The landscape of the Tatshenshini-Alsek region is not simply a wilderness area in the conventional sense — a place where nature operates without human presence or influence.

It is a humanized landscape, shaped by thousands of years of Indigenous use and knowledge.

The routes that cross it, the resources it offers, the specific sites within it that carry cultural and spiritual significance — all of this is knowledge that the Indigenous communities have developed over millennia and that their contemporary governance frameworks are seeking to maintain and protect.

When Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi was found in this landscape, the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations’ response was not simply that of a community with legal rights over an archaeological find.