Would you pay to sleep in a traditional-style, birch-bark shelter? This Yukon tourism business thinks so

A new Yukon business is offering tourists an "authentic experience"in First Nations culture that could include sleeping in a traditional shelter made of spruce bark and moss.

The new venture will alsoguide hikers through traditional trails of the Champagne andAishihikFirst Nation.

"We've been wanting for some time to actually open some of our ancient trails and praying about having about businesses work with us, so we can create a new venture and a new clientele," saidMetaWilliams.

Williams already has experience with cultural tourism.Her family runsKwday Dn Kenji (Long Ago Peoplesplace),a learning site outside Champagne, Yukon.

The learning campand the Champagne andAishihik First Nations have partnered with a French-language tourism outfit called Le Jardinier Voyageur(The Travelling Gardener.)

The new venture will bring visitors for days at a time, to sample local foods and walktrails restored in recent years by the Champagne andAishihik First Nations.

"These trails have been sleeping for many, many years. So to actually open up those trails has been a wonderful venture," Williams said.

The arrangement means the tourism company will handle marketing and bookingwhile local people will be guides.

One of them will be Harold Johnson, who has been building shelters and guiding at Kwday Dn Kenjifor 20 years.

"There's traditional trails all over the entire Yukon," he said. "The elders say at one timethe entire Yukon would have looked like a spider's web. There's trails everywhere."

Growing demand for 'cultural experiences'

Jonathan Alsberghe, who runs Le Jardinier Voyageur,saidthe new venture with Champagne and Aishihikpromises "a 100 per centimmersive experience," in First Nations culture.

"It was good timing, I think," he said. "Meta and Harold are exactly in this vision right now."

One limit placed by the community is that the trips will not feature drum dancing.

"You cannot sell a ticket to a drum dance," saidAlsberghe."Not every part of the culture can be bought and sold."

The tourism entrepreneur said there is a growing demand for cultural tourism, a fact explored at a conference in Whitehorse last year.

He said he's happy to be the link between that international demandand a Yukon family willing to be guides.

The company's first guided tour, near Ibex Valley, leaves June 23.