Mother and daughter reunite after 30 years apart

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"It was more emotional than I expected. I wasn't going to cry, I told myself I wasn't going to cry."

But Trudy Jansen cried anyway when she met her mother Annie Cook for the first time May 18 at Edmonton's International Airport. As soon as they saw each other they fell into each other's arms.

Shortly after, Trudy's sister Shirley, her nephew Christopher, her husband Werner and her daughter Tanya huddled together savoring the moment.

"I cried so much when I gave her away," said Annie. "So I wasn't going to cry this time."

But she cried anyway, too.

Annie flew in from Inuvik, Northwest Territories after a year of correspondence and an 30-year separation. Trudy was given up after her twin died.

Sister Shirley has boarded with her for four weeks now.

Trudy didn't discover she was adopted until she was seven-years-old.

"I grew up in a white family. I know I was different," she said of being raised in Edmonton.

"One time I went to the Edmonton Telephone tower, where they have all the phone books, and I looked her number up in the phone book. So I phoned her; it was maybe 1978," she said. "Then I wrote her a letter last summer and we started keeping in contact."

Annie only spent a week in Edmonton before returning to the north, but Trudy plans to attend the Dene National Assembly in Fort Good Hope in July so she can get a taste of northern Native politics and a glimpse of her culture.

Trudy, a member of the Fort Good Hope Dene band, is completing her first year of Native studies at the U of A.