Cora Voyageur - Firekeepers of the Twenty-First Century: First Nations Women Chiefs

FIREKEEPERS OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Bruce G. Trigger, Editors

1 When the Whalers Were Up North Inuit Memories from the Eastern Arctic Dorothy Harley Eber

2 The Challenge of Arctic Shipping Science, Environmental Assessment, and Human Values Edited by David L. VanderZwaag and Cynthia Lamson

3 Lost Harvests Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy Sarah Carter

4 Native Liberty, Crown Sovereignty The Existing Aboriginal Right of Self-Government in Canada Bruce Clark

5 Unravelling the Franklin Mystery Inuit Testimony David C. Woodman

6 Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and China Goods The Maritime Fur Trade of the Northwest Coast, 17851841 James R. Gibson

7 From Wooden Ploughs to Welfare The Story of the Western Reserves Helen Buckley

8 In Business for Ourselves Northern Entrepreneurs Wanda A. Wuttunee

9 For an Amerindian Autohistory An Essay on the Foundations of a Social Ethic Georges E. Sioui

10 Strangers Among Us David Woodman

11 When the North Was Red Aboriginal Education in Soviet Siberia Dennis A. Bartels and Alice L. Bartels

12 From Talking Chiefs to a Native Corporate Elite The Birth of Class and Nationalism among Canadian Inuit Marybelle Mitchell

13 Cold Comfort My Love Affair with the Arctic Graham W. Rowley

14 The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7 Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council with Walter Hildebrandt, Dorothy First Rider, and Sarah Carter

15 This Distant and Unsurveyed Country A Womans Winter at Baffin Island, 18571858 W. Gillies Ross

16 Images of Justice Dorothy Harley Eber

17 Capturing Women The Manipulation of Cultural Imagery in Canadas Prairie West Sarah A. Carter

18 Social and Environmental Impacts of the James Bay Hydroelectric Project Edited by James F. Hornig

19 Saqiyuq Stories from the Lives of Three Inuit Women Nancy Wachowich in collaboration with Apphia Agalakti Awa, Rhoda Kaukjak Katsak, and Sandra Pikujak Katsak

20 Justice in Paradise Bruce Clark

21 Aboriginal Rights and Self-Government The Canadian and Mexican Experience in North American Perspective Edited by Curtis Cook and Juan D. Lindau

22 Harvest of Souls The Jesuit Missions and Colonialism in North America, 16321650 Carole Blackburn

23 Bounty and Benevolence A History of Saskatchewan Treaties Arthur J. Ray, Jim Miller, and Frank Tough

24 The People of Denendeh Ethnohistory of the Indians of Canadas Northwest Territories June Helm

25 The Marshall Decision and Native Rights Ken Coates

26 The Flying Tiger Women Shamans and Storytellers of the Amur Kira Van Deusen

27 Alone in Silence European Women in the Canadian North before 1940 Barbara E. Kelcey

28 The Arctic Voyages of Martin Frobisher An Elizabethan Adventure Robert McGhee

29 Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture Rene Hulan

30 The White Mans Gonna Getcha The Colonial Challenge to the Crees in Quebec Toby Morantz

31 The Heavens Are Changing Nineteenth-Century Protestant Missions and Tsimshian Christianity Susan Neylan

32 Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers The Transformation of Inuit Settlement in the Central Arctic David Damas

33 Arctic Justice On Trial for Murder Pond Inlet, 1923 Shelagh D. Grant

34 Eighteenth-Century Naturalists of Hudson Bay Stuart Houston, Tim Ball, and Mary Houston

35 The American Empire and the Fourth World Anthony J. Hall

36 Uqalurait An Oral History of Nunavut Compiled and edited by John Bennett and Susan Rowley

37 Living Rhythms Lessons in Aboriginal Economic Resilience and Vision Wanda Wuttunee

38 The Making of an Explorer George Hubert Wilkins and the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 19131916 Stuart E. Jenness

39 Chee Chee A Study of Aboriginal Suicide Alvin Evans

40 Strange Things Done Murder in Yukon History Ken S. Coates and William R. Morrison

41 Healing through Art Ritualized Space and Cree Identity Nadia Ferrara

42 Coyote and Raven Go Canoeing Coming Home to the Village Peter Cole

43 Something New in the Air The Story of First Peoples Television Broadcasting in Canada Lorna Roth

44 Listening to Old Woman Speak Natives and Alternatives in Canadian Literature Laura Smyth Groening

45 Robert and Francis Flaherty A Documentary Life, 18831922 Robert J. Christopher

46 Talking in Context Language and Identity in Kwakwakawakw Society Anne Marie Goodfellow

47 Tecumsehs Bones Guy St-Denis

48 Constructing Colonial Discourse Captain Cook at Nootka Sound Noel Elizabeth Currie

49 The Hollow Tree Fighting Addiction with Traditional Healing Herb Nabigon

50 The Return of Caribou to Ungava A.T. Bergerud, Stuart Luttich, Lodewijk Camps

51 Firekeepers of the Twenty-First Century First Nations Women Chiefs Cora J. Voyageur

First Nations Women Chiefs

CORA J. VOYAGEUR

McGill-Queens University Press 2008

ISBN 978-0-7735-3216-8 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-7735-3217-5 (paper)

Legal deposit first quarter 2008

Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free.

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

McGill-Queens University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program ( BPIDP ) for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Voyageur, Cora Jane, 1956

Firekeepers of the twenty-first century: First Nations women chiefs / Cora J. Voyageur.

(McGill-Queens native and northern series; 51)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7735-3216-8 (bound) ISBN 978-0-7735-3217-5 (pbk.)

1. Indian women civic leaders Canada -- Biography. 2. Indian women Canada Biography. 3. Indian leadership -- Canada. 4. Indians of North America Canada Politics and government. 5. Women Canada Biography. I. Title. II. Series.

E89.V69 2007 971.0049700922 C2007-904545-6

Typeset in New Baskerville 10.5/13

by Infoscan Collette, Quebec City

For Brian, Carly, Drew, Reeve, and Liam

Dates of Political Gender Equality in Canada 10

Female Chiefs Provincial or Regional Representation by Percentage 46

Respondents Demographic Profile by Demographic Categories and Percentage 47

This book came about quite by accident. I was teaching a class at the University of Calgary and students were asking about governance. When asked about women leaders in the First Nations community, I didnt have an answer. When I explored the topic I realized, to my surprise, that there was little or nothing written on this topic. This is truly an academics dream come true.