Yukon Housing Pet Policy Questioned

Submitted

It has come to the attention of Humane Society Dawson that the appointed board for the Dawson City Housing Association has decided to begin enforcing the “NO PET” policy in its Social Housing units, but to continue to allow YTG employees who live in Yukon Housing units to have pets. This is of grave concern to Humane Society Dawson and I am sending this letter to voice our concerns and to encourage you to reconsider this decision.

This sudden enforcement of the “no pet” policy, after seven years on not enforcing it, is not only cruel, it is blatantly discriminatory toward those in Social Housing units. There is absolutely no justification for allowing pets in some units and not in others based on the tenant’s employment situation. This, combined with the callous disregard for the love a pet can give, and the obvious discredit of thoroughly documented benefits of pet ownership (including better social development of children, better health and utilization of health services by seniors, and reduced hypertension and cardiovascular disease) is appalling.

By not enforcing your “no pet” policy in the past you have allowed the tenants to acquire pets which they now may have had for many years and which are essentially a part of the family. As some of these tenants could not afford to live in anywhere else, suggesting that finding other accommodation or relinquishing a family member is a “choice” is ludicrous.

Of immediate concern to us at HSD is a torrent of requests to surrender pets or access boarding services that will come from the sudden enforcement of this policy. Our shelter has very limited space available and we fear that this will force some tenant’s to have their pets euthanised, a prospect completely unacceptable to HSD and the tenants concerned.

In the fall of 2002, the Yukon Humane Society and Humane Society Dawson were consulted by Yukon Housing in the drafting of a pet policy, which was to be considered for implementation in all Yukon Housing units territory-wide. This process took much time and effort, but eventually we created a policy that dealt with all issues of concern to Yukon Housing employees and board members. This policy dealt fairly with such issues as multi-unit buildings, allergy concerns, limits on numbers of pets per unit, noise complaints, damage done by pets, and gives much power to the YH board as “landlords”.

Humane Society Dawson would like this policy to again be considered. In the meantime we request that the enforcement of the “No Pet” policy to be put on hold until an equitable solution, such as the implementation of a Pet Policy, can be found.

Sincerely,

Board of Directors

Humane Society Dawson

Celebrating the Myths and Mediums of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Culture

by Dan Davidson

March 6, 2004

The big, sunlit atrium of the Dänòja Zho Cultural Centre was pleasantly full of people on the final afternoon of the Myth and Medium conference. Around the room some forty folk were engaged in a variety of craft works which reflected the focus of the event: learning more about the past legends and culture of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in.

Earlier in the month elementary students at the Robert Service School had completed a project called “The Secret Life of Artifacts” (see last issue for details), going on field trips to Oak Hall (Parks Canada), the Dawson City Museum and Dänòja Zho (Long Ago House) to examine first nation artifacts and prepare drawings and reports about them. All of these were on display in the main conference room, along with numerous actual physical artifacts brought in from all over town.

Glenda Bolt, one of the organizers with the first nation’s cultural department, summed up the last day of the conference in these words, “It’s a day of good things in and good things out.”

The four day event actually began with an evening showing of the students’ work on Wednesday, Feb. 25. On Thursday (which was a school holiday) there was a series of workshops and presentations on such subjects as first nations artifact collections, preservation of artifacts and the digital storage of oral history recordings.

Linnea Battel travelled to Dawson from Mission, B.C. to talk about the Xa:ytem Longhouse Interpretive Centre and the work going on there. That evening, there was a showing of Gil Cardinal’s documentary, Totem: the Return of the G’psgolox Pole. This film chronicles the tale of a 19th century Haisla memorial pole which was taken to Sweden in 1929, rediscovered by the Kitamaat people in 1991, and returned to its place of origin quite recently. It is a complex tale of a “stolen” artifact that might not have survived if it had not been preserved in a museum in Stockholm for all the years in between.

Cardinal himself was supposed to have been in Dawson to introduce the film and give a talk on its making, but he was fogged-in in Toronto during a week when Dawson was enjoying some fine, sunny late winter weather.

On Friday representative of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, Parks Canada, the Dawson City Museum and the Yukon Government staged a panel discussion called “Working Together: the Opportunities and Impacts of Emerging First Nations Heritage Programs”. The afternoon saw the beginning of the craft activities that would continue for much of Saturday, along with some Hän Language activities conducted by Angie Joseph-Rear.

On Friday evening there were two community presentations in the lecture hall. The first was on Yukon Ice Patch research by Diane Strand, who has been working with artifacts discovered in melting ice fields in the southern Yukon; the other was historian David Neufeld’s lecture and slide show about how Yukon first nations have interacted with the land in legend and in culture over the centuries. Neufeld has been doing a lot of cooperative work in Dawson over the last few years, and his talk is partly the story of his own growth in understanding.

Saturday was set aside for more work on crafts: snowshoe webbing, babiche bags, beading, sewing, leather work and more. There was a particular emphasis on snowshoes, with Champagne-Aishihik elder Paddy Jim on hand to show how the work is done.

“The only way you learn is to try,” he told Georgette McLeod, who watched with admiration as Jim created the complex webbing patterns in front of her.

One of the displays was of different types of snowshoes, with Glenda Bolt said were from various places, including the TH collection, which had been increased just that day by a donation from the Titus family. Mr. Titus said the shoes had been made for his mother many years ago.

Organizer Jody Beaumont was pleased with the turnout.

“We’ve had a lot of traffic in and out for all the events we’ve been having all week. “ At times the center was crowded with 100 people or more.

“There were lots of visitors from other towns: Old Crow, Champagne-Aishihik, Mayo and Whitehorse.”

Beaumont said that some of the visitors were looking at developing similar programs in their communities and were in Dawson to see how things were organized here.

“The school project was really something,” Beaumont said. “There are some great stories from that group.”

That afternoon Angie Joseph-Rear thought the best part of the event was the sewing, which she really likes, but she might have changed her mind after the feast and the dancing at the Community Hall across the road. The tables were laden with lots of traditional foods, and the costumed youngsters presented a display of group dancing, scarf dancing and jigging that eventually got a lot of the older folks up and moving as well.

It was a fitting way to end a half week of events celebrating heritage, or, as it is translated into Hän, “däno nts’ä tr’ädäl” (how we come through the past).