What new Vuntut Gwitchin Chief Pauline Frost had to say about being sworn in

Pauline Frost is starting off on a new political career.

She was sworn in Wednesday as the new chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in Old Crow, Yukon. It follows a term as the MLA for Vuntut Gwitchin, from 2016 to 2021.

Frost won the election for chief in a tight race in November, winning by three votes. She’s only the third woman to take on the role.

CBC spoke with Frost about the swearing-in ceremony and what her hopes are as leader of the community.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How does it feel to be officially on the job?

I’m excited, I’m pretty ecstatic about the opportunity. It has been a long wait, as you know, the election happened in November. And the swearing in or the transition doesn’t actually happen until January 11, which is a very long gap in services. So I just sat and waited. And I think we’re now in a place where we can actually get into the office today and just roll up our sleeves and get to work.

So how did last night’s swearing in ceremony go? How did it make you feel going through that ceremony?

I’ve had many roles representing my community, and I think if one that I were to hold up with the highest regard, is this current role as a chief. As you know, the first female chief at the community was my mother, Alice Frost, she brought a big, significant change in my community. So walking in her footsteps, and that of Norma Kassi, being the second female chief, it’s not a tradition that we generally follow, having matriarchs and leadership roles and in this capacity anyhow, so it was an honour.

I was pretty excited. We had a very beautiful ceremony of transition between one leadership and the next. And we had previous chief [Dana] Tizya-Tramm there with his councillors, and of course, myself and the two councillors, Debra-Leigh Reti and Jeneen Njootli [both acclaimed]. It was just a really beautiful transition, which is something that we’ve never done before in a really formal sense in this way. So the community celebrated, it was an opportunity to acknowledge and take some time just to look at our practices and our traditional way of generally working together as a community.

You mentioned celebration — was there a gathering?

We actually have the formal swearing-in ceremony. And we walk into the new Darius Elias Community Centre with our witnesses — someone that is there with us, and that will walk this trail with us — and follow through with our formal oath of office and swearing our oath of allegiance to the government and working through the consistency of our obligations under our values and principles, our customary laws as they apply to Gwich’in nation.

We ensured and swore to the community that we would certainly abide by those principles as we take on a formal government process as well. So there’s trying to keep the foot planted in both worlds but still looking towards the future. And as we concluded that, we hosted the community with a traditional feast, which is really, really — it’s just beautiful.

And from then we took the evening and celebrated, and we danced to the music of Boyd Benjamin, Keitha Clark … Marvin Frost, I just want to honour them too, because they brought joy to our community and music, as we know, is healing. So it was a really great opportunity to conclude the formalities and then go into celebration.

Did you get a chance to speak with some folks about the issues that are on their minds?

As customary practices dictate, we do our formal feasting, and then the mic goes to the people. And in this case, the elders have an opportunity to instill their wisdom on us, and give us some words of wisdom and advice as we start our jobs today.

So last night, it was really just conclusion and beginning and allowing a space, a safe place for the elders to speak to us about what they see and how we need to follow the rules of the land and the rules of our people.

And so, in that regard, it was really amazing just to sit and listen, and not speak. And we were gifted some presents from a young man. And that was really just amazing.

I got a headlamp and a note that said, ‘may this light guide you for the next four years.’ And that in itself just tells me that our vision, our hope, and their hope is that we take time to listen to them and give them space as well.

That’s such a thoughtful gift, was it from a very young person?

It was a teenager, actually. He’s a 14. And one of the first things he said is, “so what are you going to do for us? We need more programming, we need more sports, we need more activities, we don’t have a baseball diamond, it was taken away from us, well, how are you going to ensure you provide us a voice?”

So those are things we’re hearing in the community, hearing from our young people. And although we have in our constitution, in our process, space for Youth Council, it’s not an active council, and hasn’t been for a while. So that would be one of the key priorities for me as well.

The two other councillors who were sworn in with you yesterday were acclaimed in the election, and it’s been such a struggle for the nation to fill council positions. Why do you think that is?

I think one of the reasons for that is we have a small community, we don’t have a large population to choose from that actually resides in the community. We have maybe 300 citizens residing in the community, but our population base is quite large.

But the citizens that want to participate in the government is huge outside the community, and our governance process doesn’t allow for that unless you move back to the community. And also, it means that when you do come back, you need to have accommodations. And that seems to be a bit of a challenge for us right now: where do we put our leadership when they move back to the community to participate in the government?

You’ll be working with the Yukon government in a different capacity, and working with your former Liberal Party colleague Ranj Pillai, who’s now of course, the new Premier. What will that be like?

I think it’ll be a very positive relationship. Given that I had three portfolios within the government of Yukon, I certainly know the intricacies of how that government works. But, likewise, I had been involved for many, many years in my own self-government in Old Crow, and now working on our self-government agreements as a negotiator and implementation adviser to four chiefs. And so I think in terms of the relationship, it will be a positive one given that we have like minds with respect to climate, with respect to protecting the environment, ensuring sustainability, health initiatives and health programming for all people, Putting People First as a critical part of their plan to ensure equity, transparency and fairness and that’s rooted in our self-government agreements as well.

There are many other factors that we need to consider but I do believe that experience certainly will guide us and the fact that we already have a relationship I think is one that is of value to this community.