Joe Arthur Linklater (1964 - 2018)
	
Joe Linklater was born in Inuvik, the youngest child of Emily (Thompson) Linklater of the Tetlit Gwich’in and Charles Linklater of the Vuntut Gwitchin. The family moved to Whitehorse when Charles retired from Northern Canada Power Commission. Joe attended high school in Whitehorse and then studied carpentry and northern resources at Yukon College. He moved to Old Crow and was a councillor with Vuntut Gwitchin in the early 1990s.((“Joseph Arthur Linklater.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 8 April 2018.)) 

Joe Linklater was chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation from 1998 to 2010 and again from 2012 to 2014. Before he died, he was serving as Vuntut’s executive director in Old Crow. Linklater was a champion of education for young people and he also worked to raise awareness of the effects of climate change in the north.((“Hundreds gather in Old Crow for Joe Linklater’s funeral.” //CBC News,// 13 April 2018. 2018 website: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/joe-linklater-funeral-old-crow-1.4619695)) 

Linklater was a leader in the Arctic Council and Gwich’in Council International, National Aboriginal Business Council, and was on the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, a Board of trustee for the Vuntut Development Trust, and the Vuntut Development Corporation.((“Joseph Arthur Linklater.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 8 April 2018.)) He chaired the Gwich’in Council International where he fought to keep oil exploration out the of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. He is remembered as a talented storyteller with a great sense of humour and biting wit.((“Friends, politicians pay tribute to former Yukon chief Joe Linklater, dead at 54.” //CBC News,// 9 April 2018.))