Living traditions – Adventures with Indigenous & Celtic Canadians

Kiliii Yüyan is hopping on one leg, a selection of colored hoops distributed around various parts of his body—including one on his upraised arm, which he is just managing to keep aloft with a vigorous jerking motion, as though it were a lasso.

“Now you’re dancing pony!” says Richard Pellissier-Lush, Mi’kmaw actor and artist.

The resemblance is definitely there—the tail, the raised head, the prancing motion. At least for a moment, before the hoops get tangled and Yüyan has to stop. The young female crew of Mi’kmaq dancers who’ve been tutoring him dissolves into giggles. His quads burning, Yüyan is happy to return to his camera as Richard takes over, smoothly maneuvering the hoops to create a sequence of animals, culminating in Great Eagle, while his mother and his wife drum and sing.

 We are on Lennox Island, a 1,300-acre island off the coast of Prince Edward Island, a reserve and Band government of the Mi’kmaq, who are the largest First Nations Tribe in the Atlantic provinces of Canada. The archaeological record shows that they have lived in these lands for thousands of years—long before Europeans arrived in the Americas. Today, many Mi’kmaq are reviving cultural practices that were all but wiped out during the colonial period, and sharing them through performance and interaction.

 The hoop dance is an example of a pan-Indian practice with deep roots—hoops represent the circle of life and many tribes have used them in their healing practices.The modern Hoop Dance was brought to mass attention by a Pueblo Indian from New Mexico called Tony White Cloud, who began to incorporate willow hoops in his dances in the 1930s. Today, it is practiced by Indigenous peoples across Canada and the United States.

 “I find it really beautiful and deeply emotional,” says Yüyan. “All these things they are doing, there is this reclamation of pride and dignity.” Yüyan often spends weeks and months at a time living among Indigenous communities, and his work often reflects not only ways of life that have endured for millennia, but the ways in which younger generations are reengaging with cultural practices that were suppressed.

 “In the small Native communities I’m a part of, I meet people who are in a place where they’re ready to share. There’s this Indigenous journey as a reclamation of heritage and as a way of coming back to the world,” he explains.

 It’s a journey Yüyan himself is familiar with. He is of Chinese-American and Siberian Native Nanai/Hèzhé heritage. His Nanai/Hèzhé grandmother was a big part of his upbringing, instilling in him a profoundly Indigenous perspective on the world—from his spiritual sense of connectedness to nature, to his love of building and piloting kayaks, to his gentle advocacy for Indigenous rights. These are all things that inform his visual storytelling, and are all things he is able to connect with on his travels across Atlantic Canada.

On the beach at Gadd’s Harbor in Newfoundland and Labrador’s Gros Morne National Park, Indigenous nature guide Keith Payne lights a fire with flint and moss kindling, then lays out fresh mackerel and moose steak on the grill. Yüyan takes the opportunity to step quietly to the water’s edge and make an offering. 

 “I do this when I go to a new place, especially a place that has a long tradition of people who’ve inhabited it in a very sacred way,” he explains. “If it's a bit alien to me, I feel like I need to make an offering to make sure I’m welcome. Sometimes it is formal, other times simply getting to know the songs of the birds, the names of the plants, the foods that are there.”

Payne himself is of Mi’kmaq heritage and his tours reveal how the first Indigenous peoples to arrive here 5,000 years ago would have lived—from their fishing and hunting methods to how they built shelters and started fires. After eating the fatty, freshly smoked mackerel and venison, the two men head out on kayaks, paddling the serene waters of Bonne Bay.

Yüyan is interested in how Payne relates to his Indigeneity. “My mother would never talk about it,” he says, “but we always knew.” It was only in his later years, particularly after the federal government in Canada formally recognized the Qalipu Mi’kmaq as a Band, that he and many others like him could be more open about their heritage.

“There’s a difference between indigenous and Indigenous, and Keith really made that point to me,” says Yüyan. “He didn’t understand his capital “I” Indigenous until much later in life. But his deep connection to land and place—hunting, fishing and kayaking—is where his heritage is embodied. He is an Elder, he has this deep connection with the land. The things he has learnt in his life are the things that were taught to him by the land.”

Yüyan always has a laid-back presence, but he’s especially excited to visit Fogo Island off the coast of northeast Newfoundland. Within minutes of arriving at Punt Premises on the island, he is deep in conversation with former fisherman Pete Decker, who is describing a series of arcane looking wooden tools and implements used in boat building. For Fogo islanders, punts are essentially rowboats, built using methods brought over from the British Isles in the 19th century. These days, the few boats that are built are used for tourism not fishing, but the traditional methods are being repurposed to build designer furniture, which is sold all over the world by Shorefast, a community-led charity that is helping Fogo hold onto its traditions by making them relevant in the present. Today, the island is one of Canada’s premier destinations for cultural and nature-based tourism.

“The Fogo Islanders are lovely people. Celtic peoples are sometimes even considered Indigenous, and I agree with that,” says Yüyan. “The Fogo Islanders are so grounded and deeply connected to the fish, the weather, the place where they live.”

Many small fishing communities in Newfoundland and Labrador were destroyed by the cod fishing moratorium in 1992, but Fogo was able to survive by adapting. “I think, in a way, being isolated on an island saved them. They’ve endured hardship but have chosen to stay, and now they’re thriving,” says Yüyan.

From Lennox Island to Gros Morne to Fogo Island, there is a message that repeats itself for him: Connection to nature, to the land and to the ocean. “When we lose our connection with the land, then the lower case ‘i’ indigeneity is lost,” he observes. “And that is something that we all risk, in our increasingly digital lives. But these wild places, where nature is close, remind us.”

“Someone told me once that the land never forgets,” Yüyan reflects. “It is always there to teach you. Even if we forget, it’s ok. Because the land remembers.”

Watch the full Road trip here.