NorthThe writing contest, which had the theme of family and chosen family, was facilitated by Active Voice, a series put on by Yukon University and the Yukon Arts Centre, with support from CBC North. Potlatch poem will be Nathanial Blackjack’s first published workCBC News · Posted: Nov 29, 2025 6:00 AM EST | Last Updated: November 29Listen to this articleEstimated 2 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Nathanial Blackjack, a citizen of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation, has won this year’s Active Voice writing contest. (Gord Loverin/CBC)The award-winning poem Potlatch is about feeling isolated from your community and learning to cope, said Nathanial Blackjack, who performed the work on the stage of the Yukon Arts Centre Wednesday.“My people don’t see me,” the poem starts. “I look at my people and see my cousins, my uncles and aunties, my family. “But my people don’t see me.”Taking up that old adage, Blackjack, who’s Northern Tutchone and a citizen of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation, said they write about what they know. “There’s a complexity in the bonds of family,” the two-spirit poet said. “It’s not always nice and clean and easy, but it also doesn’t mean it’s bad. I’m just saying it how it is.”“I just write like me. There’s no need to change anything about it because that’s just who I am. I just wrote how I feel I should.”The writing contest, which had the theme of family and chosen family, was facilitated by Active Voice, a series put on by Yukon University and the Yukon Arts Centre with support from CBC North. Blackjack is the winner of the second edition of the contest. Adri Lera, who’s Tlingit, Unangax and Swedish, won last year.Blackjack was joined on stage by Ivan Coyote, who was part of the blind jury that ultimately decided Potlatch is exceptional.Coyote, a renowned writer and raconteur, said the point of the contest is to give emerging writers a boost and encourage them to get their work out there. Blackjack’s Potlatch will be the first time their work is published.“This is me intentionally giving back to young authors,” Coyote said. “Mission accomplished.”Active Voice also brought up novelist Waubgeshig Rice as a keynote speaker in a separate event.In a near-full house Wednesday night, Coyote spoke with Rice about his writing process — how he reflects Anishinaabe worldviews into his works, which often deal with the impacts of colonialism and how communities can overcome them through cultural reclamation. Anishinaabemowin is another feature of Rice’s work.Rice is author of several books, including a national best-selling dystopian novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow.
Yukon First Nations poet wins writing contest
