David Johnny

David Johnny is a former chief of the White River First Nation. The establishment of the Canadian/U.S. border in 1903 severely affected his people who live in small villages on both side of the border. When David was six years old in the 1950s, his family was living in Alaska. Two RCMP officers and a priest arrived at his father’s camp, picked up the kids, and took them to the residential school at Lower Post in northern British Columbia. The border prohibits people travelling with guns to funeral ceremonies and stops the transport of food to potlatches.¹⁾