Lady Writer takes top award

Page 8

People

Yukon Elder Edith Josie received the Order of Canada in Ottawa in November for documenting life in her hometown, Old Crow, for nearly 30 years.

Josie, a 73-year-old woman form Gwich'in First Nation, began writing a column, Here Are the News, for the Whitehorse Star in 1962. She was originally from Eagle, Alaska, and moved to Old Crow with her family in 1940. She has lived there for the past 55 years. Her columns, which chronicle the lives of people in the community of about 200 just north of the Arctic Circle, have also been printed in the Fairbanks News-Miner, the Edmonton Journal and the Toronto Telegram.

In 1960, her writings were put together in book form. Here Are The News was recently reprinted as The Best of Edith Josie: Here Are The News, in 1994.

While in Ottawa receiving her award, Josie took the opportunity to voice her opposition to the oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

"People in the North, they live only by wild meat. They can't stand it without caribou meat," she said. "And everyone, they don't like development to go through. As you know, it will spoil the land and the caribou will die off and even the birds and ducks and geese."

United States president Bill Clinton finally vetoed a Republican budget bill that would have opened up development in the refuge, where the Porcupine Caribou herd makes its home.

A 10-person delegate from Old Crow, including Josie, recently returned from a 10-city tour of the United States including Washington, D.C., where they encouraged politicians to oppose oil and gas drilling there.

"We did good, I think," said Josie. " I wished that when we go to Washington we work strongly to speak for the Old Crow community, the caribou and also our land."

Josie's Order of Canada is not the first award she has received. In 1967, she won the Canada Centennial Medal for her contributions and then lost the medal in a flood the following year in Old Crow. It was replaced about two years ago.

She has also served as a justice of the peace and a lay reader, helping the team ministry at St. Luke's Anglican Church in Old Crow. She also volunteers as a Gwich'in language teacher at the college campus in Old Crow as well as studying math and spelling there as a student.