Kitty Smith (c1890 - 1989)
Kitty Smith was born near the mouth of the Alsek River at a coastal fish camp. Her father, Tàkàtà (Pardon Hume) was coastal Tlingit and her mother, Tatl'èrma (Mary) was Tagish Athapaskan. Her parents met while Tàkàtà was on a trade route through the Marsh Lake area. Tàkàtà died when Kitty was a baby, and Tatl'èrma married his brother (cousin) Pete Duncan. Pete died two years later and a third brother, Paddy Duncan, then married Tatl'èrma. Kitty's marriage to Canyon Johnny failed and she left her father's people to live with her mother's people in the Marsh Lake area.1)
Kitty was an accomplished trapper and brought in $1800 worth of fur one winter. She met and married Billy Smith.2) Kitty and Billy and their children made their headquarters near Robinson in the 1920s. They travelled into the Wheaton River valley to hunt and trap.3)
As a young woman, Kitty thought about wood and the stories it can tell. Her carvings were experimental, and she sold them casually. One of her favourite carvings shows Crow emerging, well fed, from the back of a whale after he had tricked Whale into swallowing him and then spending a comfortable winter. Several of her carvings are in the MacBride Museum collection. One of these sculptures depicts Azanzhaya getting lost, just like Crow. Three depict the story of Kaats', a man who married a bear. One carving depicts Dukt'ootl' who is an orphan of low status who defeats an enemy of the community. Another carving depicts Naatsilanéi, the man who met Killer Whale.4) In 2017, the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre acquired a Kitty Smith carving called The Wolf Man. The story that goes with the carving was told by Chief Billy Smith. It is about a man who raises a wolf cub and sets it free. Later, when his village is starving the wolf leads him to a herd of moose and the village is saved. The Centre mounted an exhibit with this carving, a hand-sewn doll, three carvings borrowed from Champagne & Aishihik First Nations and five from the Yukon government’s permanent art collection. Kitty Smith sold many carvings in the 1930s and ‘40s as she shared her culture with others.5)
Kitty Smith, Angela Sidney, and Annie Ned tell their life stories in Julie Cruikshank, Life Lived Like a Story: Life Stories of Three Yukon Native Elders. UBC Press, 1991.