2024
In November 2024, the third annual YSPOR Health Summit took place, maintaining a focus on local health research within the Yukon. The summit spotlighted current, upcoming, and recently completed research projects—both those supported by YSPOR and those conducted independently. This year’s theme, “Building Capacity with Youth,” underscored the importance of youth involvement in health initiatives.
The summit was accessible both in-person and online, with several enhancements to its format. Yukon University’s Ayamdigut Campus in Whitehorse served as the main venue, featuring three breakout session rooms—an increase from two in previous years. Interactive hubs in Old Crow at the Alice Frost Campus and in Dawson City at the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Community Hall returned, each offering exclusive workshops and local catering. In Old Crow, Tracey Galloway led a workshop on Nutrition North the day before the summit, and in Dawson City, Dolores Scheffen guided participants through mini-drum making. Both hubs experienced record attendance this year, with full metrics listed below. In Whitehorse, a traditional medicines workshop led by Amy Genier replaced previous wellness breaks, with participants creating their own spruce salves.
- Whitehorse: Approximately 150 attendees
- Dawson City Hub: 35–40 attendees
- Old Crow Hub: 25–30 attendees
- Virtual Attendance: 29 individual participants (tracked at 9:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., with fluctuations throughout the day)
The summit featured 37 speakers, 33 of whom were local to the Yukon and four from across Canada, offering a diversity of perspectives. Feedback from attendees was overwhelmingly positive, collected through an optional survey that received 63 responses—nine more than last year. The overall satisfaction score was 4.5 out of 5, a slight decrease from 4.6 in 2023. Two primary factors contributing to this dip were venue preferences, with requests to return to the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre (KDCC) in future years, and logistical communication issues caused by Eventbrite registration emails being flagged as spam.
Despite these challenges, the summit was widely praised for its meaningful programming and thoughtful execution. Attendees highlighted the youth and Elder involvement as particularly impactful, with the youth panel and Elders’ reflections leaving a lasting impression. Marilyn Jensen’s keynote address on transforming lateral violence into lateral kindness resonated deeply across the audience. Interactive activities, such as the beading kits and workshops, fostered creativity and cultural connection, while networking opportunities provided valuable spaces for attendees to engage with like-minded individuals and build relationships. The attention to detail, such as land-based center pieces created by a local First Nations decorist, meals and snack provided by YukonU culinary team and their 2024 students, and relevant activities including a traditional medicines workshop, was also celebrated. Our graphic designer returned this year to visually document the summit through graphic recording, building on the overwhelmingly positive feedback received in 2023. Selected images have been included in this report for reference. Highlights from the survey comments included:
“The networking realistically, it’s great to meet so many people who share a common goal, and have those discussions that have many different perspectives so taking part in those were pretty rewarding.”
“Helpful to hear what youth want, how they want to be heard and be involved. I appreciated the elders reflecting on this afterward. I liked the break out rooms and being able to pick and choose elements of the event to attend. I loved the beading kits on the table, I think I can speak on behalf of all the 2nd year nursing students when I say that! I really enjoyed the whole day honestly. Great MC’s, flowed really well, I never felt that it was lagging. Great event. Good job! ”
“The attention to detail was incredible!! The use of all locally made tea, coffee, chips, popcorn!! The plates being environmentally conscious!! It felt honoring to the land and made me proud to have these details in the Yukon for Yukoners!! ”
“Having the Elders’ Circle as a closing was wonderful. The giveaways and prizes were so generous. But the gathering of likeminded people is the cherry on top”
Snapshot Metrics:
- 18 presentations/panels
- 39 presenters
- 15 First Nations presenters + 21 non-Indigenous presenters
- 2 First Nations emcees _ 1 non-Indigenous emcee
- 1 interactive traditional medicine workshop
- 12 First Nation community health and wellness representatives
- Yukon First Nations Represented at the Summit (8/14):
- Carcross/Tagish First Nation
- Champagne and Aishihik First Nations
- First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun
- Kwanlin Dün First Nation
- Liard First Nation
- Selkirk First Nation
- Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation
- Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation
2023
In November of 2023 the second annual YSPOR health summit was held. Our focus remained local and highlighted the current, upcoming, and recently completed health research within the Yukon – both supported by and independent of YSPOR. The given theme of this year’s summit was ‘Knowledge Sharing’.
The summit was made available for both in-person and online participants with the main venue hosted at the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre (KDCC) in Whitehorse. Last year’s event featured smaller viewing hubs stationed in the communities of Old Crow and Dawson City. This year both hubs were made fully interactive. This included hub-exclusive workshops and local catering in Dawson City, and speakers presenting in person from each hub, including day 2 keynote Chief Pauline Frost from Old Crow. Attendance metrics were as follows:
- KDCC Whitehorse – estimated total of between 145 individual attendees over the 2-day summit
- 15 unique attendees at the Dawson City Hub over the two days
- 10 unique attendees at the Old Crow Hub over the two days
- 77 individual virtual attendees
The summit hosted 31 speakers over the course of two days, of which 26 were local to the territory and 5 were regional. This year also featured wellness breaks including traditional beading workshops, a hand games demonstration, and a mindfulness sound vibrations and drumming workshop. All were designed to be interactive and provide a mindful, interactive break between presentations and was a direct result of requests from survey feedback last year. Also new this year is the approach to graphic recording, in which the artist captured moments from all participants instead of exclusively focusing on presentations. Some images have been included in this report for reference.
YSPOR conducted another optional survey this year to obtain feedback on participants’ experience at the summit. We received 54 responses with an overall average satisfaction score of 4.6 out of 5. This is an increase from 4.4 last year. Each question had an optional field for comments. Highlights include:
- Everyone was very friendly and welcoming, loved hearing about all the amazing work that is happening and getting to make new connections. Great prizes too!!
- Enjoyed it all. Hard to pick favourites. Enjoyed it even more than last year. YPSOR did a great job!
- Networking with others working in health world, hearing about a variety of projects, insights from speakers like Pauline and Math’ieya
- Cross community conversations across Yukon. Very informative to know what the rest of Yukon is up to in this area!
2022
November of 2022 the inaugural YSPOR health summit was held. The primary purpose of the summit is to exhibit the work the unit is doing and supporting in the territory that helps advance the unit’s mission and goals of increasing patient-orientated health research in the Yukon. However, since the unit is still in its infancy, the summit was used as an opportunity to showcase a diverse scope of patient-oriented work and research that has been conducted by other SPOR SUPPORT Units from across Canada. The intent was to create visions of projects and work that could be implemented locally with the support of the Yukon SPOR SUPPORT Unit in the future.
The summit was made available for both in-person and online participants with the main venue hosted at the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre (KDCC) in Whitehorse and smaller viewing hubs stationed in the communities of Old Crow and Dawson City. Attendance metrics were as follows:
- Kwanlin Dun Cultural Center (Whitehorse) – estimated total of between 150 – 180 individual attendees over the 2-day summit
- 3-15 attendees at the Dawson City Hub at any given time
- 2-4 attendees at the Old Crow Hub
- Approximately 80 individual virtual attendees
The summit hosted 43 speakers over the course of two days of which 22 were local to the territory and 21 were regional. Cross Canada SPOR SUPPORT Units who gave presentations and/or participated in panels include Hotıì ts’eeda, SCPOR, MSSU, BC SUPPORT and NL SUPPORT. In addition, presentations from other non-SPOR entities were given by SPOR Evidence Alliance, Canadian Frailty network, CRISM, along with several local and regional individual researchers who brought forward research studies founded in patient-oriented approaches. Three representatives from CIHR attended the KDCC venue.
The Yukon SPOR SUPPORT Unit conducted an optional survey in order to obtain feedback on participants’ experience at the summit. 75 responses were received with an overall average satisfaction score of 4.4 out of 5.