Map of the Land, Map of the Stars

• Published in: Canadian Theatre Review
• Main Authors: Clarke, Christine, Doyon, Geneviève, Flather, Patti, Hunter, Andrameda, Linklater, Leonard, Nolan, Yvette, Olson, Michelle, Robinson, Aimée Dawn
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) 2018
• Subjects: Visual Arts and Performing Arts; First Nations; Alaska; Yukon
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/ctr.174.013; https://ctr.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/ctr.174.013

Before the highways, Yukon peoples freely travelled the rivers and trails, guided by the stars and their knowledge of the land. The play is about searching for our stories, gathering them, honouring them. It celebrates people’s deep connections between the land and the sky, which go back thousands of years for Yukon First Nations—the Indigenous people who lived here first. This play happens in many times and places. The audience time-travels back and forth with the seven performers to hear stories, songs, and dances from different times and people. This play explores how major events disrupted people’s way of life on the land. The Klondike Gold Rush was one. Thousands of stampeders came to the Yukon hoping to get rich. The building of the Alaska Highway during World War II brought more incredible changes to Yukon people. It also was very hard for the American soldiers who had to build it, many of them young African-American men. Some stories are about the colonization of Indigenous people: “the process where one group imposes its values and cultural beliefs on another group over time.” The laws, religions, and residential school system’s painful effects on families are part of these stories. The play also looks at how people come together in positive ways. Many fall in love with this land, and people already living here, and start new lives together. With this play, we’re trying to search for a good trail forward together, with reconciliation and harmony, for all of us.