Ronnie Young, of the Kaska First Nation and Crow clan, was born in 1962. She grew up in Watson Lake, an Alaska highway town of about 800 people in southern Yukon.
Ronnie has a passion for photography. She became friends with a professional photographer and is now hooked on taking pictures, especially while she's out on the land.
"I kind of got obsessed with getting closeups of bears and moose, and going out on the land and out on the mountains," she says.
Click the arrow to browse through some of Ronnie's photos (all photos in the photoset below are courtesy of Ronnie Young):
“For me, going out and taking pictures makes me feel at ease," she says. "It takes away the stress of everything. When I’m stressed out on campus I’d go out and find a place and take pictures and it makes me forget about everything because I’m focusing on what’s in front of me.”
The peace Ronnie feels from capturing images of wildlife was not so easy for her to find earlier in life.
Click play below to hear from Ronnie:
Ronnie says that where she grew up was exclusionary to anyone who felt or looked different. “You’re either white or brown, boy or girl,” she says. Both Ronnie’s parents and her grandparents attended residential school. Her upbringing, though positive at times, was steeped in intergenerational trauma.
Ronnie’s mother died when she was 11. She says her family has also grappled with addiction and suicide. “I grew up around a lot of people that drank a lot. They’d been hurt a lot by residential school,” she shares. Though Ronnie did not attend residential school, she couldn’t escape Canada’s attempts to eradicate Indigenous ways of life. Many people from Ronnie's Kaska First Nation were forced to attend residential school.
From the age of six to 10, Ronnie attended day school in Watson Lake. The only difference between residential school and day school is that Ronnie was able to go home at the end of the day, instead of staying in lodging far from home.
Throughout her years at St. Ann’s Catholic School, Ronnie says she encountered violence from administrators and other students. She was targeted by students for being different and was then punished for fighting by the principal by being strapped on the palms.
She learned from a young age that she couldn’t live as her true self. Her energy was devoted to surviving an environment where racism and violence were common. As early as six, Ronnie was defending herself from violence at school.
“It was a racist community where there were a lot of fights between white people and First Nations people,” she says. “I got into a lot of fights because I was different.”
When Ronnie was too small to fight for herself, her cousins fought for her. Eventually, they told her she needed to fight her own battles. In her teens, Ronnie started bodybuilding out of a home gym.
“You either get beat up or get stronger, so I got stronger,” she says.
Ronnie didn’t feel good about fighting. It wasn’t a choice for her, it was a matter of survival. Eventually, she was able to help others like her cousins had helped her.
“No one wants to beat up other people,” she says, “but I didn’t like the bullies. The older white kids would pick on younger kids, so I had to stand up for the smaller people, those who couldn’t defend themselves.” The violence didn’t come exclusively from students. Administrators, principals and teachers used physical discipline.
“I know I got strapped a lot,” she says, remembering the pain across her palms.
She grew accustomed to it. “You can’t let the teachers know it hurts,” she says.
“We had some teachers that weren’t really nice. I’ve seen some teachers grab kids by the back of their hair and lift them off the ground and drag them out of the class. It wasn’t pretty,” she explains.
She faced another profound challenge: she was born as a boy.
At 10 years old, Ronnie realized she was transgender.
To protect herself from additional hardship she kept her identity secret, growing up and presenting as male. She wasn’t able to transition until her adult life. In her early fifties, she went through gender reassignment surgery.
“I wanted to die, holy jeez! When the first pain hit me,” she says.
Ronnie was given painkillers to help her recover from surgery. She says her family, mainly her brothers and sisters, stopped talking to her because they couldn’t tolerate the change. Ronnie’s daughter and grandchildren still keep in touch, but she doesn’t see them frequently.
Click play below to hear Ronnie talk about her family and transitioning:
The pain had a purpose. Ronnie was finally living as her true self. She relied on the community around her for support. She made friends easily, and soon garnered a support network.
One such friend is Akiko Allen, who Ronnie affectionately calls Kiko. She is a professional makeup artist from Whitehorse.
Kiko teaches Ronnie how to apply makeup and skin care products. The pair meet up every other month to do Ronnie’s makeup.
“It feels really, really good to help someone open up and be who they truly want to be,” Kiko says.
“It’s honouring that I can help her find her way and feel comfortable. Our friendship really blossomed.”
Click play below to see Kiko do Ronnie's makeup:
“I feel good. I don’t have to hide anymore. I can be out in the open and go to pride parades. There are laws now that protect gay and trans people,” says Ronnie.
“In Whitehorse, I surround myself with protective people. I’m safe at the Yukon College. People check in on me and make sure I’m safe. There’s always someone watching over me.”
Ronnie attributes her strength to her grandparents.
“My grandparents are pretty influential in my life. I grew up with them. My grandfather went to residential school a long time ago and he always told me to be strong, especially when I’m out on the land by myself," she says.
“He’d say, ‘you gotta be strong, you gotta rely on your own self, but also don’t take any chances.’ He’d tell me, ‘the land doesn’t forgive. You make a mistake, you’re dead, plain and simple.’”
Ronnie’s connection to her culture doesn’t end with the advice of her grandparents. She is also relearning the Kaska language through the University of British Columbia’s Indigenous languages program.
Ronnie is pursuing a master's degree in anthropology with plans of getting a doctorate. She is most interested in learning more about the history of Indigenous people in the Yukon, how they got here and survived here from the time of the last ice age.
Click play below to hear me ask Ronnie what she is most proud of, and to hear her give advice to Indigenous people like her:
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*The photo and video in this profile were gathered with the help of Shanice Pereira and Adam Van der Zwan.*