Robert Arthur Alexie (22 July 19579 June 2014) was a Canadian First Nations novelist and a land claim negotiator who played a key role in land claim agreements in the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

. Alexie was born in

Fort McPherson Fort McPherson was a U.S. Army military base located in Atlanta, Georgia, bordering the northern edge of the city of East Point, Georgia. It was the headquarters for the U.S. Army Installation Management Command, Southeast Region; the U.S. Ar ...

and lived in

Inuvik Inuvik (''place of man'') is the only town in the Inuvik Region, and the third largest community in Canada's Northwest Territories. Located in what is sometimes called the Beaufort Delta Region, it serves as its administrative and service cen ...

. He served as Tribal chief of the Tetlit Gwich'in of Fort McPherson and also served as the vice president of the Gwich'in Tribal Council for two terms, helping achieve a land claims agreement. He was elected as President of the Gwich'in Tribal Council in July 2012.CBC North news story
/ref>

Education

Alexie attended Chief Julius School (''né'' Peter Warren Dease School) in

but completed his high school education in 1974 at Samuel Hearne Secondary School in

. In 1984 Alexie completed a two-year public business and administration program at Thebacha College in Fort Smith.

Political Involvement and Advocacy

Alexie served as band manager of the Tetlit Gwich'in Band Council and was elected Tribal chief of the Tetlit Gwich'in of

in 1989 and served two year. He also served as the vice president of the Gwich'in Tribal Council for two terms and was elected as President of the Gwich'in Tribal Council in July 2012.

Land Claim Negotiations

In 1990, Alexie led the Gwich'in delegation at a Territories-wide meeting of Dene and Metís groups working on a comprehensive land claim agreement between these groups and the government of Canada. When it became clear that other groups at the delegation were not ready to accept the negotiating position taken by the Gwich'in, Alexie led a walkout of the Gwich'in delegation. Alexie then became the Chief Negotiator for the Gwich'in Tribal Council as they pursued their own land claim agreement with the Government of Canada, which led to the signing in April, 1992 of the Gwich'in Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement.Northwest Territories Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relation

/ref>Canadian Encyclopedia
/ref> Signed in April 1992 the Gwich'in Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement provided the Gwich'in with the following rights: * Ownership of approximately 22,330 square kilometres of land in the

, and 1,554 square kilometres in the Yukon. * Subsurface (mineral) rights to 6,158 square kilometres of land in the

. * A tax-free payment of $75 million paid over a 15-year period, a share of resource revenues from development in the

, and a 15-year subsidy of property taxes on certain Gwich'in municipal lands. * Participation in land use planning and management of renewable resources, land, water, and Gwich'in heritage resources. * Exclusive rights to be licensed to conduct commercial wildlife activities on Gwich'in lands and preferential rights in the whole settlement area. * Negotiation of self-government.

Awards

In 2002 Alexie was awarded the

Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee Medal The Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal (french: link=no, Médaille du jubilé d'or de la Reine Elizabeth II) or the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal was a commemorative medal created in 2002 to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's ...

for exemplary contribution to his community and to Canada.

Novels

''Porcupines and China Dolls''

His first novel, ''Porcupines and China Dolls'' (published in 2002 and reissued by Theytus Books in paperback in 2009) examines the lives of students forced into the Canadian Indian residential school system

and the ensuing intergenerational or Historical trauma for them and their families. As reviewer Jim Bartley wrote in

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 ...

, "On a September day in 1962, we enter the school (now "hostel") with two boys, James and Jake. For the first time in their lives, they will live without family around them, captive to strange, cold adults, a militarized sense of time and no appeal for the wrongs done them." Bartley adds, " lexie'sevocation of chronic mental anguish has a cumulative power that transcends his sentimental excess. Though the abuser is brought to justice here, the pain lives on in ever more elusive ways. Alexie offers no easy outs. Thomas King explains the novel's title in ''The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative'': "the girls had been scrubbed and powdered to look like china dolls and the boys had been scrubbed and sheared to look like porcupines" One of the lines from which the title draws its name comes from Alexie writing, "No one heard the little china doll that night, but if she were given a voice, it would've sounded like a million porcupines screaming in the dark." Author of ''The Lesser Blessed'', Richard Van Camp's review of ''Porcupines and China Dolls'' suggests, " is book will initiate more healing than any of us will ever know. It's hard but good medicine." King also indicates that Alexie—alongside

Eden Robinson Eden Victoria Lena Robinson (born 19 January 1968) is an Indigenous Canadian author. She is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations.Ruby Slipperjack Ruby Slipperjack, or Ruby Slipperjack-Farrell, (born 1952) is an Ojibwe writer and painter. Her work discusses traditional religious and social customs of the Ojibwe in northern Ontario, as well as the incursion of modernity on their culture. She ...

— creates "fictions... primarily for a Native audience, making a conscious decision not so much to ignore non-Native readers as to write for the very people they write about", suggesting that the text does not provide enough of a debriefing for a non-Native audience to understand its weight historically. CBC Radio host Shelagh Rogers wrote, "Dramatic, raw, merciless, ''Porcupines and China Dolls'' is not a book you coast through. It is about our history and what happened to 'The People', as Alexie writes, when the Europeans arrived."

''The Pale Indian''

Alexie's sophomore

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

, ''The Pale Indian'' (published in 2005), offers perhaps an even less clear historical debriefing than its predecessor, confirming King's suspicions about intended audience. ''The Pale Indian'' takes place in the 1980s and surround's a young man's return to his northern community after being raised in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

by an adoptive white family. The novel is both a love story and a tragedy. ''The Pale Indian'' is full of energetic sex and humour"Authentic Indian Voices Speak With Pain, Honesty." Winnipeg Free Press (MB) 6 March 2005: b8. Web. 7 May 2010. that provide respite from some of the more serious issues that the novel confronts.

Bibliography

* ''Porcupines and China Dolls'' (2002), * ''The Pale Indian'' (2005),

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexie, Robert Arthur 1957 births 2014 deaths Canadian male novelists First Nations novelists Writers from the Northwest Territories 21st-century Canadian novelists 20th-century Canadian novelists 20th-century Canadian male writers 21st-century Canadian male writers 20th-century First Nations writers 21st-century First Nations writers First Nations activists Indigenous leaders in Canada Indigenous leaders in Yukon Gwich'in people