Samantha Anderson

Northern Contradiction

Northern Contradiction

To most Canadians in the '50s and '60s, Edith Josie of Old Crow, Yukon, was the quaint insider from above the Arctic Circle. But to her fellow Vuntut Gwich'in, she was a strong voice for a better life

Twice a month, Edith Josie lowered her five-foot frame into a chair at her large, plywood kitchen table with pen in hand. Looking out the window at other cabins, all raised on wooden pilings because of permafrost, she lit up a cigarette and started writing in longhand on foolscap with carbon between the sheets. “It […]