Melissa Blake is the former mayor of the

Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (abbreviated RMWB) is a specialized municipality in northeast Alberta, Canada. It is the second largest municipality in Alberta by area and is home to oil sand deposits known as the Athabasca oil sand ...

, which includes

Fort McMurray Fort McMurray ( ) is an urban service area in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in Alberta, Canada. It is located in northeast Alberta, in the middle of the Athabasca oil sands, surrounded by boreal forest. It has played a significant ...

. Blake was elected as a municipal councillor in 1998 and re-elected to council in 2001. She was elected mayor in 2004 and would serve for four terms. Blake announced in August 2016 that her fourth term as mayor would be her final and would not campaign for reelection in the 2017 municipal election. In October 2017, she told the Fort McMurray Today she would not be pursuing a political career in the near future. She was succeeded by Don Scott. She is of

Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which derives ...

background, and is originally from

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

. She was educated at

Keyano College Keyano College is a post-secondary college located in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. It offers specialized training to more than 2,100 full-time students and over 4,000 part-time students. The main Clearwater Campus is located in downtown Fort ...

and

Athabasca University Athabasca University (AU) is a Canadian public research university that primarily operates through online distance education. Founded in 1970, it is one of four comprehensive academic and research universities in Alberta, and was the first ...

References

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Mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo
Mayors of places in Alberta Women mayors of places in Alberta Living people First Nations women in politics Year of birth missing (living people) {{Alberta-politician-stub People from Fort McMurray