The Press in Yukon | The Klondike of Francophones

French is in decline across Canada… Everywhere? Not in the Yukon, where the number and proportion of people speaking French reached a “historic high” in Statistics Canada’s latest census. The northern territory is attracting francophones, and many Quebecers are moving there. The Press went there to find out more.

(Whitehorse) In the sky that alternates rapidly between a burning summer sun and passing clouds laden with rain, the roar of a plane flying low suddenly pierces the eardrums. “It’s a Beaver, a bush plane. It’s taking off from the lake right next to it,” Vincent Larochelle says enthusiastically, his eyes fixed on the sky.

The 37-year-old lawyer from Quebec had just returned from a bicycle relay race between the Yukon and southern Alaska when The Press met him outside his house in Whitehorse. He has lived in the Yukon for eight years, having gone there on a canoeing expedition while working in a completely different environment, as a tax lawyer at a firm in New York.

His neighbourhood is at the base of Grey Mountain, which rises to 5,000 feet and is a playground for residents who mountain bike down it in the summer. Like many residents, he speaks enthusiastically of the nearby wilderness and mountaineering expeditions, cross-country and backcountry skiing, rivers where you can canoe for days without seeing a human, and hunting.

The man with the impressive track record, who studied at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, has also found his niche in the region by building a practice as a defence lawyer focused on appeals, “to ensure that the opinion of more rural and northern communities prevails” in Canadian justice.

Francophonie in turmoil

The Yukon is popular with Quebecers, who are attracted by the wide open spaces or well-paid jobs, or who land there somewhat by chance. Nearly half of the people in the territory whose first language is French were born in Quebec, according to the latest Statistics Canada census.

Francophones from other Canadian provinces and immigrants from Europe and Africa are also swelling the Francophonie. While the mood is declining in other provinces, the Franco-Yukon community, even if it remains modest in size, has the wind in its sails with upward indicators, according to Statistics Canada data. Over the past 30 years, the proportion of residents whose mother tongue is French has increased from 3.4% to 5.7%.

“It’s really very, very positive,” says Isabelle Salesse, executive director of the Association franco-yukonnaise, which promotes the Yukon outside the territory. “Especially since we expect a continued increase in the number of Francophones.”

The Yukon is “a land where almost everyone comes from somewhere else,” she says, and the francophone community as we know it today was established about 40 years ago. Access to services in French can encourage people to settle there more permanently, but there is still work to be done.

The needs are real, emphasizes Jean-Sébastien Blais, another Quebecer who has been in the Yukon for about fifteen years and who is president of the Yukon Francophone School Board (CSFY). The Press met him at a popular downtown Whitehorse cafe, nestled between a gourmet cheese store and a children’s toy store.

About 40 high school students were previously in the same building as their elementary students, an unattractive option that prompted many to continue their secondary education in an English-language school. But the students were moved to a new high school a few years ago, which opened after a protracted court battle with the Yukon government.

“Next August, we’re going to have 160 students in a building that can accommodate 150. We have a popularity problem,” says Jean-Sébastien Blais, adding in the same breath that we need more French-language daycares. “And not having French-language training at the post-secondary level for our graduates, I find that scandalous,” he says.

The funding that comes with protecting French can, however, cause tensions with indigenous communities, with some believing that by giving to some, we are not giving to others.

Nordic lifestyle

While the French language is growing, English is frequently used in school hallways, reports a primary school teacher. “There is still a lot of linguistic insecurity,” notes Marie-Christine Boucher. “It is not always easy for students to be proud of being French-speaking; they will hide their identity in the crowd.”

The Press meeting her friend, also a teacher, in a neighbourhood in eastern Whitehorse where there are bungalows, asphalt driveways and neatly trimmed green grass.

The Yukon education system, which aims in particular to reduce the achievement gap between Aboriginal and white students, is attractive to the two teachers, for whom it is important to move away from the individual “fantasy” of the Yukon, centered on the great wilderness, and to “give back” to their host land and to the First Nations.

When we passed by, the Quebecer was busy cleaning her vanwhere she will be wandering all summer. She and her roommates have to leave their rental house because the landlady is returning. Finding a place to live is notoriously difficult in the Yukon. “I wanted to buy, but it’s so outrageously expensive,” she says.

The two Quebecers arrived in the Yukon a few years apart. “I felt at home, that I was arriving in the right place,” says Stéphanie, who describes a northern and alternative lifestyle. “There are people from many places and backgrounds, and more opportunities and mutual support,” adds Marie-Christine.

Both have adapted to the long, sunny, energizing summer days punctuated by voracious mosquitoes and wildfires, and the frigid winter days with little sunlight. Conditions that are sometimes hostile, they admit. “You have to be resourceful. More extreme things can happen, because the territory is more extreme,” Stephanie says.

“You have to tell everyone that winter is really tough,” he says, laughing. The Press Marie-Christine. Otherwise, everyone will want to come.”

This report was made possible thanks to a scholarship of excellence from the Association of Independent Journalists of Quebec.