Indigenous leader.
Born around 1945, he was a member of the Pimicikamak Cree Nation at Cross Lake. As an aboriginal elder who served as a Chief in northern Manitoba, he was respected for his work as a community leader and his involvement in Indigenous issues. He played instrumental roles in most of the major political dramas of the aboriginal world in the last half of the 20th century, from the White Paper of 1969 to Meech Lake in 1991.
He was a Chief with the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood, the province’s first aboriginal political organization, that helped to defeat the 1969 federal White Paper which had proposed abolishing treaty rights. He was an adviser behind the scenes during the Meech Lake campaign, working to defeat the constitutional accord because it failed to recognize aboriginal people as founding peoples of Canada.
He also represented Cree rights when Manitoba settled the Northern Flood Agreement to build hydroelectric dams in the north, and then went on to support MLA Elijah Harper over the Meech Lake debate.
He died at Winnipeg on 28 September 2008 and was buried at Cross Lake.
“Aboriginal elder remembered as community leader,” Winnipeg Free Press, 4 October 2008.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 27 December 2024
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