Wildlydj: The Life of DJ Lieberman

The Journey North

When I set out to drive north, I mean really north, I knew it would be a powerful journey. But I didn’t know how much it would change me.

Over the past week, I made my way through the Yukon and Northwest Territories, starting in Dawson City YK, then onto Teetł’it Zheh (Fort McPherson), Tsiigehtchic, Inuvik, and all the way up to Tuktoyaktuk, where the land gives way to the Arctic Ocean. Each village holds a story of survival, sovereignty, and sacred connection. This wasn’t just a road trip. It was a lesson in decolonization in motion, led by the Gwich’in and Inuvialuit peoples who call this land home.

Teetł’it Zheh: The Head of the Waters

Fort McPherson’s Gwich’in name, Teetł’it Zheh, means “at the head of the waters.” It sits beside the Peel River and carries generations of Gwich’in knowledge, resistance, and connection to the land.

The Gwich’in are not passive observers of history, they are defenders of the land, culture, and future. For decades, they’ve led the charge to protect the Porcupine Caribou Herd and sacred areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling. Their resistance to oil extraction is not just about environmentalism, it’s about survival, cultural continuity, and sovereignty.

Here, decolonization is lived. It’s present in the way people gather, hunt, speak their language, and organize. It’s felt in their self-determined choices, not just to reject development, but to offer a different vision of what sustainability and protection look like. A vision rooted in tradition, kinship, and responsibility to land and future generations.

Ferries, Lifelines, and Local Power

Driving further north meant crossing powerful rivers, the Peel and the Mackenzie, by ferry. There are no permanent bridges in these parts, which means ferries are essential for connection.

But what struck me was who runs them: local Indigenous crews. These ferries aren’t corporate-run or managed by outside contractors. They are community-operated, maintained by those who live with the rivers, who understand their moods, currents, and dangers.

These ferry crossings aren’t just infrastructure. They’re a symbol of Indigenous self-reliance — of what it looks like when communities operate their own lifelines, on their own land, with their own people.

Tsiigehtchic and Inuvik: Layers of Identity

Tsiigehtchic is a smaller Gwich’in village nestled where the Mackenzie and Arctic Red Rivers meet. Quiet, beautiful, and full of stories. People here have deep ties to the land and to each other. It reminded me how decolonization isn’t always loud sometimes it looks like gathering berries, fishing, or passing down a story in the original language.

Inuvik, by contrast, is a more developed hub, home to both Gwich’in and Inuvialuit communities. It’s where two strong Indigenous cultures meet, and you feel it in everything from the architecture (like the famous Igloo Church) to the food, to the regional governance. Inuvik is a place where self-government isn’t an idea, it’s daily life.

And all throughout, you see something else: there is no military base here. No oil rigs. No extraction. Because the people here made it clear, they are the guardians of this land. They don’t need militarized presence. They have the Canadian Rangers; many of whom are Gwich’in and Inuvialuit. These Indigenous Rangers are the Arctic’s frontline, responding to emergencies, navigating harsh terrain, and preserving traditional knowledge passed through generations.

They are the military. But they do it differently: with wisdom, community, and cultural knowledge.

Here’s some of my writing from the trip:

From Alaska to the Northwest Territories, the land looks the same.
The people are the same.
They speak the same languages. Practice the same traditions. Carry the same ancestral wisdom.

They are one people, separated not by choice, but by colonization. Divided by invisible borders that governments drew without consent or care.

And it makes me ask:
What does true decolonization look like?

Because it’s not just about acknowledging past harm.
It’s about returning voice, land, and power to the people who belong to it.

And as a Jew, I feel that on a deep level.
We too are a people of land and exile.
Of language and longing.
Of forced borders and the struggle for self-determination in our ancestral homeland.
We’ve been told who we are, and told not to be it, for thousands of years.
And still, we hold on.

Just like the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic.
Who are still here.
Still fighting to be seen.
Still deeply connected to a land that others tried to control.

The U.S. and Canada didn’t claim the Arctic to protect it.
They claimed it to control it; for oil, for military dominance, for maps that made sense to outsiders.

But the people of this land don’t need permission to exist.
They need the freedom to define themselves.

Just like Jews, they deserve more than survival.
They deserve sovereignty.

Tuktoyaktuk: Where the Road Ends and Renewal Begins

Reaching Tuktoyaktuk was surreal. It’s the northernmost publicly drivable point in Canada, perched on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, where the Inuvialuit have lived for thousands of years.

Tuktoyaktuk, known locally as Tuktuuyaqtuuq, meaning “it looks like a caribou” is a remote Inuvialuit hamlet on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, and one of the few places in the world where you can drive all the way to the sea in the high Arctic. For thousands of years, the Inuvialuit people have lived here, thriving in a land shaped by ocean ice, caribou migration, and deep ancestral knowledge. Tuk is known for its pingos ice-cored hills that rise unexpectedly from the tundra, sacred to many and protected as part of Pingo Canadian Landmark. The community today is a living testament to adaptation, endurance, and cultural preservation, from traditional fishing and subsistence living to language revitalization and land-based education.

There are no hotels towering over the horizon. Just homes, boats, fishing nets drying in the wind, and people carrying on, in rhythm with the land and the sea.

What the North Taught Me

Decolonization is often misunderstood. People think it’s about removing statues or rewriting textbooks. But here, in Gwich’in and Inuvialuit lands, I saw what true decolonization looks like:

• It looks like rejecting oil leases and protecting caribou.
• It looks like running ferries with Indigenous crews, not corporations.
• It looks like Indigenous Rangers guiding the North instead of military bases.
• It looks like children learning their language again.
• It looks like Elders leading.
• It looks like community defining its own infrastructure, justice, and care.

What Alaska Can Learn from the Northwest Territories

I didn’t come here to take.
I came to witness. To reflect. To reconnect.

The communities of Teetł’it Zheh, Tsiigehtchic, Inuvik, and Tuktoyaktuk didn’t just welcome me, they taught me. They showed me what it looks like when Indigenous governance, land stewardship, and cultural continuity aren’t theories… they’re daily life.

And as someone who works in Tribal health and lives in Alaska, I couldn’t help but reflect on what could be different back home.

Because Alaska has the potential; the people, the knowledge, the land-based traditions but we are still navigating systems built to divide, extract, and control.

In the Northwest Territories, I saw:

• Ferries run by Indigenous crews
• Rangers who protect and serve with ancestral knowledge, not armed force
• No corporate oil rigs or federal installations dominating the horizon
• Self-governance that centers Elders, youth, and language revitalization

This isn’t utopia, it’s effort. It’s resilience. It’s a future built from within, not imposed from the outside.

What would it look like if Alaska leaned deeper into this model?
If we invested in Indigenous-led infrastructure, not just culturally adapted services?
If we viewed sovereignty not as a talking point, but as a structure for education, health, housing, justice, and beyond?

I’ll never forget the people of the Arctic who let me into their villages and showed me, not by speech, but by example, that decolonization is not symbolic.
It’s real. It’s happening. And it’s possible.This trip was more than a destination. It was an experience of what’s possible when Indigenous communities lead and when the rest of us are willing to listen.

I didn’t come here to take.
I came to witness. To reflect. To reconnect.

I’ll never forget the people of Teetł’it Zheh, Tsiigehtchic, Inuvik, and Tuktoyaktuk. They showed me what endurance, leadership, and love for the land really look like.

And they reminded me; decolonization isn’t a concept. It’s a lived reality. And it’s already happening.