Yukon International Storytelling Festival
The Yukon International Storytelling Festival, an international gathering of storytellers in the Canadian Yukon, takes place every year in summer in the capital Whitehorse instead. His emphasis is on the stories of the people who live around the North Pole, especially the First Nations, the Alaska Natives and Inuit, or Eskimo, but also northern Siberian peoples.
It was initiated by Angela Sidney (1902-1991), which was one of the Tagish and had visited the mid-1980s, the festival was founded in 1979 of storytelling in Toronto. One of the last Tagish speakers they wanted to tell the stories of their people. The plans for the festival began in 1987, the following year it was held for the first time. Narrator from all over the world visit Whitehorse.
Angela Sidney had recently received in 1902 three names after their birth in the year, one in Tagish, Ch'óonehte ' Ma, in a Tlingit, STOOW and one in English, Angela. According to their cultural environment they grew up in Carcross on trilingual. Her mother was Tlingit, Tagish her father, a frequent at the Tagish connection. Her father was related to Skookum Jim, Dawson Charlie and Kate Karmack that had triggered by their finds the Klondike Gold Rush. She visited her between 7 and 10 years, the mission school in Carcross. At 14 she married George Sidney, who later became chief, gave birth to seven children, four of whom died. After the death of her husband in 1971, she went to her relatives to Alaska. She learned the Tagish stories of her mother and the Tlingit stories of their paternal kinship. Soon they told their stories in schools and visited in 1984, the storyteller Festival in Toronto. In 1986, she became the first indigenous woman of the Yukon Order of Canada. She collaborated with linguists, especially with Julie Cruiksbank who published their collections.
In 1988, 16 of the 23 languages represented are those of the natives. In 1991, the festival got its present name. In 1992 it came to diplomatic complications associated with the loaded Russian guests, the following year, a devastating storm the tents, 1994 was the festival almost before the financial end.
On a smaller scale, it was continued in 1995 and was able to make a profit for the first time even. Since 1998, it is supported by the Canada Council. In 2005, the activities already distributed to twelve tents, among these was a Japanese drum ensemble, a Capoeiragruppe, 2006 occurred a Mongolian narrator group.
In 2008, the festival did not take place outside for the first time, but in the Yukon Arts Centre, where Inuit throat singing, an Acadian storyteller and the founder of the festival in Toronto, Dan Yashinsky were present, as well as Ida Calmagane, the daughter of died in 1991, festival founder.