“Our language and our stories are the backbone of our communities,” says Lila Fraser Erasmus. She is Dene from the Na-Cho Nyäk Dun people in Mayo, Yukon, and from Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. Her relations are in the Yukon, Alaska, Alberta and Northwest Territories. She educates people about how Dene people extend all the way into Navajo and Apache territories. “I like to make it clear that those borders do not belong to us, our relatives cross all across those borders,” she explains. She also educates about the trading routes through Fort Chipewyan, Fort Smith, Mayo, Inuvik, Fort McPherson, Old Crow, Alaska and the Yukon so youth understand how far their roots go.

Erasmus has two businesses. Bows and Arrows incorporated in 2006, offering contracting and consulting. She teaches protocol on interacting with communities and elders in a respectful way. “It's really a different world, our Indigenous worlds and our Indigenous communities, and our elders and the way that our elders relate. It was really important for me to be able to provide access to non Indigenous organizations to our communities, but to keep our communities safe was more important,” she reflects. Beyond safety, Erasmus ensures elders and community members are well compensated for their knowledge.  

Her other business is Naturally Dene, which started in 2010, where she takes people on the land to learn about plants and plant medicines. She harvests medicines and creates products including a line of facial products in her shop for sale, for community members and elders.

As far as her education, she dropped out in grade 11, struggling with the education system and all the racism and corporal punishment.  Indigenous students were not nurtured academically in the same way as non-Indigenous students. She later went back to upgrade and got a bachelor’s degree with a double major in political science and Native studies. She took every Native studies course she could and pursued political science because her dad was a politician.

“After I quit school and went back to school, I felt very motivated to show them that I am not stupid. I like to tell my young people, you are not stupid, you are not stupid. You might be a C student, but that doesn't mean you're stupid,” she shares. Now, she looks at where that motivation brought her. “I’m almost 60 years old, and I am an expert in my field, all things Indigenous. I couldn't get past the fact that you were devaluing me and when you're devaluing me, you're devaluing my community.”

Erasmus ended up working in government, in self government land claim negotiations for almost 15 years. She was an assistant negotiator before she quit her job and started her business. Bows and Arrows was originally a store offering arts workshops but when the recession hit, she got her master’s degree in dispute resolution. She researched how her people resolved disputes and decisions. Later, transitioning into consulting happened naturally. Organizations working with her learned they needed to observe protocol and respect elders by compensating them fairly for their knowledge and time.

When she was discussing her grad school plans with an elder, the elder reframed dispute resolution, suggesting instead she describe it as how decisions are made and how people work together. She also impressed on her the responsibility she held around knowledge. “That knowledge that you're gonna get back does not belong to you, that belongs to your community. You go out, you get knowledge, you come back, you do something for your community. You don't own that,” she recalls.  

At the same time, when she meets with colonial governments, she frames her qualifications around her education and experience. “When I go to an elders home, they could care less how much knowledge or degrees I have,” she laughs. Instead, she describes her relations and where she comes from.

Her advice for a student wanting to leave their community to learn or travel abroad would be to not forget their roots. What she advised her own son is, “the one thing that will not change is your Dene roots, they will never be able to knock you off that grounding and that floor, they will never be able to knock you off that foundation. They have tried, and your ancestors, and your grandmothers and grandfathers in the past fought tooth and nail to make sure that did not happen so you could sit here and listen to this today. So never leave your roots and always understand the way that you think and the way you were taught is different. There's different values, and the values we see out in that big society, those are not ours. They belong to colonials, because their stories have dictated how they're going to operate.

“So many of our young people have lost their way and can't find that sense of identity. Our sense of pride and identity is not going to come from that society out there,” she continues. She feels youth need to observe protocol and find their roots, putting down tobacco so people will be put in their path to teach them. She says, “they don't have to have grown up in that space to be offered those teachings, all they have to do is ask, and the ancestors will start to make that happen.”

“When you use that protocol and when you have good intention in your heart, the whole universe starts to make that happen for you, the whole universe starts to shift”

When it comes to inspiration, Erasmus looks to the land, the stories of her elders and the opportunities she has to support communities who have been mistreated. She likes teaching how the stories societies are built on change how they operate. She’s inspired by young people and how elders and ancestors fought so hard out of love for future generations. She reflects on questions like, “What do I want my great great great great grandchildren to say about granny Lila? What is it about what I'm doing today that is going to ensure that my children and their roots and their values and their stories are intact for centuries?”

Guided by protocol and purpose, Lila Fraser Erasmus is protecting and contributing to community while bridging mainstream society. Harvesting plant medicines and teaching about their properties, she is helping bring healing from the natural world. Determined to show she wasn’t stupid, she’s made smart decisions that have benefited more than just herself and she’s doing it with future generations in mind.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article!