Lena Johnson Tùlhàsèn (b. 1929)
Lena Johnson was born east of Kluane lake, between Redtail Lake and Ptarmigan Heart. Her parents were Emma and Moose Johnson. Lena’s name, Tùlhàsèn, means strong-minded person in Dań K’è (Southern Tutchone). Before the Alaska Highway was built, and Kluane Park was established, Lena travelled everywhere with her parents and siblings to hunt and fish. Everything changed in the 1940s and, before land claims, Burwash people started going to court to get their land and rights back. Lena went to the Catholic day school in Burwash up to grade 5. Her mother died when she was 16 and Lena looked after her three brothers including the youngest, Bernie, four years old. She got married and, after her husband died, she raised her three children on her own. They all finished school, and the grandchildren went to university. After her children grew up, Lena went to Whitehorse Vocational School and got her GED. She lived in Whitehorse about three years around 1972. After that she went to study at the Yukon Native Language Centre with John Ritter. It was held in the basement of Whitehorse Elementary. Then she went for two years to study Native Language at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Lena says education really came from her grandparents where she learned to listen to the stories.1)
Lena Johnson was an important speaker at the Kluane Research Summit in 2018. In March 2021, she was presented with an Assembly of First Nations Wellness Award for promoting the wellbeing of First Nation citizens. She was recognized for a lifetime commitment to supporting her community and keeping the languages and stories of her ancestors strong.2)