Robert Arthur Alexie (22 July 19579 June 2014) was a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

First Nations First nations are indigenous settlers or bands. First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to: Indigenous groups *List of Indigenous peoples *First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

and a land claim negotiator who played a key role in land claim agreements in the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

. 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 List of municipalities in the Northwest Territories, third largest community in Canada's Northwest Territories. Located in what is sometimes called the Beaufort Delta Re ...

. He served as

Tribal chief A tribal chief, chieftain, or headman is a leader of a tribe, tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies There is no definition for "tribe". The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of weste ...

of the Tetlit Gwich'in of Fort McPherson and also served as the vice president of the Gwich'in

Tribal Council A tribal council is an association of First Nations bands in Canada, generally along regional, ethnic or linguistic lines. An Indian band, usually consisting of one main community, is the fundamental unit of government for First Nations in Can ...

for two terms, helping achieve a

land claims A land claim is "the pursuit of recognized territorial ownership by a group or individual". The phrase is usually only used with respect to disputed or unresolved land claims. Some types of land claims include aboriginal land claims, Antarctic l ...

agreement. He was elected as President of the Gwich'in Tribal Council in July 2012.

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

of the Tetlit Gwich'in of

in 1989 and served two year. He also served as the vice president of the Gwich'in

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 The Dene people () are an Indigenous group of First Nations who inhabit the northern boreal, subarctic and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dene speak Northern Athabaskan languages and it is the common Athabaskan word for "people". The term ...

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 Yukon () is a Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s we ...

. * 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 Self-governance, self-government, self-sovereignty or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. It may refer to personal conduct or to any ...

Awards

In 2002 Alexie was awarded the

Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee Medal The Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal () or the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal was a commemorative medal created in 2002 to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession in 1952. The Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal was ...

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 The Canadian Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by various Christian churches. The sch ...

and the ensuing intergenerational or

Historical trauma Historical trauma or collective trauma refers to the cumulative emotional harm of an individual or generation caused by a traumatic experience or event. According to its advocates, collective trauma evokes a variety of responses, most prominent ...

for them and their families. As reviewer Jim Bartley wrote in

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

, "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 in British Columbia, Canada.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 an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

, ''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 a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

by an

adoptive Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...

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 Canadian Gwich'in people People from Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories