Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé
Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé is of the Niisüü clan from White River First Nation in Tthèe tsa’ niik (also known as Beaver…
Indigenous Sovereignty
Creating
Representation
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Born in the late 1920s, Tom grew up in the Big Salmon River region of Yukon before moving to Whitehorse, YT, with her family in 1948, where she still lives today. Tom is a member of the Crow clan; her Northern Tutchone name is Et’ats’inkhalme. She was taught how to sew by her mother, but she became truly interested in creating after her mother began describing traditional garments and functional objects to her, and she came into contact with some of them in use by her aunts, uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers. Concerned that many of these functional objects were no longer being made due to the convenience of purchasing mass-produced versions from stores, Tom set out to preserve the skills needed to make them herself.
Tom works with glass beads, sealskin, canvas ad moosehide as well as coyote, rabbit, beaver and wolf fur in her artwork, crafting baby booties, mukluks, moccasins, mitts, hats and vests that are often intricately beaded with patterns passed down from her mother and grandmother. She sells her pieces online through the Yukon First Nation Arts Shop and at festivals like Adäka Cultural Festival.
Outside of this visual practice, Tom has a significant written and oral storytelling practice, having been involved in language preservation work since 1961, when she began working for CBC radio in Whitehorse as a translator and broadcaster. In the late 60s and early 70s she served as a Community Health Worker, using her translation knowledge to help doctors and nurses deliver care to patients. She began working as a Native Language Specialist with the Yukon Native Language Centre (YNLC) in 1977, eventually attaining her Native Language Instructor Certificate from Yukon College in Whitehorse in 1986. During her time at YNLC, Tom developed a practical alphabet for Northern Tutchone and published multiple booklets and materials to support language learning, including Dùts’um Edhó Ts’ètsi Yu Dän K’í, or How to Tan Hides in the Native Way (1981), Èkeyi: Gyò Cho Chú, or My Country: Big Salmon River (1987), a student’s noun dictionary, conversation lessons in Northern Tutchone and an extensive collection of traditional stories from herself and other Elders living in the Carmacks region of Yukon. Although she “retired” from her formal language work in 1992, she went on to record a series of language lessons with YNLC between 2004 and 2007 to teach the Northern Tutchone dialect.
Tom continues to make and sell artwork to this day. Her pieces can be found in the Yukon Permanent Art Collection in Whitehorse as well as at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Notably, when six of her works were acquired by MOA in the 1990s, Tom personally included documentation details about provenance, use and materials as well as ideas and interpretations of the objects from her own point of view.
This video was originally published by the Yukon First Nations Arts on October 15, 2021. Courtesy of Yukon First Nations Culture and Tourism Association.
Launched in 2011, the Adäka Cultural Festival’s mission is to develop and deliver a world-class, iconic festival that showcases, celebrates, and fosters the development of Yukon’s diverse and distinctive First Nations arts and culture. The festival is administered by the Yukon First Nations Culture and Tourism Association (YFNCT). YFNCT is a not-for-profit organization committed to growing, promoting and celebrating strong and sustainable Yukon First Nations arts, culture and tourism sectors.
We, the hosts and organizers of Arctic Arts Summit 2022, recognize and respect the many languages of the circumpolar region. The core information on this site is presented in English and French, Canada’s two official languages, as well as in Inuktut, the most widely spoken Indigenous language in the North of Canada, and Southern Tutchone, one of the many First Nation languages in Yukon and the language of the nations on whose territory the in-person Summit will be hosted. The discursive and artistic content on this platform will be available in the language in which it was submitted and/or created.
We acknowledge the predominance of English on the site. This is, in part, a reflection of the use of English as a widely understood language throughout the circumpolar region today. We will, however, encourage and actively seek to include content that reflects the many languages of the North.
View in French | View in Inuktut | View in Southern Tutchone
The hosts and organizers of Arctic Arts Summit 2022 acknowledge and affirm the Articles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and recognize the inherent rights and historical territories of Indigenous peoples across the North and around the world. We recognize and respect the First peoples of the many lands of the circumpolar region.
Connection to land, territories, histories, and cultures are fundamental to our sense of who we are as peoples and societies. We honour this connection and commit to our shared journey of conciliation as we work to build an equitable, sustainable, just, and collaborative future for all.
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