Sunlight on Teslin Lake
September 12, 2009
Teslin Tlingit First Nation
Teslin, Yukon
I have a young friend in Edmonton with family roots in Teslin so I have been looking forward to exploring this beautiful place for a long time. I hope to return within a few weeks to talk to his Dad, his grandmother and many other people about their community. About 450 people live here, and when I explore the village on a September afternoon, I know why they’re lucky.
One of the most famous kids to grow up in Teslin had the Tlingit name Kash’kla, and the English name George Johnston. He was born in 1893, and travelled with his family throughout Tlingit hunting and trapping territory from Teslin Lake to the coast. When he was a young teenager, he visited Juneau, Alaska where he became interested in photography. He ordered a camera by mail as soon as he returned to Teslin and taught himself how to develop his own pictures in a darkroom in his trapping cabin. He became a famous Yukon photographer of Tlingit life from the 1920s to the 1940s. You can see a small selection of his photographs in a special online tribute called George Johnston and his World: Life and Culture of the Inland Tlingit.
In 1928, George decided he wanted to buy a car even though his area had no roads at the time. He travelled to Whitehorse, took a 15-minute driving lesson, purchased a Chevrolet and brought it back to Teslin on a river barge. To accommodate the vehicle, he built a five-kilometre road through the community. Every winter the frozen ice on Teslin Lake became a 125-kilometre highway for Teslin’s only car. George offered a taxi service to trappers, pulling bundles of furs home behind the car. He painted his car white as winter camouflage for hunting trips. The car fell through the ice once, and at times its owner had to patch tires with moose hide and borrow airplane fuel to keep it running, but it ran for decades. George Johnston died in 1993. The Inland Tlingit and the 500 people of Teslin honour his memory at the George Johnston Museum. Step inside here.
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