Beyond Borders Youth Network

This August, fifteen young people spent three days together on the land at Long Ago People’s Place, a Southern Tutchone cultural site near Haines Junction. Most were newcomers, immigrants, and multicultural youth, young people building new lives in the Yukon, often far from home and quietly searching for a place to belong.

It was Beyond Borders Youth Network’s first-ever overnight youth leadership retreat, and it became something none of us will forget. The weekend was built around three themes that gave it its name. Roots invited us to explore who we are and where we come from, the cultures, families, and histories we carry. Routes turned to our journeys, our wellbeing, and the question of how a person finds belonging in a new place. And Bridges looked outward, to using our voices and building the kind of community we want to see in the Yukon.

Over three days of cultural learning, honest conversation, time in nature, and genuine connection, something remarkable happened: a group of strangers became a community. As one participant simply put it afterward, the weekend was “life changing.“

What the Weekend Held

Across three days on the land, participants took part in a rich mix of experiences designed to nourish body, mind, and spirit.

We learned directly from the land and from Indigenous knowledge-holders, beginning with an opening circle led by an Elder, Meta, who welcomed us onto the land. Harold guided us on a nature hike and led a Southern Tutchone interpretive tour, sharing the history, traditions, and tools of this place, not from a textbook, but from someone who lives it.

We explored identity and belonging together, in sessions and circles where participants reflected on home, culture, and what it means to build a life in the Yukon. We held an honest, youth-led conversation about inclusion in the territory, and about how to make it more welcoming for everyone. And we made plenty of room for joy and connection, a Tamagoyaki breakfast demonstration shared from one of the many cultures in our circle, meals cooked and eaten together, team-building games across camp, and evenings gathered close under the long northern light.

The heart of it all, participants told us afterward, was learning from Meta and Harold on the land.

“The learning from the land was the most beautiful part of the experience, something not everyone gets to experience.”

The Impact

We asked participants how the weekend felt. Their responses tell the story better than we ever could.

Ninety-plus percent rated the experience at the very top of our scale. Participants rated feeling welcomed and included at 4.8 out of 5, and the value of learning from an Elder firsthand at 4.8 out of 5. Most meaningfully of all, two out of every three participants said they felt a greater sense of belonging after the weekend than before, a feeling many of them told us they had been searching for since arriving in the Yukon.

For young people who often feel like outsiders, far from family and familiar community, the weekend offered something they had been missing: connection with peers who understand, a sense of being seen with curiosity rather than judgment, and a genuine feeling of belonging, both to a community of peers and to the land itself.

What moved us most was watching participants’ understanding of belonging deepen over the three days. What began as a question, where do I belong?, resolved for many into something more lasting and internal.

“Belonging is actually in your heart.”

“Sharing each other’s experiences made me realize we have unique identities but shared paths here in the Yukon.”

Many participants also discovered deep commonalities between Indigenous culture and their own, in the ways communities care for one another, celebrate together, and honour those they’ve lost. Across all their different backgrounds and journeys, they found something profoundly human that connects us all. And they left with new friendships, new confidence, and a new sense of what’s possible.

Learning That Bridges Culture

A cornerstone of the retreat was meaningful, land-based Indigenous cultural learning, delivered directly by Indigenous knowledge-holders. It was, without question, the most valued part of the weekend.

Learning from Meta and Harold at Long Ago People’s Place was relational and experiential, delivered not from a textbook but through an Elder and knowledge-keeper sharing their own memories, their people’s history, and their living traditions. Participants learned about Southern Tutchone history, culture, and ways of knowing, the Clan system, the reciprocal kinship between the Wolf and the Crow, and even carried home the word Gunalchéesh (thank you).

But the most powerful outcome was the recognition that grew between cultures. Rather than encountering Indigenous culture as something distant, newcomer participants saw their own values and traditions reflected back at them, sparking genuine understanding and, for many, thoughtful reflection.

“It felt very grounding to hear Harold share the history, the practices, the way they grieve death. It reminded me that we share so many traditions and, somewhere deep within, so many similarities.”

This kind of connection, newcomers and Indigenous culture meeting on the land and recognizing one another, is exactly what this weekend set out to create.

A Wild, Wonderful Ending

No account of the weekend would be complete without its ending. On our final morning, the Yukon reminded us who’s in charge: fierce wind and rain swept through camp (our tents very nearly took flight!), and we woke to find a herd of bison near our tent area. Everyone was safe and, honestly, delighted.

It wasn’t the ending we planned, but it became one of the weekend’s best stories, and a real lesson in adapting together, looking out for one another, and finding joy even when the weather has other plans. It was, fittingly, the most Yukon ending imaginable.

Made Possible Together

This retreat was made possible by the generous support of our funders, sponsors, and cultural partners, and by a community that believes in young people. We are deeply grateful to The HOWL Experience, CUSO International, Meta and Harold at Long Ago People’s Place, the Japanese Canadian Association of Yukon, KFC Whitehorse, Canadian Tire Whitehorse, YXY Immigration Consultant, Air North, Chieftain Energy, Kusina Local, and Triniti Technology.

And, of course, to the fifteen remarkable young people who showed up with open hearts and made this weekend what it was. Thank you.

This Is Just the Beginning

Our first retreat showed us what’s possible when newcomer and multicultural youth are given space to connect, learn, and belong. The young people who joined us told us clearly what they need and what they hope to see next: more chances to come together, more time on the land and around the territory, greater awareness of newcomer supports, and resources like mental health support and funding for international students. Most encouraging of all, many of them want to stay involved and help build the welcoming Yukon they imagined together.

That’s exactly what Beyond Borders Youth Network exists to do. We are building community for newcomer, immigrant, refugee, and multicultural youth across the Yukon, and we are just getting started.

“Good work comes with good things. The most beautiful thing in this kind of work are the people you meet along the way.”
— Harold, Long Ago People’s Place

We respectfully acknowledge that we live and work in the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council.