Ahenakew recipient of 2001 achievement award

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When the 2001 National Aboriginal Achievement Awards are handed out in Edmonton on March 16, Dr. Freda Ahenakew will be among those being honored.

Ahenakew was selected as this year's recipient in the education category, in recognition of her work in Native language curriculum development.

Ahenakew adds her award to a long list of honors, including Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations Citizen of the Year in 1992, an honorary doctor of Laws degree from the University of Saskatchewan in 1997, and the Order of Canada in 1999.

Ahenakew was born in Atâhkakohp, Sask., and went to school in Prince Albert and Marcelin.

She graduated from the University of Saskatchewan in 1979 with a Bachelor of Education, and received a Masters degree in Cree linguistics from the University of Manitoba in 1984.

During her career, Ahenakew has taught at the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College, with the Lac La Ronge band, and the Saskatoon Survival School. She was an assistant professor of Native studies at the University of Saskatchewan from 1983 to 1985, and director of the Saskatchewan Indian Languages Institute in Saskatoon from 1985 to 1989. She was associate professor of Native studies at the University of Manitoba and was also head of the department from 1990 to 1995.

Ahenakew has written and edited a number of books, including classroom readers and workbooks in Cree, children's books, research in Cree linguistics, and written records and translations of stories told to her by Cree Elders.

"Her masters thesis, which was on text-based grammar, is used as the book for introduction to Cree grammar all over, wherever Cree is taught," said Ahenakew's eldest daughter, Dolores Sand.

Sand said one of her mother's inspirations for all the work she's done was her uncle, Edward Ahenakew, a minister with the Anglican church and author of the book Voices of the Plains Cree.

"He was her inspiration, and he had told her to always speak your language and try to read it and write it," Sands said.

"So she went to school. And then she got into university, and again her interest was peaked. Because, I know, I felt the same way when I took my first Cree class. I thought, wow. You know, you just look at your language in a totally different way. You're not just speaking it. Now you're analyzing it, and it's so very interesting. And she said she always remembered he was her first inspiration."

Another of Ahenakew's inspirations was her children.

"One of her reasons for going to university and going on to get her Masters was that she saw that her children were dropouts. At that time there were 10 of us. And her young 14, 15 year olds were dropping out of school, and dropping out of life. And so to set an example, I guess, is one of the reasons that she went further in her university," Sand explained.

"You know, she was always just doing her job. And just doing what she thought was right," Sand said of her mother's many accomplishments.

Ahenakew was forced to retire in 1997 after suffering a series of strokes.

"It affected her speech, initially, her memory, and her vision. All of the tools that she used for her work were affected by this series of strokes. And so she was forced to retire," Sand said.

"Now that she doesn't work, she pretty much stays at home all the time, and she's really quite bored. I think she would like to be able to work."

Despite Ahenakew's retirement in 1997, she still continues to add to her list of published works.

"The thing is that she had done so much work prior to her illness, that there's just been this year, another release. I think she's had three books released since her retirement, because that work had all been done prior to her illness," Sand said.

Ahenakew has 12 children, about 50 grandchildren, and more than 20 great-grandchildren, with all three generations building on the work she's done and continuing it through their love of the Cree language and culture.

"We're all very proud of her, and we've passed this n to our children and our grandchildren. It's kind of the norm now, that they see a book by her or an article in a paper about her, or something like that. They're used to it, and that's great," Sand said.

"I think one way that we honor her is . . . we have a group here that's comprised of all our children and grandchildren, and they're called Kihiw Singers, and they sing in Cree. So they perform all over, in Cree. And that's what our school is called as well. And so we're Kihiw Singers, from Muskeg Lake. I think that's a real tribute to her, that they're able to pray and sing in Cree, and she gave us that love for the language, and interest in it. That's her legacy, I guess."