness in the north:
He says he grew up in part with his grandparents who raised him close to Indigenous culture. His mother would come to Whitehorse to work and he would stay with them all summer. "They were very connected to hunting and gathering food and the fishing aspect. We were always going to the trap line and doing stuff like that," he says.
Though Luke was close with his grandparents he never officially came out to them. "We come from different generations. We both know, but it's just not spoken," he says.
In the Yukon, where Luke is from, where the population density is 0.1 person per square kilometre according to Statistics Canada, there is a surprisingly vibrant queer community. According to a CBC article, there are more same-sex female couples in Whitehorse than in any other city in Canada.
"In a little small community of 26,000 people there's a pride parade and it's getting bigger every year," Luke says.
Click play below to hear Luke talk about the term 'queer' as it relates to his Indigenous experience:
According to the The Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity (CCGSD), there are documented cases all across Turtle Island (what many Indigenous people call North America) of multiple gender roles beyond man and woman, often acknowledging more than two genders.
The term "two-spirit" refers to a person who identified and were regarded as a gender outside of male or female, often relating to both the male and female gender. The term was coined in 1990 at the third annual Native American/First Nations Gay and Lesbian Conference in Winnipeg.
The CCGSD says "two Spirit people were respected by their communities, valued for their gifts, and accepted for who they were. Within many of our communities, Two Spirit people were regarded as third or fourth genders, with some some Nations recognizing up to six genders, and in almost all cultures were regarded and revered for the roles and responsibilities given to them. They were considered to have the power of both male and female spirits, and were therefore seen as having a close relationship with the Creator. Two Spirit people were often healers, visionaries, and medicine people within our nations. They were regarded as fundamental components of our communities, cultures, and societies."
When settlers arrived they used the gender binary, a system of gender recognizing only male and female, as what the CCGSD calls a "violent tool of colonialism to assimilate Indigenous peoples into their Western European colonialist cultures."
As a result, two-spirit traditions have been oppressed, hidden, and lost.
How the CCGSD says the term is used today:
Today, the term "two-spirit" refers to people who are Indigenous and identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
Although it as used at times as an umbrella term, not every Indigenous person who identifies as LGBTQ+ will use the term, and vice versa.
According to the CCGSD, "Some people use the term Two Spirit in order to distance themselves from colonial society. Others may identify with a nation-specific term, as many Indigenous languages have words for the gender diversity traditionally found in their communities. Like any sexual or gender identity, the term Two Spirit can take on a different meaning for different people. In each case, the term Two Spirit allows the Indigenous person to talk about their identity in the context of their cultural identity, and to resist the colonial definitions of sexuality and gender."
Click play below to hear Luke talk about the term two-spirit as it is known today:
The term "reconciliation" has become a loaded term with some people being for it, and some against it. In broad terms, reconciliation refers to the reparation of horrors committed by the white settlers and the Canadian government such as the sixties scoop and the residential school system.
Click play below to hear Luke's thoughts on reconciliation:
Luke says he knows elders in his community who didn't attend residential schools. He says they express unconditional love. This makes him wonder about how attitudes towards queer Indigenous people were pre-contact. He says the first Russian who came to Champagne Aishihik territory was known for calling the Champagne Aishihik people loving, kind, and fun.
"I see that as something that I want for everybody, especially the people that I know are in my community. Whatever reconciliation is, I see that as part of the direction that I want Yukon to go. I want everyone in the Yukon to be like that."
He says that these elders and people in his community will show unconditional love no matter what.
"My government right now is going through a huge change of making things our way instead of the way that the Canadian government wants our government to run. We're self-governing, we govern ourselves. We're trying to bring those old ways back, we as a community want to nurture that," he says.
Click play below to hear Luke offer advice to Indigenous people like him:
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