Picture yourself packing up your belongings, saying goodbye to your friends and family, and leaving your home on foot to reach a destination 3,000 miles away. You then hike alone for days and days along a forest trail until you reach a familiar river. You take a short rest, and then climb into a borrowed canoe along with your gear. You canoe for days, even weeks, sleeping in make-shift shelters along the riverbank, and fishing and hunting for food between long hours of rigorous paddling. Finally, you come to a wide opening in the river where a large steamboat awaits to depart for Vancouver. You purchase a ticket, and step aboard, heaving a huge sigh of relief. At the same time, you swallow hard, and feel a mix of fear and anticipation jabbing in your stomach. You know that while the end of this journey is near, it is also just the beginning of an entirely new one. The new journey will be both exciting and very, very dangerous. This is because once you reach Vancouver, you will enlist in the army to fight for Canada and the Allied Nations in the Second World War.

All photos are courtesy of Stellat'en Treaty Archives.