Teara Fraser (born 1971) is a Canadian aviator and the founder and CEO of

Iskwew Air Iskwew Air is a Canadian Airline based at Vancouver International Airport. Iskwew Air was founded in 2018 by the airline’s CEO, Teara Fraser. The airline officially launched March 2019. Fraser has announced plans to enter the domestic Canadian ...

Biography

Teara Fraser was born in

Hay River, Northwest Territories Hay River (South Slavey: ''Xátł’odehchee'' ), known as "the Hub of the North," is a town in the Northwest Territories, Canada, located on the south shore of Great Slave Lake, at the mouth of the Hay River. The town is separated into two se ...

. She is a

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 ...

woman of

Cree The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...

ancestry.

Career

Fraser became a certified commercial pilot in 2002 after experiencing her first small aircraft flight in October 2001. Fraser founded an aerial survey company in 2010, and sold the company six years later. She returned to entrepreneurship in 2019 with the founding of

, a small airline that offers charter service to remote Indigenous communities 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. She chose the name Iskwew - which means "woman" in her ancestral

Cree language Cree (also known as Cree– Montagnais–Naskapi) is a dialect continuum of Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories to Alberta to Labrador. If considered one language, it is th ...

- in celebration of her Indigenous heritage and of the work of women to fight for gender equality. In addition to her experience as an aviator and entrepreneur, Fraser founded the Aviation Leadership Foundation, sits on the board of directors of the British Columbia Aviation Council, is a faculty member at Royal Roads University, and was a founder of the Raven Institute and the Lift Collective. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, Fraser and Iskwew Air began supplying essential goods to remote Indigenous communities, such as Alert Bay, that were impacted by the pandemic. Fraser's story will be included in the

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

graphic novel ''Wonderful Women of History''. The story, written by Traci Sorell and illustrated by Natasha Donovan, is set to be published in September 2021.

References

She was born in Hay River {{DEFAULTSORT:Fraser, Teara 1971 births Living people Canadian airline chief executives Canadian aviators Canadian women aviators People from Hay River