Home of the Kaska Dena Council.
Ross River sits at the confluence of the Pelly and Ross rivers and has been a permanent settlement for a little over 100 years. It found its way onto maps thanks to the fur trade, but if you are to travel there today, you’ll find the remnants of the short-lived pipeline and road construction that happened during World War 2. A five minute walk from the town centre takes you to the river bank where two massive towers, more rust than metal, support a delicate wooden suspension bridge. The bridge was built to cradle a tube of American oil over the water below. When the pipeline was first put in, it simply laid across the frozen river. However, it was a nuisance for the locals who travelled across the ice on their dogsleds, hence the construction of the bridge.
Other remnants of industrialism are scattered throughout the town. Some are from the pipeline era: spools of cable, shapeless piles of scrap metal. Most seem to be from the mining years - approximately 1950 to the 1990s. The most common seem to be gas pumps. Today, there is only a single functioning pump, but there are at least three decrepit gas stations. It’s as if a great thirst for fuel has been satiated; that would be a first, wouldn’t it? Nothing’s been done to do away with these broken down, rusted over relics of construction, oil, and mining. As a result, they don’t feel like trash. Instead, the modern history of Ross River - or at least a small, physical part of it - sits in plain sight.
I found that the presence of the objects - the barrels, the pumps, the broken down vehicles, the bridge - obscured the older, richer history held in the land surrounding the town. Like the pipeline - the one that once obstructed mushers 70 years ago - industrialism (and colonialism) have hindered and obscured the history that has existed since long before Ross River existed on a map. The First Nations people arrived in the Yukon between 10,000 and 25,000 years ago. Where the town of Ross River sits has been a traditional gathering ground for the Kaska First Nations since time immemorial. It’s striking that 100 years of settlement have managed to hide more than 10,000 years of existence.
I’ve heard people talk about the alcoholism and abuse that is rife in Ross River. It’s not much of a surprise. The town has survived colonization, an influenza epidemic, and forcible relocation. Hell, they had to fight with the Yukon government just to be able to build a radio tower. These wounds take generations to heal. Each one is a pipeline that, instead of being lifted out of the way, swelled and burst, spilling pain and poison. Yet, during my visit, all I saw was resiliency, community, warmth, acceptance. These are the traits that have endured for thousands of years in Ross River. I hope more barriers can be lifted and the tired, inaccurate, one-dimensional narrative of broken Yukon communities can be thrown in with the scrap metal from decades past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_River,_Yukon
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/yukon/
http://www.gov.yk.ca/news/history.html#The_fur_trade
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/kaska/
