Yukon who is who

Glenn Richard Grady, Keish (d. 2021)

Glen Grady was born at a now-abandoned village [Upper Laberge] on the south-eastern shore of Lake Laberge. Grady was working in the forest industry in the 1970s when his family decided to protect Ta’an land and culture in the spirit of Jim Boss. Mineral exploration has happening in the Lake Laberge area with the permission of the Kwanlin Dün and the family was worried about Ta’an graveyards and sites. Grady went to a meeting to raise those concerns but was not allowed to speak. The Ta’an then got serious about regaining their status as a separate first nation. Money was tight for the first few years and Grady borrowed money from the Anglican minister to fund the initial administration.¹⁾

The territory of the Ta'an Kwäch’än and the Kwanlin Dün First Nations overlap and they shared the same chief starting in the early 1890s. They legally separated in 1988 and the Ta'an Kwachan formed its own council in 1988. Grady became a hereditary chief of the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council in 2000.²⁾

In 1987, there was a proposal for the Ta’an Kawch’an to purchase some property near Shallow Bay from Belle DeRosiers. The area has strong traditional and cultural significance to the Ta’an people. In 1988, Grady reminded the territorial, federal, and Kwanlin Dun land claim negotiators that Ta’an wanted first option on the grazing leases at Shallow Bay when they came open. In 1996, the Ta’an were assured during the land claim negotiation that grazing leases were public lands with no restrictions for access. Because of this, the Ta’an reduced their land selections in the area and agreed to third party interests on another parcel of land. In 2005, the Yukon government approved an application by Len Walchuk and his wife, Karla DesRosiers, to turn a 30-year-old grazing lease into private, titled farmland at a fair market price. Karla DesRosiers [Belle DeRosiers’ granddaughter] has always acknowledged that the land occupied by her Lake Laberge Ranch and Outfitters was Ta’an. The DeRosiers family has operated the ranch since the 1940s. Walchuk and DeRosiers want the land in order to expand their hay ranch.³⁾