Mishi Donovan (1964 - 2013) was a Chippewa Cree, Canadian actress, musician, First Nations activist and HIV/AIDS educator."Resilient singer was passionate about healing"
''Windspeaker'', Vol. 30, No. 12 (2013). A Chippewa Cree originally from the Turtle Mountain region, she was taken from her birth family in the Sixties Scoop and was raised entirely by white foster families. In the 1980s, Donovan was a court worker with Native Counselling Services in Edmonton, Alberta, and later became a director of Feathers of Hope, a First Nations HIV/AIDS charity, after her adopted brother Ken Ward came out as HIV-positive. Having long written and performed music as a personal hobby, she signed to Sunshine Records in 1993 after submitting some demo recordings to the label, and released her debut album ''Spirit in Flight'' in 1995. She followed up with two further albums, ''The Spirit Within'' in 1997 and ''Journey Home'' in 2000. ''The Spirit Within'' won the

Juno Award The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...

for Aboriginal Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 1998, and ''Journey Home'' was a shortlisted nominee for the same award at the Juno Awards of 2001."Aboriginal nominees to be saluted in March". ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', February 15, 2001. As an actress, Donovan had roles in the television series ''Big Bear'' and '' MythQuest''. Late in her life, Donovan revealed that she had been diagnosed with

dystonia Dystonia is a neurological hyperkinetic movement disorder in which sustained or repetitive muscle contractions result in twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal fixed postures. The movements may resemble a tremor. Dystonia is often inten ...

, and died in 2013 at age 48.

Discography

*''Spirit in Flight'' (1995) *''The Spirit Within'' (1997) *''Journey Home'' (2000)

References

External links

* 1964 births 2013 deaths 20th-century Canadian women singers 20th-century First Nations people 20th-century indigenous women of the Americas Cree actresses Canadian television actresses Cree women singers Actresses from Alberta Juno Award for Indigenous Music Album of the Year winners Musicians with dystonia Sixties Scoop victims Cree activists Chippewa Cree people {{Canada-singer-stub