Sahtu Dene documentarian journeys 17,000 km for Indigenous storytelling project

At 27, Tate Juniper is stepping into his journalist boots for the first time, travelling 17,000 km across the United States by road, capturing stories and portraits of Indigenous people through his new project We Are The First.

An electrician and accountant by trade, Juniper started the project because "Indigenous representation in popular culture and media has been historically and in the contemporary, lacking," said Juniper, who is Sahtu Dene from Délı̨nę.

"We've moved from being the 'noble savage' to the 'resilient survivor.' But it's still a compartmentalized existence," he said. 

He wanted to dig into what authentic representation looks like and how to fight for it.

To find the answer, Juniper bought a camera, some microphones and drove from Inuvik to the U.S. border, where he used the Jay Treaty of 1794, which allows Indigenous people unimpeded access from Canada to the U.S., to cross the border while it was still closed to Canada. 

He's interviewed artists, students, tribal leaders, elders, fancy shawl dancers, judges, youth workers and activists, wellness workers, drummers, aestheticians, prairie land preservationists, electronic dance music fans, archaeologists and even iconic rappers Lil Mike and Funny Bone, from Pawnee Nation in Oklahoma.

Juniper's been through Washington, Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas and Chicago. He recently drove along the U.S.-Mexico border to El Paso before heading on to New Mexico. 

The project is self funded, said Juniper, and that's why many of his days begin with him waking up at a Love's truck stop.

If he's lucky, there will be no rattlesnakes in the bathroom — he's not always lucky.

Juniper said he enters interviews without an angle and lets the person sitting for a portrait share anything they like. It's more of a conversation, than an interview. 

Some profiles are about a person's advocacy, a story, or simply who they are.

"To me, real representation means allowing the individual to represent themselves. Unsurprisingly, when you give Indigenous people a voice, they speak a powerful truth," Juniper said. 

"We can kind of move away from this idea of pan-Indigeneity that we are all the same, which is an easy way to view Indigenous issues and people."

Juniper said authentic representation comes through conversation and listening.