Canada is home to a sizeable Indigenous population and according to the Government of Canada, which celebrates National Indigenous Peoples Day each June, more than 1.6 million individuals in Canada identified as Indigenous.
Many of those individuals have had a significant impact on Canada, and the following are just a few that are worth highlighting this June.
Cherie Dimaline. Dimaline is a Métis author known for books such as “The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy” and “The Marrow Thieves,” which won the Kirkus Prize for young readers’ literature.
Jeremy Dutcher. Dutcher is a classically trained tenor, composer and musicologist. Dutcher’s 2018 album, “Wolastoqiyik,” is a tribute to the traditional songs of his people.
Alanis Obomsawin. A member of the Abenaki Nation, Obomsawin is a documentary filmmaker who has used the medium of film to give voice to Canada’s Indigenous population.
Carolyn Darbyshire-McRorie. Born in Manitoba in 1963, Darbyshire-McRorie is an accomplished Métis curler who won a silver medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Thelma Chalifoux. Before she died in 2017, Chalifoux became the first Métis person to be appointed to the Canadian Senate. Chalifoux was a social justice advocate who founded the Michif Cultural Institute (now the Michif Cultural Connections), a museum and resource centre devoted to preserving and promoting Métis culture.
Dr. Nadine Caron. Dr. Caron is a member of the Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation and the first woman First Nations general surgeon in Canadian history. Caron is among a group working to provide more equitable access for First Nations communities to genomic research into various diseases, including several types of cancer.
Louie Kamookak. The late Kamookak was an Inuit Elder, educator and historian whose work collecting Inuit oral histories played an integral role in the recovery of the HMS Erebus shipwreck in 2014.
