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Salmon’s Journey. One River, One Life.

To mark 15 years of international cooperation, a special presentation was made to the Panel by the Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee members of the Panel’s Canadian section. Canadian Panel member Harvey Jessup, presented the Panel with a specially commissioned art work designed, carved and painted by renowned Northern Tutchone and Tlingit artist Eugene Alfred of the Selkirk First Nation from Pelly Crossing, Yukon.

Yukon River Press Release for December 2017

Yukon River Panel Press Release for December 2017. The Yukon River Panel celebrated 15 years of international cooperation when they held their 2017 Post-Season Meeting in Whitehorse, Yukon between December 11th and 13th, 2017. Highlights of the meeting may be found in the Press Release. Meeting minutes are under development and will be made available in due course.

Celebration 15 Years of International Cooperation: The Yukon River Panel 2017 Post-Season Meeting

The Yukon River Panel will be holding their 2017 Post-Season Meeting between Dec 9th and 13th at the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre in Whitehorse, Yukon. Meetings are open to the public on Wednesday Dec 12th and Thursday Dec 13th. For those that cannot attend in person, a live webcast is available for the first time. The webcast link is available on the Meetings page.

Selkirk Nation Salmon Citizen Outreach and Communications Plan

Selkirk First Nation (SFN) citizens are actively fishing for Yukon River Chinook and are very traditional people. Engagement with the middle Yukon River and the Northern Tutchone First Nations is important and essential to get a full picture of the Canadian side of the Yukon River fishery. SFN leadership would like to work with agencies, other First Nations, and other stakeholders to support conservation and positively contribute to rebuilding Canadian-origin Yukon River and Pelly River stocks. Citizen outreach and communications is where it starts to ensure that the people along the river understand, are actively involved, and part of the solution. There are also advantages in supporting SFN in that they are connected to other actively fishing Northern Tutchone First Nations. The May Gathering is a pivotal annual meeting where the Northern Tutchone Governments discuss fish and wildlife. By SFN presenting strategic and well informed communications materials at the May Gathering serves to inform all middle river Yukon communities.

There is an increased interest by agencies, media and other stakeholders in the approach that SFN is taking to manage their Chinook and Fall Chum fisheries. It takes an incredible amount of effort and resources to keep citizens informed and often the external audiences and their interests are secondary. This SFN Salmon Citizen Outreach and Communications initiative will also create materials for external organizations to understand the SFN approach to salmon management, assessment and restoration.

As discussed youth will also be a target audience with some dedicated outreach and communications. This may take place with a presentation/workshop at Eliza Van Bibber school or dedicated materials. This is mainly a K-12 group. Many young people (teenagers and adults) are involved, helping at family fish camp but do not know the context around management.

Salmon in the Schools

The Salmon in the Schools (SIS) program was piloted in 2017-18, delivered and refined in 2018-19, was
further enhanced for 2019-2020 and programming was reinforced through 2020-2021 and 2021/2022. We propose to sustain and maintain the programming and content in 2022-2023. Rivers to Ridges (R2R) will continue to enhance the classroom, public relations, partnership development, media relations and communications components of the program.

In this next stage of the program, we aim to work with the relevant stories and modules we made in the past, and work with and support Yukon educators and local salmon stewards to provide training with educators so they can learn to facilitate the curriculum we have developed.

While DFO currently supports these technical elements (tanks, egg takes, maintenance, etc.) of the
Stream to Sea program, R2R will offer relevant story-based support to educators and learners by
offering resources, classroom visits across the Yukon, relevant educational support that is outdoor,
land-based, and culturally connected.

The impetus for this project is driven by the concern that the Yukon public is losing their connection to Yukon salmon. In the absence of being able to fish for Canadian-origin Yukon River and Porcupine salmon (recreational and commercial) and drastic conservation (subsistence) amongst First Nations and rural Alaska and Yukon, there are limited opportunities to harvest and make a connection. In the absence of this connection there is a concern that they will no longer value and protect this resource.