Nicole Morningstar
“Dzenu soothan, Soothan Etsie dan ki uji, Nicole Rondeau kutchan ki uji. Tage Cho hudan, hanjet ichi.
Up until November of last year, I was the head speaker for the Big River people, which is known as the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation. I am from the Crow Clan.
The Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation’s traditional name is the Tagé Cho Hudän, which means “Big River People.” So we have been, since time immemorial, connected to a sense of place, which is the Yukon River. And to our keystone species, which is the Chinook salmon.
We have traditionally been nomadic, and we designed our lives surrounding salmon and the teachings and our traditional knowledges, values, practices and laws that came around and surrounding the fish camp.”
—Nicole Morningstar Rondeau, Chief of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation in Yukon, Canada, from 2020-2024
“My family gathered — we don't anymore, but we gathered every year to fish down at the Yukon River. We had a fish camp. And as a little girl, I can remember running along the river banks of the Yukon river and they were covered in grass and wildflowers.
I remember being yelled at by the aunties on what you were allowed to do and what you could do as a child, and having to be careful about how you maneuver around certain things at the fish camp, which is traditional law.
I used to take the heart and the guts and make little rock placements for them. Putting them on there so that the eagles come and grab them.
And I remember just — a sense of family, and a sense of belonging, and a real tight connection to your culture and heritage and language and everything. The stories that the elderly people had to tell us.
That's probably one of my first memories. Just feeling the waters. Saying prayers for the salmon. Being taught that piece of things. And giving thanks.”
—Nicole Morningstar, Chief of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation in Yukon, Canada, from 2020-2024
“Everything has changed drastically in my 40-some years. When I was a kid, we would pull the net and there would be 30 fish, minimum.
As a teenager it's like — oh, there's five. And then there's three. And it just kept diminishing.
We could visibly see the numbers slow down. And the condition of the salmon as well. Noticing the difference of their quality and what they were battling getting up this far.
That alone had a huge impact. Watching this slowly — but quite quickly, really — happen.
And then it came to a point where I was just starting to have children. I was around 25. And I and my cousins who are in my age group were recognizing that something very bad was happening.
And so our thoughts at that time were— let's fish for the Elders so that the older family members, the older brothers and sisters in my family. So all of our parents have salmon. And so we did that for a year or two and took very little for us and the kids. We wanted to keep the practice going, and the Elders fed.
And then it was basically giving up fishing.
So my family hasn't been fishing for a long time. And then last year, the ban came in for the seven year agreement [preventing salmon harvest], which we were already practicing, in theory. It was already happening for our people. And we were trying to figure out where to get salmon from.
Before the seven year agreement this year, some people were still fishing and some people weren't. And it was creating this dynamic within the community of jealousy. Some people thought it was greed. Other people thought it was a giving up of rights, and succumbing to colonialism. It created social chaos for a moment.
Everybody was right.
They were suffering from what I call a soul wound. Because salmon is so tied to everything.”
—Nicole Morningstar Rondeau, Chief of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation in Yukon, Canada, from 2020-2024
“One cause of salmon declines on the Yukon is obviously climate change. You have forest fires and permafrost melting, reducing protection of keeping the climate of the Yukon River cold. I'm aware of major glaciers that have disappeared on the Yukon River. That is also contributing to warmer waters. You have atmospheric contamination.
The ocean is the elephant in the room where nobody wants to take responsibility, because it's just ground zero for whatever you wanna do. And the pollution that's happening there.
You know, there's so, there's so much in that climate change and environmental realm. And the habitat. That is obviously one of the issues.
And the solution to that issue is adhering to traditional knowledge. First Nations people have always had it.
If we could get the governments to stop playing this politics game, then the solution is absolutely there. And it's power sharing and decision-making based on traditional knowledge and science.
And then you have mining and industrialization in Canada. They have what they call their ‘green plan.’ And in their green plan, it's to extract as many minerals as they possibly can to make these vehicles for industry.
This is not a logical plan.
It's causing a lot of chaos throughout the world. It's everywhere.”
—Nicole Morningstar Rondeau, Chief of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation in Yukon, Canada, from 2020-2024
“In the Yukon, our legislation is archaic. We have the historical legacies from the gold rush, things dumped into the Yukon River.
And then we have pollution. Infrastructure is archaic.
And then we have the mines. And no cumulative effect data and things like what happened up at Eagle Gold Mine going on. We don't even know the result of that yet.
So lack of environmental monitoring on these mines, and lack of enforcement, is an issue. And I'm sure it is in Alaska as well. And the mines that are all along the river in Alaska.
There’s a thought of gold mining as a mom and pop shop. But now, it’s heavy machinery. It's large scale. It's a massive amount of dirt being moved. And it's definitely evolved into something that's much larger, and traumatic for the earth. And there is little to no mitigation of what is occurring there. It’s not just placer mining, it's quartz mining as well.
It’s the case throughout the world of what we've created. We as a human race have bitten off more than we could chew and we don't know how to stop it.
But what is the consequence of ecocide?”
—Nicole Morningstar Rondeau, Chief of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation in Yukon, Canada, from 2020-2024
“First Nations aren’t out to harm anybody. We want economic development just as much as everybody else. We want sustainable development. We want stability. But we want it done in a manner that protects our environment to the maximum. We don’t need to be using cyanide to extract gold. The amount the Casino gold mine plans to use (about 200 miles northwest of Whitehorse) is absurd.
Why are we holding on to being so archaic at the cost of the environment, when you could just be putting it basically at the cost up front?
The mining is going to continue. It’s not going to stop. But any miners who have good intentions would not be averse to what the First Nations are saying.”
—Nicole Morningstar Rondeau, Chief of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation in Yukon, Canada, from 2020-2024
“I put my name forward to serve as Chief because I wanted to make a difference for my people and for the future generation. I have three children. I really wanted to see my First Nation thrive and grow. And try to make sure that the harvesting rights for my children are protected. The recreation. The heritage. Everything that they have in order to grow healthy, healthy humans was going to be possible. I had a lot of people put their faith and trust in me.
One of the biggest things that I wanted to do was — I have no connections to the Alaskan First Nations. I wanted to see if we were all on the same page, and what was happening. Because you have a lot of blame game that happens in this thing where it's like ‘You're fishing.’ ‘No, you’re not fishing.’ And that's what I felt when I first came into my position. I could see that happening. And so, one of my missions was to go to Washington and to let them know what a Yukon First Nation citizen and chief would be saying about the Yukon River salmon.
We accomplished that. We ended up going to Washington. Our member of Parliament came with us. And we met with the representatives of Alaska and the United States. And we weren't saying anything different than their First Nations citizens were saying.
We were also in the House of Commons (part of Canada’s legislature) and letting them know what's happening.
I was a funnel, and a voice. And it was the work of many, many, many years of Elders and technicians and all different sorts of Nations and non First Nations and biologists and specialists. But through this, we were able to move things forward. I was glad to be able to just participate in those things.”
—Nicole Morningstar Rondeau, Chief of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation in Yukon, Canada, from 2020-2024
“Have you ever heard of giving a river personhood rights? Ultimately, that would be my biggest vision for the future — that the Yukon River has personhood rights. And that it's cleaned up, and it's protected. And that ecocide is legislated. That you're legally held to murder, if you are going to be harming the environment.
In my ideal future, the oceans would be mitigated and taken care of. All it is is adhering to our traditional knowledge. And First Nation peoples given the first right of harvest.
And so if, if they were to adhere to traditional knowledge, then we won't be in the situation that we're in. That's where the movement needs to happen with the whole world, basically. Get back to basics and get back to treating the environment with respect and integrity.”
—Nicole Morningstar Rondeau, Chief of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation in Yukon, Canada, from 2020-2024