CARCROSS – Members of the Carcross-Tagish First Nation who barricaded the aboriginal government's offices on Tuesday say they are fed up with the chief and council and want changes to their clan system.

"We haven't had an election for 15 years in this community,” said Harold Gatensby, one of approximately 20 protesters who stood outside the chained entrance of Carcross-Tagish Government Office Wednesday.

"Any place else, they wouldn't call that any kind of a governance system. There's a name for that and it's not a pretty one.”

Albert James, a 67-year-old Carcross-Tagish elder, also has problems with the clan system the First Nation's membership voted to adopt during the land claims negotiation process which began in the late 1990s.

"We have no say in who leads us. They go into a little room, they come out and say, ‘This is your chief,”' James told the Star. "The ordinary people out here have nothing to say about that.

"Now if that's a human rights issue, maybe we should follow that human rights issue and start dealing with it that way because I know our human rights are being violated by this system.”

The First Nation's land claim was signed in 2003 and ratified in 2005. According the clan governance system, Carcross-Tagish's chief is appointed by a hierarchy of clan leaders.

Reappointed in 2007, Mark Wedge is currently in his second four-year mandate as Carcross-Tagish's chief under the clan system.

But the complaints among the Carcross-Tagish membership who chained the First Nation's office doors shut go beyond how chief and council are established.

Larry Barrett, a 65-year-old semi-retired heavy equipment contractor, said the Carcross-Tagish refused to make repairs on his home, so the White River First Nation – where his wife was a member until she passed away – stepped in to do the work.

"The stove and everything is in there, but then my wife died last January and they stopped work on the house because my wife belonged to that band and I don't,” said Barrett, whose predicament offered a window into the convoluted politics of a territory balkanized by the modern-day land claim.

"So my house is actually sitting worse now than it was. Why does a small band like Beaver Creek have to come and help a First Nation (person) in Carcross here when my band is here?” asked Barrett, who bristled at the suggestion he could afford to do it without Carcross-Tagish's assistance.

"Sure, I've got heavy equipment and I've got some of it working. But it's not whether or not I have the money to do it,” he said. "But it's stuff that if land claims never got signed, Indian Affairs would done it for us anyways.”

And Natasha Smith, a 33-year-old protester and mother of four children, told a similar story.

"We didn't have any heat in my late grandfather's house in Tagish whatsoever for three months of the winter; ... we had no oven but one working burner with a fan on it,” Smith said.

"And I went to Mark (Wedge), begging and pleading for him to help me with this and he basically said, ‘there's nothing I can do.'”

At a subsequent Transitional Employment Program, Smith recalled Wedge claiming he would "never let his people freeze.”

"So when I stood up and asked him about what happened when I asked for help, he said that I ‘fell through the cracks,'” said Smith, who has since been moved to a home owned by the First Nation in Carcross where she now pays rent.

Shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday, Wedge and the Carcross-Tagish's executive council visited the protesters and attempted to break the impasse.

Gatensby demanded that the electoral system be reintroduced.

"I'm tired of living under a dictatorship,” he declared. "I'm tired of not having a voice.”

While Wedge offered those barricading his office a general assembly to address matters such as electoral reform in four weeks, several protesters around the small fire burning in front of the building wanted that assembly to take place today.

But Wedge said it would be impossible to organize such a gathering in fewer than 24 hours.

"Holding a general assembly takes time and we can't do these things overnight,” Wedge explained.

"We agree with you that we need to have a process to have this dialogue with the community, but the broader community needs to be involved as well, all 840 members.”

More than half of Carcross-Tagish members live outside of the First Nation's traditional territory and Wedge said they must be informed of a general assembly to give them an opportunity to participate.

The brief meeting between the chief and his detractors broke up approximately 15 minutes later, after Wedge agreed to draw up a resolution mandating a general assembly and a working group to hash out what issues would be addressed.

As of 12:30 p.m. today, protesters and Wedge and his executive council reached an agreement, and according to Donnie Smith – one of the more vocal protesters at Wednesday evening's meeting with the chief – the blockade will be lifted later this afternoon.

"We agreed to meet with a working group and agreed to meet with the executive council to work towards a change ... in the election system, and many other issues,” Smith said.

The deal between the two sides will also include a general assembly, to take place no later than Feb. 10.

In a brief interview with the Star after the fireside meeting broke up Wednesday night, Wedge acknowledged that his community had not conducted a popular vote for its chief and council for "about 15 years,” but defended the current clan system.

"You're hearing some of the voices that they feel they're not being heard. But what you also have to recognize is that when we were under the band election system, is that the majority of the people weren't heard,” Wedge said.

"When the clan system became involved, we had more involvement from the community. Many people came to me and said they feel that they are now more represented because they have a clan system.

"So this is a perspective ... sometimes democracy isn't about going with what I want. It's about what the whole wants. We can't exclude people from the process.”

Wedge also responded to media reports on Tuesday that suggested the impetus for the protest was due to the First Nation cutting social assistance to some of its members.

"We have offered people jobs and if they have refused jobs, yes we have not paid them social assistance,” said Wedge, who described the measure as part of a wholesale change in the way the Carcross-Tagish conducts its affairs.

"Because they are capable of working, they are capable of earning an income, and if they refuse to earn that income, then all of the people of the First Nation shouldn't suffer because of that.”

But Bobbie Bayne, a 40-year-old unemployed member of Carcross-Tagish who led the barricade and 2 1/2-day protest, said the media had everything "all mixed up about why we are doing this.

"Yesterday I heard on the radio that we're doing this because we don't have any social assistance money. It's not about the SA money. The people want change now,” said Bayne.

"We want to see change in leadership; we want to see change in the way our band is being managed.

"This was a long time coming and I figured to myself, if we go into the new year, then we might as well start by trying to get change in our band. It hasn't been working for years now.”