Amanda Frank
Alaska Beacon
At a book launch in May, Paul Herbert shared to a full theater at the Morris Thompson Cultural Visitors Center in Fairbanks how he met Chris Cannon, the author of the newly published book “In the Footsteps of the Traveller: The Astronomy of Northern Dene.”
One evening after he had been out on a trail all day, Herbert visited with a friend when they heard a faint knock on his door in Fort Yukon.
“We looked at each other and I yelled, ‘Come in,’” Herbert said, “loud enough for someone to hear it next door.”
Nothing happened and he heard another quiet knock.
“So me and my friend looked at each other and I jumped up and went and yanked the door open and there’s this red-headed guy standing by the door. He stuck his hand out and he tried to talk to me in Gwich’in.”
The person knocking on Herbert’s door was Cannon.
“I gave him a hard time, I tried to drive him away, but he kept coming back. Then he said, ‘I’m here to talk to you about the stars.’”
Before Cannon met Herbert, and before he studied astronomy, Cannon’s life was more grounded. He grew up in Helena, Montana, and moved to Alaska in 2001 to study aviation in Anchorage before switching majors and earning a bachelor of science in wildlife biology. Working with the University of Alaska Museum of the North, Cannon traveled across Alaska with a portable planetarium used to teach about the northern lights, presenting to students. Through these presentations, Cannon noticed many of the student’s cultural responses, such as whistling at the northern lights. This sparked an interest in Indigenous knowledge of the sky.
“It became more of a personal interest to look for things, to look for books or something that I could read about, just to educate myself more about cultural knowledge of the sky. There was some good information out there for Inuit or Yupik. The more I dug into Northern Dene, the less I found. So that increased my curiosity to find something,” Cannon shared in an interview.
This book details a 15-year journey across Northern Dene communities, sometimes known as Athabascan in Alaska, meeting with elders and experts to learn more about the cultural stories and significance of Dene astronomical knowledge. Cannon received a master of arts in Northern studies at UAF and continued his work towards a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at the university. He’s now an assistant professor at UAF’s College of Indigenous Studies.
Starting in 2009, Cannon worked with more than 65 elders in 34 communities across Alaska and Canada. That work became the basis for the new book, which features 60 illustrations and shares his research into the significance of the stars to Northern Dene life, language and culture.
A leading theme in the book is the story of the Traveller: a teacher, gamekeeper, guardian and practical guide for wayfinding. Cannon spent many years working in communities to identify the stories, combining interviews, photography and detailed illustrations.
“The Traveller is this figure who went around the world in ancient times who shaped the world into the way it is today. To make the world more safer and more useful for humans or especially Dene peoples. It’s a world transformation story; it has lots of variation but it’s pretty widespread throughout the Americas,” Cannon shared.
The book guides readers through a deep dive of multiple Dene languages, explaining star formations. And it provides an exclusive depiction of Indigenous understandings of the sky and other celestial and atmospheric phenomena, from thunder to the northern lights, and how it relates to the human experience.
“When you discover this Traveller in the stars, you’re also discovering a lot about yourself and where you come from and that your spirit is also ancient and continuous through time,” he said. “And you understand how all things are related, which also informs how you are in the world and how you relate to it and treat things.”
Cannon hopes that his work brings about a new awareness and a deeper cultural context about the stars, stating that the teachings from the elders shared throughout the book have deep antiquity and still have uses in a modern and contemporary world.
“Like when you read about cultural astronomy, it’s always about this huge focus on the story but this is trying to push that beyond a story. Certainly there’s stories about the Traveller, but what’s more, is that there’s this model for how to live, be and relate to this world and everything in it. It’s a very huge concept, huge model, huge being up there that’s not treated as stars but treated as a living, animate thing that’s always there.”
Cannon’s research has been featured in shows such as Molly of Denali on PBS Kids, capturing audiences of all ages.
“Please know, Chris, that this is generational work for all of us as Indigenous people, as we get to know ourselves again as we make a shift from generational trauma to healing. It’s going to be generational healing from here on out and this is part of it,” said Teisha Simmons, dean of the College of Indigenous Studies, who shared the importance of Cannon’s work in closing at the book launch.
The book is published by the University of Manitoba Press. Cannon has offered the proceeds from the book to the Doyon Foundation in support of Northern Dene language revitalization.
For those who missed the book launch, Cannon will give a talk about his work as part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Summer Lecture Series, on July 30, at 7 p.m. at the BP Design Theater on campus and available through a livestream.
This story was originally published by the Alaska Beacon on July 7, 2025