I Hold The Dehcho In My Heart

In the summer of 2017, a group of Indigenous students and elders embarked on a six-week paddle trip down Canada’s longest river, in an effort to reconnect with Dene land and culture. The Mackenzie river is known as the “Dehcho” in the Dene language and it spans over 1,738 kilometres of the Northwest Territories, stretching from Great Slave Lake to the Arctic ocean. “I Hold the Dehcho in my Heart / Sedze Tah Dehcho E’toh” focuses on the experience of two young Dene women, Kristen and Jiah, as they confront the physical and mental challenges of this rigorous excursion in the remote wilderness, while learning land-based skills from Dene elders. Although several communities exist at the water’s edge, getting access to traditional territories via river travel has become difficult for the majority of Dene youth. Many of the trip’s elders were born and raised along the river, and have a considerable wealth of cultural knowledge and leadership experience, despite being forcefully removed from their families as children to attend residential schools. The students are on a mission to learn from these elders, to repair their generation’s severed connection with the land, and reclaim their identity.