Indigenous peoples of Yukon

Until the 1850s, the Indigenous peoples of the Yukon, part of the Aboriginals of Canada, were the sole inhabitants of the Arctic coast territories. Today, they make up only a quarter of the population of Yukon.[1]

Yukon before European contact

Tlingit women and children.

There are varying accounts about estimates of the population of Yukon at the beginning of the 19th century. Historians first assumed that about 8,000 people,[2] from 7,000 to 8,000 people,[3] or more than 9,000 people lived there.[4] Other estimates indicate that by 1830, approximately 4,700 indigenous people were living in Yukon.[4]

The main part of the territory of modern Yukon was occupied by various Athabaskan tribes. In the north, in the basins of the Peel River and the Porcupine River, there lived Kutchin or, as they call themselves, Gwitchin Indians.[5] On the middle reach of the Yukon River, on the border with Alaska, lived Hän - Indians related to them. Northern Tutchone occupied most of the central Yukon, in basins of the Pelly River and the Stewart River, and Southern Tutchone - southwest of Yukon. In the southeast, in a basin of Liard River, there lived Kaska Indians. In the south, near lakes in upper courses of Yukon there lived Tagish, related to them. In the southwest, in riverheads of the White River, there lived Upper Tanana.[6]

Besides Athabaskan, on the Arctic coast of modern Yukon, including Herschel Island, there lived Inuit (Eskimo). And in the south, down the Teslin River, there lived continental Tlingit (Teslin), whose language, together with Athabaskan languages, is included in the Na-Dene language family.[6] They hunted, fished, and trapped to survive.

The snow-covered Mount Saint Elias in the extreme southwest of Yukon was unsettled.

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ 2006 Community Profiles in Yukon
  2. ↑ http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/klondike/context/firstnationshistory/indexen.html
  3. ↑ Kenneth Coates, William Robert Morrison. Land of the midnight sun: a history of the Yukon. — 2. — Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005. — 362 p.
  4. 1 2 Kenneth Coates. Canada's colonies: a history of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. — James Lorimer & Company, 1985. — 362 p.
  5. ↑ http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/yukon/
  6. 1 2 Wurm, Stephen A.; Mühlhäusler, Peter; Tryon, Darrell T. Volume I. (Trends in Linguistics, Documentation Series, Volume 13) // Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. — Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996.
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