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Since I was young, I cornered my aunt at every opportunity and asked her to tell me Northern Tutchone traditional stories. I would learn about the cannibal man and how he fell to his death off a cliff, with my own eyes I was shown where his final moments were. I would learn about the little people and the laws surrounding the ways in which we treat animals and lands. We would take road trips, often to harvest berries, bear roots, or birch water, and my aunt would point to the lands where some of these stories happened. For years, I had them stored in my mind.

There is something really special about the land I come from, something that is unexplainable. My love for the Yukon is strong, and while I live on the other side of the continent, it always calls for me. Carr says that in Northern Tutchone stories, the teller always 'creates a tangible sense of place when telling a story that breathes life into a landscape.' A recurring conversation in my master’s program at the Institute of American Indian Arts revolved around 'place as a character.' While reading novels that accomplished this, I began to understand what that meant. However, the beliefs of my people in the animistic began to take a new shape and form in my writing. All along, what some would consider inanimate just wanted to speak.

Chantal Rondeau holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Chantal has been published in Northern Public Journal, Xoxo Jane, and Urban Native Magazine, among others.

Her current manuscript, White Ash Falling, is a multi-generational fiction novel with elements of the supernatural.