Heritage & Culture - Haa Ḵusteeyí

Culture - Haa Ḵusteeyí (‘Our Way’) – is what defines the Teslin Tlingit. It is our collective and shared understanding of who we are: our knowledge, language, art, history and relationship to our environment.

As long as Tlingit people have lived on the shores of the big inland lakes, July has been a season of coming together and celebrating. A warm season where living for a short time was a little easier, a time to reconnect with family and friends to meet the new born, engage in courtships, tell stories and share in the bounty of the trapping and put the hardships of winter behind; a time to strengthen the ties of Tlingit Culture, Haa Ḵusteeyí.

Haa Ḵusteeyí Celebration brings Inland and Coastal Tlingit people together as well as visitors from around the world to celebrate. The Teslin Tlingit Heritage Centre has hosted five Haa Ḵusteeyí Celebrations to date which formed a continuation of that long and rich tradition of families and friends gathering and reconnecting through the sharing of traditional foods and culture in the warmth of the long sunny days of the Yukon summer.