Meet the 2025/26 Aunties Circle

Charlene Bearhead

Charlene Bearhead is the Vice President, Learning and Reconciliation at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. She is a mother, grandmother, auntie, educator, Indigenous education advocate and author with over 35 years of regional, national, and international experience.

Kelly Bannister

Kelly Bannister lives on the unceded Coast Salish territory of the Pune'luxutth Tribe. She is a fourth-generation settler. Kelly’s background is in ethnobotany and applied ethics, and her applications are in biocultural diversity and water relations. She is Co-Director of the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance at the Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria.

The Honourable Ethel Blondin Andrew, P.C., O.C.

Ethel Blondin Andrew is the first Indigenous woman elected to Parliament and the first to serve as a federal cabinet minister. She is the former chairperson of the Sahtu Secretariat.

Crystal Fraser

Crystal Gail Fraser is Gwichyà Gwich'in and originally from Inuvik and Dachan Choo Gę̀hnjik in the Northwest Territories. Crystal's work makes a strong contribution to how scholars engage with Indigenous research methodologies and theoretical concepts, our understanding of Indigenous histories during the second half of the twentieth century, and how northern Canada was unique in relation to the rest of the settler nation.

Cec Heron

Cec Heron was born and raised in Fort Smith, NWT, and has been a trailblazer in conservation, Indigenous governance, and advocacy. She is a member of Salt River First Nation and has worked with Indigenous Governments as a Lands Manager in the NWT, Alberta and BC. She previously worked with Smith’s Landing First Nation as their Lands Manager, and is currently their Lands Advisor on a part-time basis.

Norma Kassi

Norma Kassi served in Yukon’s Legislative Assembly. She co-founded the Arctic Institute of Community-Based Research, and joined the Canadian Mountain Network as co-Research Director.

Linda McDonald

Linda McDonald is a Kaska Elder and a member of the Liard First Nation and lives in Watson Lake, Yukon. She has spent much of her life working on issues related to protecting Kaska lands. She continues to share her parent’s lessons in natural resource management, stressing the need to proceed in ways that respect and reflect traditional Kaska values, beliefs and practices.

Jennifer Simard

Jennifer Simard grew up spending time with her family on their traditional lands, fishing, hunting, trapping, and nurturing her relationship with her home, the land, aski. She has worked on land-based policy development, environmental assessments, and stewardship planning with First Nations, as well as with federal and provincial governments.

Ruth Provost

Ruth Provost is of Indigenous descent from the Kainai Nation, a member of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Ruth founded a consulting firm that is the home of the Reclaiming the Power of the Buffalo Review and Evaluation, a four-phase research methodology in working with oral culture and bridging it to mainstream government, industries, and other systems.