JOAN RYAN (1932–2005)

On October 29, 2005, Joan Ryan died at the Agape Hos-pice in Calgary, Alberta. Her death due to major organshutdown, occasioned by her own decision to withdrawfrom the dialysis treatments she had been receiving threetimes per week, involved a matter-of-fact courage thatnever failed her in life. “I don’t want to go on living likethis!” was her final battle cry. Surrounded by close friendsin a loving “fictive” (her term) family, Joan ended a lifededicated to aboriginal empowerment and the achieve-ment of social justice. Simply put, she desired a betterCanada for First Nations, Metis, and Inuit.

Born into a stressed and dysfunctional Irish-Canadianfamily in a poor neighbourhood in Montreal, in 1932, Joanhad a difficult start. Her parents William and Winnifredhad seven children, of whom two died in infancy. Hermother died in 1934 in childbirth, and her older sisterMargaret played a major role in raising Joan until Margaretwent into religious training with S.S.-Éléonare-de-JésusCongregation de Nôtre-Dame. In her late teens, Joan metthe loving Birchard family of Ottawa. Her initial contactwas with Charlotte (Char) Birchard, who directed theYMCA Camp Oolawhan. Char’s husband Carl and chil-dren Janet and Kris played a key role in forming Joan’ssense of family and service to community. The Birchardsnurtured her inquisitive intellect, and these “fictive par-ents” encouraged her interest in social activism. Joan wasfond of recalling her driving of an ambulance during theasbestos workers’ strike during this period of her life, andher visceral hatred of Duplessis-era Quebec politics. Shethrived at Camp Oolawhan over several years as a counselor,and entered college to achieve her Quebec PermanentTeacher’s Certificate in 1952. Joan completed a Bachelorof Arts in Psychology at Carleton University in 1957,having had to interrupt her studies from time to time to payher way. She taught ballroom dancing and swimming anddid whatever was necessary to make ends meet. BA inhand, Joan decided to travel to Fairbanks, Alaska, andstudy for a Master of Education in Psychology. She com-pleted the degree in 1959 and also formed a close andloving friendship with a married man, who was the chieflove in her young life. Joan and her friend eventuallyparted company, but continued to stay in touch until hedied of cancer many years later.

In Alaska, Joan honed her career-long interest in abo-riginal peoples, their coming to grips with modernity, andtheir need for resident community development teacherswho could unlock young minds and talent. She also honeda visceral anger for those people and institutions thatsought to unilaterally impose doctrine, order, or mis-guided patronage from above. Joan’s passion fed on theneed for social justice, and it found expression in researchand training to help local communities in the realms ofland claims, local economic development, preservationand use of aboriginal languages, and promotion of the useof traditional knowledge in the local delivery of medicine,

education, and justice. When others were content to talkand to posture, Joan was often the first to act—always inconcert with the community in which she lived and served.This applied and practiced passion for service arched overthe course of her entire life, and interestingly, paralleledthe career of her sister, Sister Margaret, who rose to thehighest levels possible for a woman in the Catholic Churchin Canada. In 1999, Sister Margaret Ryan received the ProEcclesia et Pontifice Medal (the highest medal awarded inthe church) at the Shrine of the Immaculate Heart of Maryin Cache Creek, British Columbia. Both sisters workedclosely with aboriginal people, albeit from different sidesof the fence of faith.

Upon her graduation in 1959 in Fairbanks, Joan went towork in the Canadian North, focusing her energies as aNorthern Service Officer and teacher with Indian andNorthern Affairs Canada in George River and UngavaBay, Quebec, and Lac La Martre, Northwest Territories.Learning Inuktitut from Dr. Robert Williamson, and work-ing alongside educational innovators such as Keith Croweand Moose Kerr, Joan continued to press for devolution ofauthority from Ottawa and Yellowknife to the local level.She saw her work as preparing Inuit and Dene communi-ties for self-government, after settled comprehensive landclaims had been achieved.

In 1964, full of antipathy for continued government serv-ice, Joan quit and enrolled as a PhD student in the fledgling

Joan Ryan

ARCTIC

VOL. 59, NO. 4 (DECEMBER 2006) P. 447– 448

448 • OBITUARY

Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the Universityof British Columbia. It was typical of Joan that she had nottaken one course in anthropology, but she harboured a com-plete determination to enter the discipline. Professor Harry B.Hawthorn, the legendary founding head of the department,waived the entrance requirements in view of Joan’s evidentintellect and ethic of service. He became her principal men-tor, and under his guidance, she became one of the mainauthors of Part 2 of A Survey of the Contemporary Indians ofCanada: Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Poli-cies—The Hawthorn Report, published by the federal gov-ernment in 1967.

Again, typically, with no partner or spouse, little money,and fierce determination, she adopted two young aborigi-nal daughters, Sandra and Tanis. Upon graduation with herPhD, Joan applied for a tenure-track position at the newUniversity of Calgary in 1967. Joan got the job, andprogressively bore down on her career, rising to fullprofessorship in 1988. She became the first female depart-ment head (1978 – 83) and all the while participated incultivating the careers of a generation of Canadian appliedanthropology students by serving on numerous MA andPhD committees. On a sabbatical in Montreal, she wroteher first major work, Wall of Words: The Betrayal of theUrban Indian (1978), and began contributing peer-reviewed papers to her discipline. She also was instrumen-tal in the founding of the Canadian Anthropology Society(CASCA) and of its journal, Anthropologica (formerlyCulture). Sandra and Tanis grew up with a dynamic andsometimes taxing, academic mother, but one who alwaysknew her love for her children was at the core of her being.Today Sandra is a top hair stylist at a high-end salon inVancouver, and Tanis’s children Dawn and Ricky Willistonand Jesse Belcourt continue their love for the Kokum(Cree for grandmother) they knew so well.

At age 55 in 1987, Joan elected early retirement from theUniversity and switched her affiliation to the Arctic Instituteof North America (AINA)—just across the campus quadran-gle in the MacKimmie Library Tower. As executive directorof AINA, I was only too glad to make Joan a senior researchassociate. And so continued a friendship and applied workpartnership that lasted until her death, some 18 years later.Together we pioneered northern participatory action research(PAR) projects in Fort McPherson and Lac La Martre, andworked on numerous consulting assignments with provincialmid-North and urban aboriginal communities and organiza-tions. Notably active with Joan during this period of her workwere Joanne Barnaby, then executive director of the DeneCultural Institute, and Allice Legat and Martha Johnson of theArctic Institute. In addition, Joan found time to work on PARprojects in Nicaragua and maintained a long-term careerrelationship with the Lubicon Cree in Alberta. Perhaps thekeystone publication of this period in Joan’s life was DoingThings the Right Way: Dene Traditional Justice in Lac LaMartre, N.W.T. (1995), published jointly by the Arctic Insti-tute and the University of Calgary Press. This book is the finalreport of the Dene Traditional Justice Project in Lac La

Martre and is now widely in use as a “how to” text onconceptualizing, funding, and operating PAR projects. It iscertainly worth noting that Joan’s commitment to PAR neverwavered or waned: at the age of 70, she was still applying herskills in Déline, NWT, as the Coordinator of the FieldWorkers Training Program in Traditional Knowledge Re-search on the Déline Uranium Team.

During her Arctic Institute years, Joan maintained Ryan’sCottage in Bragg Creek, Alberta. Here she hosted supperafter supper for old and new friends, constantly amazingdinner guests with tourtière québécoise, baked wild salmon,Oka cheese and cracker plates, home-baked pies and cakes,and an endless stream of red wine and gin and tonics. Joanwas the centre point of a social network that grew toinclude hundreds of kindred spirits from all over theworld. Bragg Creek elders soon came to realize that aspecial kind of senior activist had arrived in their midst,one who brooked no “crap” whatsoever from aggressivedevelopers, wayward MLAs, or misguided social workers.

Her seventieth birthday, held at Ryan’s Cottage, wasattended by over 100 lifelong and recent friends. KeithCrowe played the guitar, evoking campfire singsongs of40 years before in Nouveau Québec, and David Lertzmanand Julian Norris sang a song composed specially for theevent. Joan sat back on a big wicker chair, nursing a glassof wine, and smiled her joy at the world. Her decline inhealth, dating almost from this event, was not pleasant towitness, but at no time up to the end did her criticalprocesses of thought weaken or dull.

Looking back over Joan’s life, her loyal friends notethat Joan never varied in either the good fight for herchosen causes or her gift of friendship. She was as constantas the North and as tough an adversary as you could hopefor. She also had a very soft and gentle core to her spirit—a core not evident to all. Here she nurtured her love ofSandra and Tanis and the grandchildren and her hope fora better Canada for aboriginal people. For me—I havenever had a more loyal friend or a more constant supporter.I am not alone in these comments. Many of us knew herunvarying love as a friend for all seasons.

In recognition of her lifelong efforts, Joan received thePrix Weaver-Tremblay Prize for exceptional contribu-tions to Canadian Applied Anthropology, as well as theChief David Crowchild Memorial Award of the City ofCalgary. A nomination for the Order of Canada was circu-lating at the time of her death.

To have known Joan was a gift now shared by those whocontinue on in the causes of cultural diversity, socialjustice for the oppressed, and friendship for all fellow-travellers. Joan—you were a life force for good, and youstill are not spent.

Mike RobinsonPresident & CEO, Glenbow Museum

130, 9th Avenue SECalgary, Alberta, Canada

T2G 0P3