Indigenous midwifery services 'really essential' in Yukon, prize-winning group says

The Council of Yukon First Nations (CYFN) says the next step for its Indigenous midwifery program, thanks to some new prize money, is to purchase a space that will serve as home to the program and expand its services.

"It's really essential," said Shadelle Chambers, executive director of CYFN.

"We know that the other northern jurisdictions and other jurisdictions across Canada have been expanding Indigenous midwifery services over the last number of decades — so, really important in terms of revitalizing cultural practices."

On Tuesday, the organization's Bibia Nàtsät Ku project was named the big winner of this year's $1-million Arctic Inspiration Prize.   

The money will go toward opening a new, dedicated facility in Whitehorse where Yukon First Nations elders and midwives could offer sexual and reproductive health care, including birthing services. It would also offer training for Indigenous students.

Chambers says the program has been "building a lot of capacity" over the last few years, such as training a couple of dozen Indigenous doulas. They also hope to have a Yukon First Nations midwife on the team soon.

Chambers says it's all about bringing back more traditional birthing practices and ceremony.

"What we want to do is ensure that people have culturally safe services. We know that, historically, that many clinical services are deeply entrenched in racism and discrimination, just based on historical practices and legacies," she said.

"So many of our families actually often don't get the supports and services they need because of that history."

Other prize winners 'insanely hyped'

In all, 12 projects across the North won Arctic Inspiration Prize money on Tuesday, totalling $3.7 million.

Each year, the prize money is awarded to projects in education, health, culture, arts, language, science, traditional knowledge, climate change and the economy. 

Among the other winners this year are an Inuit-led education program for neurodiverse and marginalized youth in Nunavut, a Yellowknife-based project to empower youth through land-based learning, and a project in Nunavik to address food insecurity and strengthen cultural practices through harvesting camps. 

One of the winners in the youth category was a youth dog-sledding program in Inuvik, N.W.T. The Uniaraqtuq project is receiving $100,000 for training youth in dog sledding and other traditional skills, and for a documentary about the work.

Tamara Kaglik, 19, is one of the teens working on the project. She says she was "insanely hyped" to learn they'd won the prize.

"I was about to cry. I started jumping around. Oh my goodness," she said.

The group already does some programming at a site outside of Inuvik and they hope to now maybe build a cabin out there for multi-day stays. Along with dog-sledding, they do things like fishing, hide-stretching, canoeing, kayaking and muskrat-trapping.

"I have grown up with like a lack of access to all of the things we need to be on our land in these modern times, you know. Because it can be really expensive to get a boat, Ski-doo, gas money" said Kaglik.

"So hopefully we just make it free thing for all of the children, youth, and get them away from whatever drugs and alcohol is in the town."