'Last of her generation': Gwich'in elder Annie Norbert remembered for love of storytelling

Annie Norbert is being remembered as an excellent embroidery sewer and storyteller, and is considered one of the last of her generation who grew up on the land. 

People are planning to gather in Tsiigehtchic Saturday to celebrate the life of the respected Gwich'in elder, who died last week at 98 years old. 

"For me, she was the last of her generation," said Alestine Andre, who has known Norbert for most of her life and worked with her on the Gwichya Gwich'in Place Names Project.   

"When I think of her, I think of her alongside all the incredible elders that we worked with ... they so willingly shared their life stories about their life on the land with us."

Norbert was born in Tsiigehtchic on Dec. 30, 1920.

"In those years we did not wish for anything much because we had so much food all the time," she states in an elders biography published by the Gwich'in Tribal Council's department of cultural heritage. 

"We were very fortunate to have lots of meat and nobody stayed in town." 

Ingrid Kritsch also worked on the Gwichya Gwich'in Place Names Project alongside Andre and spent a lot of time out on the land with Annie and her husband Napolean "Nap" Norbert. 

"She loved being out in the bush. You could just see it … She was like a young woman again when we were travelling with her," said Kritsch.

"She had travelled a great deal, you know, throughout the whole of the Gwichya Gwich'in traditional lands. She knew all the place names ... up into the delta up the Arctic Red [River] and along the Mackenzie. And then she knew the stories behind them.

"She felt was very important to share this knowledge so that future generations would know." 

Sharing a favourite story

Both women remembered Annie's love for telling stories. 

The story Andre likes best is from when Annie and her parents were living in a camp along the Anderson River near the coast of the Beaufort Sea.

A large ship had anchored near the coast, and so all the men of the surrounding camps went down to the ship to see about trading some supplies. 

"Later on, they came back and she said she remembers standing outside and looking to the far hill and just seeing this long string of dog teams coming back and they all [have] their dog bells jingling as they're coming near the camp," she said. 

"And she said she looked closer and said, 'Oh goodness!' And that all the men were dressed in red."

The men had traded for red combination underwear, that they wore on that occasion as "over-wear," and calico-print fabric for their wives. The story goes that the women quickly got to work on sewing new skirts and that very night they all got together for a drum dance. 

"She said the drum dance was so big and it went on for so long that all the spruce branches had all got kind of spread around and they were all dancing on the hard dirt floor," said Andre.

A celebration of life will be held Saturday in Tsiigehtchic. A community feast will follow. 

Out of respect, the 27th annual Gwich'in Tribal Council general assembly has been postponed. It is now scheduled to be held in Tsiigehtchic on Sept. 21 and 22.