Indigenous Relations

In the spirit of reconciliation, other actions the City has undertaken include the following:

• We fly the Yellowknives Dene First Nation (YKDFN) and North Slave Metis Alliance (NSMA) flags at City Hall, along with the Canadian, NWT and City flags
• Memorandum of Understanding with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation on relationships and services
• Regular Council to Council meetings with YKDFN and regular meetings between Mayor/Chiefs, and senior staff (CEO and City Administrator)
• Collaboration with YKDFN on:

o the boundary between our two communities – a ground-breaking approach which involved our two communities exploring interests and reaching agreement before we jointly submitted to GNWT
o Community Economic Development Initiative (CEDI) – joint economic development partnership sponsored by CANDO and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities
o NAKA Festival – to celebrate aurora. Inaugural festival took place February 2019
o Hockey Day In Canada

• Regular engagement with the North Slave Metis Alliance (NSMA)
• Collaboration with YKDFN and NSMA on securing a safe clean source of water for our communities for the water submarine line replacement from the mouth of the Yellowknife River 

• Intercultural Heritage & Placemaking Plan – implementation in 2020 Support for Urban Hide Tanning
• Elder in residence at the Library
• Land tenure for AIWF’s healing camp on City owned land  
• Supporting healing and wellness programming at the AIWF healing camp
• Training for all City employees on the history and legacy of residential schools

The City of Yellowknife is committed to building relationships with Indigenous Peoples in the spirit of reconciliation. City Council recently confirmed its Strategic Priorities for 2019-2022 and reconciliation is highlighted as one of six core values for the City.

The following quotes from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) “What We Have Learned: Principles Truth and Reconciliation” document reflect the City’s understanding of reconciliation:
“To the Commission, ‘reconciliation’ is about establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in this country.”[1]

“Reconciliation must support Aboriginal peoples as they heal from the destructive legacies of colonization that have wreaked such havoc in their lives. But it must do even more. Reconciliation must inspire Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples to transform Canadian society so that our children and grandchildren can live together in dignity, peace, and prosperity on these lands we now share.”[2]

“At a Traditional Knowledge Keepers Forum sponsored by the TRC, Anishinaabe Elder Mary Deleary spoke about the responsibility for reconciliation that both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people carry. She emphasized that the work of reconciliation must continue in ways that honour the ancestors, respect the land, and rebalance relationships. She said:

“I’m so filled with belief and hope because when I hear your voices at the table, I hear and know that the responsibilities that our ancestors carried ... are still being carried ... even through all of the struggles, even through all of what has been disrupted ... we can still hear the voice of the land. We can hear the care and love for the children. We can hear about our law. We can hear about our stories, our governance, our feasts, [and] our medicines.... We have work to do. That work we are [already] doing as [Aboriginal] peoples. Our relatives who have come from across the water [non-Aboriginal people], you still have work to do on your road.... The land is made up of the dust of our ancestors’ bones. And so to reconcile with this land and everything that has happened, there is much work to be done ... in order to create balance.”[3]

TRC Principles of Reconciliation

The City will use the TRC Principles of Reconciliation as a compass in our work; they are:

1. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the framework for reconciliation at all levels and across all sectors of Canadian society.
2. First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples, as the original peoples of this country and as self-determining peoples, have Treaty, constitutional, and human rights that must be recognized and respected.
3. Reconciliation is a process of healing relationships that requires public truth sharing, apology, and commemoration that acknowledge and redress past harms.
4. Reconciliation requires constructive action on addressing the ongoing legacies of colonialism that have had destructive impacts on Aboriginal peoples’ education, cultures and languages, health, child welfare, administration of justice, and economic opportunities and prosperity.
5. Reconciliation must create a more equitable and inclusive society by closing the gaps in social, health, and economic outcomes that exist between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians.
6. All Canadians, as Treaty peoples, share responsibility for establishing and maintaining mutually respectful relationships.
7. The perspectives and understandings of Aboriginal Elders and Traditional Knowledge Keepers of the ethics, concepts, and practices of reconciliation are vital to long-term reconciliation.
8. Supporting Aboriginal peoples’ cultural revitalization and integrating Indigenous knowledge systems, oral histories, laws, protocols, and connections to the land into the reconciliation process are essential.
9. Reconciliation requires political will, joint leadership, trust building, accountability, and transparency, as well as a substantial investment of resources.
10. Reconciliation requires sustained public education and dialogue, including youth engagement, about the history and legacy of residential schools, Treaties, and Aboriginal rights, as well as the historical and contemporary contributions of Aboriginal peoples to Canadian society.[4]
The City of Yellowknife is working to develop a Reconciliation Plan that will confirm the foundation for how the City will build respectful relationships with, and create a more inclusive representation of, Indigenous Peoples within the City of Yellowknife.

If you are looking to find more information about the City of Yellowknife’s community engagement on reconciliation or to provide ideas or feedback on reconciliation please click here.

The City of Yellowknife acknowledges that the community of Yellowknife exists as a result of the forced dispossession of Indigenous peoples, members of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation (YKDFN), from their traditional ancestral lands. This truth need to be told to create an accurate shared history upon which respectful relationships can be built. As the City seeks to work respectfully with the Yellowknives in the spirit of reconciliation, there is acknowledgement of the unique relationship that needs to be built and maintained with the YKDFN. As such, the City works to uphold a government-to-government relationship with the YKDFN with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that outlines high level commitments to collaboration.