Our Culture

Since the beginning of time, our people have used our land for healing, nurturing and guidance. Our footsteps today still walk alongside our ancestors in practicing our traditional lifestyles.

Our Agreements empower us to manage our land and resources, allow us to stay connected to the land while creating a bright future and where our children can thrive in the contemporary world while still being in touch with their culture.

As a self-governing First Nation , SFN can make laws …. Under the final agreement the FN owns 4739.68 square km of settlement land. The First Nation actively promotes a better healthier lifestyle for its future generations and a strong economy based on its natural resources within its traditional territory.

Long ago, the people of the Selkirk First Nation were known as the Hucha Hudan people, meaning Flatland People. The reason for the Flatland name was because of the landscape in Fort Selkirk, where the land is flat on both sides of the river. Although the modern world has made its footprint in our lives, we still rely heavily on the land for survival.

The Northern Tutchone people have their own way of social organization, which is known as the clan system. There are two clans: Wolf and Crow. Clan membership is based on the mother, which means a child belongs to its mother’s clan. Whatever clan a person was born into, this is the clan that they will have throughout their lives. The clans represent who we are, our connection to other families and our connections to our environment.
The Northern Tutchone people’s society was based on the concept of the group – emphasis was not placed on the individual but the community as a whole.
Elders were, and continue to be, the threads of our community, holding it together. Their roles are an extensive list of responsibilities that assist in the safekeeping of the traditional cultural ways.

The Selkirk First Nation People are deeply connected to the land and continue the stewardship of keystone species that define our cultural practices.

• Own and manage, approach to the land we are stewards of it…

Settlement Land

• is land we own and manage
• There are different categories of settlement land
• link to contact lands and resources

Traditional Territory

• This is land our ancestors inhabited and the land we continue to use to practice our cultural activities.
• The landscape and animal patterns of this territory had deep cultural or spiritual significance to the Northern Tutchone people and continue to be protected.
• link to contact lands and resources

The Selkirk First Nation Government and people reside in the rural community of Pelly Crossing, the halfway point between the Yukon’s capital, Whitehorse and Dawson City. Originally, the Selkirk people lived in Fort Selkirk where they used to go by the Hucha Hudän name.

In the early days, the Selkirk people had a trading relationship with the Coastal Tlingit and would meet to trade during the summer fish camps on the site where Fort Selkirk was to be built by the Hudson’s Bay Company.
After the fur-trading fort was built, the Selkirk people settled there on a more permanent basis, continuing to trap, fish, hunt and gather year-round in their traditional areas. The construction of the Klondike Highway changed everything and soon our people moved to Minto and later on, settled in Pelly Crossing and other communities.

Today, Fort Selkirk is an important heritage site and is co-managed by the Selkirk First Nation and the Government of Yukon. Pelly Crossing remains alongside the beautiful Pelly River and is an ever expanding and developing community.