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Description

1940s: The Alaska-Canada Highway and the Canol Pipeline
The Hapo Reads Canadian History Comic (which still needs a better title)
[>>> read top to bottom, left to right >>> ]
So today is my last day in E-town and my parents are gonna be here any minute to help me get ready for my trip east and I wanted to get this done (though I was set back A lot by school and program crashes wehh. Anyway, my number two non-ancient historical obsession after the gold rush is the post WWII/Cold War era, so here’s a bit of that.
Character belongs to ctcsherry
Headcanons and interpretations are my responsibility haha
[Yukon’s Ethnicity]
Canonically Yukon is drawn to be racially ambiguous, which accurately reflects the diversity of the territory. Personally, I tend to headcanon her as a bit of a mixture between white (American, British) and First Nations (Gwich'in in particular, which is where the word “Yukon” comes from, but probably a combination with other Pacific Northwest nations such as Tlingit and Tagish at least in influence if not nationality). Yukon’s population during the late 19th and mid 20th century was 80% American at points, and she is the only one of the territories to operate on a more British conception of government. Whether she identifies as Métis or not is debatable- I tend to understand the identification as more of a particularly prairie-province term but I could be mistaken.
If I were writing this a little more carelessly or a little more ‘honestly’, America would probably refer to her as “some kind of esk*mo”, which is a Cree word for “meat eater” and a slur against the Inuit people. Not only is it a slur, it’s pretty ignorant to assume that everyone who lives in the North is Inuit. I’ve seen multiple aph ocs (often by Americans who don’t know better, but Southern Canadians can also be unaware!) for Yukon that have either snow white hair and skin (w h y is this still a thing) or are primarily of Inuit background- while Yukon does have a small Inuit population, the Inuit are certainly not the sole culture that should be represented. There’s also cultural and legal distinctions between First Nations and Inuit (and Métis!) people that - while they can sometimes be arbitrary - do make a difference historically.
I personally find it to be a little questionable at best to represent either Yukon or NWT as primarily or solely Inuit just on the basis of the stereotype while Nunavut is easily (and was intended to be!) 80%+ majority Inuit people. That’s me speaking as a white person born in the territories who grew up on the prairies; I’m absolutely willing to hear out other opinions, particularly from people living up there. It’s just frustrating that their First Nations heritage is often left out of the discussion because there’s this assumption that everyone north of the 60th parallel is Inuit and only Inuit: please check out the map at native-land for a visual representation of the many many First Nations cultures that make up the Pacific Northwest.

Description

1940s: The Alaska-Canada Highway and the Canol Pipeline
The Hapo Reads Canadian History Comic (which still needs a better title)
[>>> read top to bottom, left to right >>> ]
So today is my last day in E-town and my parents are gonna be here any minute to help me get ready for my trip east and I wanted to get this done (though I was set back A lot by school and program crashes wehh. Anyway, my number two non-ancient historical obsession after the gold rush is the post WWII/Cold War era, so here’s a bit of that.
Character belongs to ctcsherry
Headcanons and interpretations are my responsibility haha
[Yukon’s Ethnicity]
Canonically Yukon is drawn to be racially ambiguous, which accurately reflects the diversity of the territory. Personally, I tend to headcanon her as a bit of a mixture between white (American, British) and First Nations (Gwich'in in particular, which is where the word “Yukon” comes from, but probably a combination with other Pacific Northwest nations such as Tlingit and Tagish at least in influence if not nationality). Yukon’s population during the late 19th and mid 20th century was 80% American at points, and she is the only one of the territories to operate on a more British conception of government. Whether she identifies as Métis or not is debatable- I tend to understand the identification as more of a particularly prairie-province term but I could be mistaken.
If I were writing this a little more carelessly or a little more ‘honestly’, America would probably refer to her as “some kind of esk*mo”, which is a Cree word for “meat eater” and a slur against the Inuit people. Not only is it a slur, it’s pretty ignorant to assume that everyone who lives in the North is Inuit. I’ve seen multiple aph ocs (often by Americans who don’t know better, but Southern Canadians can also be unaware!) for Yukon that have either snow white hair and skin (w h y is this still a thing) or are primarily of Inuit background- while Yukon does have a small Inuit population, the Inuit are certainly not the sole culture that should be represented. There’s also cultural and legal distinctions between First Nations and Inuit (and Métis!) people that - while they can sometimes be arbitrary - do make a difference historically.
I personally find it to be a little questionable at best to represent either Yukon or NWT as primarily or solely Inuit just on the basis of the stereotype while Nunavut is easily (and was intended to be!) 80%+ majority Inuit people. That’s me speaking as a white person born in the territories who grew up on the prairies; I’m absolutely willing to hear out other opinions, particularly from people living up there. It’s just frustrating that their First Nations heritage is often left out of the discussion because there’s this assumption that everyone north of the 60th parallel is Inuit and only Inuit: please check out the map at native-land for a visual representation of the many many First Nations cultures that make up the Pacific Northwest.