Gertrude Ettershank Guerin or (1917-1998) was chief of the Musqueam Indian Band in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, Canada.

Personal life

Gertrude Ettershank was born on 26 March 1917 on the Mission Reserve on the north of the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...

, now part of North Vancouver. She was from the

Squamish people The Squamish people (Squamish language, Squamish: ''Skwxwú7mesh'' , historically transliterated as Sko-ko-mish) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Archaeological evidence sh ...

on her mother's side while her father was of English descent. Her mother died when she was aged 12, and she cared for her younger sister Vivian. She worked in a cannery, where she met Victor Guerin (died 1989), of the

Musqueam First Nation The Musqueam Indian Band ( ; hur, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm ) is a First Nations in Canada, First Nations band government in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is the only First Nations band whose reserve community lies within the boundari ...

. They married in 1936 and had five children. Guerin died 25 January 1998 and is buried alongside her husband in the cemetery on the Musqueam reserve: a plaque commemorates her in the church of St Michael the Archangel.

Activist and chief

In 1953-1954 Guerin and her husband moved to the Musqueam lands, where he worked as a fisherman and

longshoreman A stevedore (), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes. After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the number o ...

. She sent her children to the local public school, where they would get a better education than at the residential school, and joined the PTA, becoming its President. She was elected chief of the Musqueam for two years in 1959, the first woman to be an elected chief in Canada. In 1967 she worked on the establishment of the Native Education Centre, now the Native Education College, to support Vancouver's urban indigenous population. She was a founding member of the Vancouver Police and Native Liaison Society and in 1963 founded the Vancouver Friendship Centre, now the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society, She was among the group of Musqueam people, led by her son Delbert who was then the chief, who challenged the government in the court case

R v Guerin ''Guerin v The Queen'' 9842 S.C.R. 335 was a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision on Aboriginal rights where the Court first stated that the government has a fiduciary duty towards the First Nations of Canada and established Aboriginal title t ...

(1984), as a result of which the Musqueam were awarded $10 million; the case is considered a landmark in Canadian indigenous rights law. Her son, for whom the case is named, credited her as the inspiration behind the case: "The Guerin case came about because of me listening to her complain, no doubt about it".

Recognition

The Native Education College gives a "Visionary Award" in her name, saying that it "recognizes a former NEC Board Member who strives toward empowering Indigenous people". In 2006 she was posthumously given the Women's History Month Award for Family and Community by the British Columbia Ministry of Community Services and the Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation for her work on indigenous rights and her contribution to the empowerment of her community. Gertrude Guerin Plaza in Mount Pleasant, Vancouver at the junction of Main Street and Kingsway was named in her honour in 2018

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guerin, Gertrude 1917 births 1998 deaths 20th-century First Nations people Activists from British Columbia Coast Salish people First Nations activists First Nations women Squamish people (individuals) 20th-century Canadian women