CARCROSS Right to the point was the demonstration hosted by the Carcross-Tagish First Nation during last Friday's National Day of Action.

The Yukon and federal governments need to honor commitments made under the land claim agreements in the territory, it was emphasized.

The first nations don't need any handouts nor special favours; what they need are recognition and respect from the other two levels of government whom they spent decades negotiating with, it was said.

'Respect, dignity, pride equal powerful nations,' read one of the many placards demonstrators carried during a peaceful but direct event.

'Canada honour our treaties,' read another.

'Stop holding us back.'

'More than just the written word; honour the agreements.'

Carcross-Tagish Chief Mark Wedge was among a number of current and past leaders who joined the 50-plus to march from the train station, around a short block, and then back to where several made brief presentations to the crowd.

'These agreements are in place,' Wedge said of the land claim and self-government agreements for the Carcross-Tagish First Nation. 'What we do not have is adequate funding to make the agreements work.'

The federal government budgets $10.2 billion annually for Indian Affairs, of which $5.2 billion actually makes it to the first nations, Wedge said.

The rest, the chief emphasized, is chewed up by a bureaucracy busy trying to figure out how to hold back the funding and stall implementation of the agreements Ottawa has with Canada's aboriginal people.

It's not acceptable to have the impoverished and inadequate housing conditions that weigh down aboriginal communities and lead to further social problems, Wedge said.

The National Day of Action was called for by the Assembly of First Nations as a means of educating the public about the issues facing Canada's first nations, with an aim to place greater pressure on the politicians to deal with those issues.

Those who marched in Carcross were of all ages, and while the RCMP drove by periodically, the demonstration was without incident.

It was even jovial at times, aside from the serious message being delivered.

There was humourous talk of how protesters planned on laying across the railway tracks, even though there was no train traffic to block.

In the end, it was only Yukon MP Larry Bagnell who laid across the tracks, in a joking gesture after the speeches were over the crowd had shrunk to just a handful.

The demonstration lasted about 90 minutes, from the opening march to the last song by a group of Carcross-Tagish performers.

The day began at the first nation's waterfront theatre and restaurant centre with the regular performance by the first nation's theatrical troupe about the legend 'How Raven Brought Light into the World.'

It was that legend depicted on the T-shirt worn by many for the demonstration.

'Proud, dignified Tlingit-Tagish Warriors,' read the shirts.

The first people of the Yukon and Canada will once again rise up to take their rightful place on this land, Grand Chief Andy Carvill of the Council of Yukon First Nations told the gathering.

The land is crying out to the aboriginal people, he said, adding the first nations need to teach people the importance of the land and protecting it.

Carvill also sounded the call upon Ottawa and the Yukon government to honour the agreements.

Those governments need to understand that working together means a better place for all Canadians, he said.

'We are calling out to the people of Canada to assist us to move the government.'

Rick O'Brien, the Yukon's vice-chief to the Assembly of First Nations, said there are now more aboriginal children in the child welfare system than there were students who went to residential schools.

'What is so hard about working together?' O'Brien asked. 'We live here. We work here and we are going to be buried here.'

The Little Salmon-Carmacks First Nation recently won its case in the Yukon Supreme Court when it charged the Yukon government for not living up to its legal obligation to consult on matters of land use affecting the first nation, O'Brien pointed out.

The territorial government has appealed.

But it will lose again, as there are all kinds of examples across the country where first nations have won similar victories, he said. 'So why are we wasting all this money?'

O'Brien insisted first nations are not trying to take anything away from Ottawa or the territorial government.

'All we want is our rightful place at the table. What is wrong with that? We need to be part of what goes on in the Yukon.'

O'Brien also called upon first nations to get more of their youth back to the land and educate them about the ways of the past.

As a youth who was raised on his grandparents' trapline, O'Brien said he sees more of the Yukon's aboriginal people becoming individualized in a material society where money and possessions make the world go around.

The importance of sharing and community must be protected and maintained, he suggested.

O'Brien told of how he was recently in Israel standing in a lake up to his knees and he couldn't even see his feet on the bottom.

'In the Yukon, you can go up to your neck and still see your toes,' he said. 'We need to protect that.'

Yukon MP Larry Bagnell also called on governments to honour land claim and self-government agreements.

There is a great discrepancy in the living standards of aboriginal and non-aboriginal people that cannot be accepted, Bagnell said.

'We have our treaties, they are great treaties,' Bagnell said. 'But you also have to honour them and fund them so that they work.

'If we can all work trying to solve that, then Canada can be the greatest nation in the world.'

Speaker after speaker emphasized that no longer should Canada's aboriginal communities be scratching out a survival in squalid conditions.

Canada's first nations are overcoming the devastation of the residential schools they were forced into, they said.

Will their children, and their children's children, suffer the same struggle? Will they have to fight for the dignity and respect that aboriginal communities have already fought for over decades and continue to fight for?

They said it was the first people of Canada who welcomed settlers and shared their ways and resources.

Those who came benefited and continue to benefit from the bounties of the land, from the fur trade, to timber, gold, and now diamonds, and soon oil and gas, it was pointed out.

The wealth of a great many has been made on the backs of Canada's aboriginal people, it was said.

'Enough is enough,' elder Doris McLean, and a former Carcross-Tagish chief, told the gathering.