Earlier this month, the Inuk leader and diplomat Mary Simon was announced as the 30th governor general of Canada. When she officially takes up the position next week, she will be the first Indigenous person to serve in the role. But while her appointment marked Ms. Simon's introduction to a larger public, for former Canadian Studies Program Nelson Graburn it was more like hearing the name of an old friend.
A trained anthropologist, Dr. Graburn (called ᐊᐱᖁ ᓂᓕᓯ, "Apirqu Nilisi" in Inuit) is an expert on Inuit culture and conducted his fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic. In the early '60s, his research took him to Nunavik, the Inuit territory of northern Quebec, where he first met the future governor-general.
"I used to know Mary Simon and her family quite well," Dr. Graburn explains. "When I lived I Kujjuak (then known as Fort Chimo) from 1963-64, she was a high school student, very bright, rather shy. I employed her as a translator, particularly for the rather long and technical questionnaires on the project for which I was working."
"Her father was an American entrepreneur and pilot who set up a hunting camp for rich people down the George River, and his HQ was Kujjuak. His clients flew in from Montreal on First Air, and he flew them out to camp and back. He was married to a local Inuk woman and had four children, the oldest of whom I knew best – Johnny May, a tall red-headed boy who was sent out to stay with his uncle in Colorado to earn his pilot’s license. He returned and worked for his father. Later he became a pilot for First Air when it was bought up by Air Inuit with the proceeds of the (CA$83 million) James Bay Treaty," (which Ms. Simon had helped negotiate.) "When he flew into communities in the North he was cheerily welcomed as the ‘first Inuit pilot’!"
"Since then I have met Mary Simon on many occasions, usually big conferences where we still exchange words (she’s still bilingual). I really admire her career in Canada and internationally."