“Some days, it was pretty challenging, somedays, it was heartbreaking, some days, it was rewarding.”

So says Chief Doris Bill about her first three-year term as leader of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation.

The former CBC journalist is seeking re-election as chief of the First Nation in Whitehorse.

Nominations are open until Feb. 1, and the general election will be held March 15.

A number of long-term projects were launched in Kwanlin Dün over Bill’s mandate, many of which are ongoing. A call has been put out for community safety officers, and governance and citizenship acts have yet to be implemented.

The Kwanlin Dün land registry, which will enable the First Nation to register land leases at the Land Titles Office without surrendering aboriginal rights and title, is in its final stages.

With 1,036 square kilometres of land, a substantial amount of which is in Whitehorse, Kwanlin Dün is one of the largest land owners in the city.

Much work remains to be done on all these files, said Bill, and she wants to see it through.

“We’re building a government; it’s not an easy task,” said the chief.

Kwanlin Dün has been self-governing for just over a decade.

Bill was born in Whitehorse but grew up in the foster care system in Inuvik. She returned to the Yukon as a young adult and went on to a career in journalism that spanned more than two decades.

It was not Bill’s intention to run for chief after retiring from the CBC.

As the 2014 election approached, however, people began asking her to consider it.

After thinking hard on the idea, she decided to go for it.

“I thought, I could contribute. I care about the community. So I ran and here we are, three years later,” she said in an interview last week.

As chief, Bill’s primary focus has been community safety.

“In the first year of my term, we had a major crisis, one after another, and it seemed like we were constantly in a grieving cycle,” she said.

First, 69-year-old Alan Waugh was found dead in his home on McCrimmon Crescent in the McIntyre subdivision in May 2014.

His death was ruled a homicide, and the killer or killers have yet to be found.

Then came the murder of 17-year-old Brandy Vittrekwa. Her beaten body was found on a trail near the McIntyre subdivision in December 2014.

“Brandy was really the catalyst,” said Bill. “Our community safety initiatives were born out of that.”

Under Bill’s leadership, Kwanlin Dün secured $1.4 million in funding over three years from the Yukon government for its Community Safety Liaison Officer pilot project.

That program is intended to prevent crime in the McIntyre neighbourhood, and includes hiring a community safety co-ordinator, a justice service co-ordinator and community safety officers who will work to provide culturally-relevant justice services in the Kwanlin Dün community.

In December 2015, the First Nation government established a tips line for its citizens to anonymously report suspected crimes.

Over the last three years, the First Nation government fixed broken street lights in McIntyre, cleared area trails and hauled loads of garbage out of the community.

“When I came on, there were barely any working street lights. The trails, you couldn’t see from one end to the other on some of them,” said Bill, adding, “Non-Kwanlin Dün people were dumping garbage on our land.”

The government hired its young people to help clean up further last summer, and citizens gave a hand to elders tidying their yards.

All of these initiatives have worked to make the Kwanlin Dün community safer, said Bill. And the proof is in the data.

“We just looked at the stats for last year. Over a year period, the calls to the RCMP are down 40 per cent,” she said.

“I’m really proud of that.”

It’s been hard work, but Bill isn’t ready to give up.

Indeed, she believes that mandates should be extended for chiefs of self-governing First Nations like Kwanlin Dün.

“If we were an Indian Act band, yes, then three years is appropriate,” she said.

“But for self-governing First Nations, if you’re trying to gain stability and consistency in your programs and services, and stability in your government, I think longer terms are more appropriate.”

It’s a conversation she wants to have with Kwanlin Dün citizens, as extending the chief’s term would require a change to the government’s constitution.

Another conversation to have, if she’s re-elected, would be about the possibility of a recreation centre for the Kwanlin Dün community, said Bill.

Candidates for chief are kept private until the nomination period ends, but Bill is pretty sure this will be a contested race.

Still, she appears calm ahead of what could be a tough campaign.

“I’ve always been a person who has to be busy. I have to be doing something,” she said.

“I’ve always taken on the tough difficult challenges head-on.”