By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

There is a saying in the Kaska language: “Dene K’éh Didī Nī́ʼ Sū́géhʼīn Mā” — “woman taking care of the land.”

“It’s something that’s really well known in our community,” Gillian Staveley, a director at the Dena Kayeh Institute in British Columbia, told Canada’s National Observer, “because people acknowledge that it is women who are taking care of the land and they always have been and they always will be.”