Seed #5: Listen to the Land
By Carissa Waugh - Ékè Éwe
“Having ceremonies, asking the salmon or caribou to come home… Getting back into dialogue with them... That is what we would do with any of our relatives.”
- Children of Tomorrow
On Monday August 24th, I had the incredible honour of welcoming International guests of the EntrepreNorth’s Empowering Innovation Spirit 2026 Conference out at my family's camp, Atsua Ku (meaning: Grandma’s Camp).
Our tour was called “Sharing Our Stories,” where participants spend time on the land learning about Yukon First Nation values, culture, and community-led approaches to wellbeing.
We had 20 guests from all over, places like Greenland, Sweden, NWT, Manitoba, Seattle, Massachusetts and beyond.
We began by welcoming our guests, offering them refreshments and doing some house-keeping.
Everyone was so friendly and so excited to be out on the land, and I was so excited to invite new people onto our land.
Growing up, I always remember so many people out at our camp, either coming out to visit or just happened to be around and wanted to stop in (a lot of visitors from the river). It was always a busy place. My parents had their wedding ceremony out there in 2003, and one day I will have my wedding out there too.
We started by introducing ourselves; the team included myself, Jen Mierau, Katie Johnson, Dustin McKenzie-Hubbard and Eileen Peters. Dustin led us in a prayer and a smudge — as he went around smudging everyone we had our elder Grandpa Rocky (my parents senior pug) walk around to check on everyone. This was the first time in a long time that I was able to smudge with my parents and my big sister, and it was out at camp!
It was amazing to feel the spirituality and know that our ancestors were with us as we talked.
It started to rain lightly when we started our circle, and one lady mentioned how emotional she was getting and as she was talking the rain came down harder. I always joke about how I control the weather, my mom will sometimes ask me to “split the clouds,” and when I started talking I noticed the rain immediately got lighter and pretty much stopped while I was telling my story.
Another woman started talking and the ravens above us started talking loudly, and then when we had another lady start talking there was a big flock of geese honking and flying right over us. All of our ancestors were showing us they were with us, we just needed to listen to the land.
For lunch we had salmon chowder, (the salmon came from the Taku River, donated by my parents) beef stew, and bannock - if you’ve ever been blessed enough to have my mom’s bannock, you’ll know how exciting this was for our visitors, and team.
I felt so light throughout the whole day. I was in my happy place, Atsua Ku. My parents and my sister were busy in the kitchen and we had new friends who were excited to hear our stories and tell us their own stories. I had just spent all last week at home, incredibly sick with a head cold.
Being able to get on the land, my family's land (I keep repeating this fact because I am in awe still), be in ceremony with people I love, talk about my passions and eat some good food…it was so healing. I was able to gather enough energy to attend the “Empowering Innovation Spirit Conference 2026” at the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Center.
The conference was done so well, with so many cool people, businesses, business ideas, and so many new friends.
The experience has left me feeling incredibly empowered and inspired.
So many of our guests out at camp were speakers at the event, and hearing them talk about their own experiences as entrepreneurs has left me in awe. These amazing people doing amazing things in their own communities wanted to come to my family's camp and learn from us!
I hold my hands up to EntrepreNorth and especially to the CEO Xina Cowan, who is also a big supporter of Reconnection Vision.
It is moments like this that make me so grateful for what I have and may not really see all the time.
Whenever I do ceremony on the Land, I always try to be observant of what is going on around me.
One sign that I will always listen to is when I see a spider, it’s usually when I’m having a conversation or I am in the middle of doing something - it helps me take a step back and realize just how important that moment was.
Check out our teachings for the Seed: Listen to the Land here. How do you listen to the Land? How are you going to start listening to the Land?
Questions:
How can we make time for all people to have a relationship with the Land?
How can we depend on the land without taking too much and instead maintain and enhance the life of the Land?
How can our systems and how we make decisions and view the Land transform from mindsets of control and extraction to cycle and cultivation?
