Edith Josie (1921 - 2010)
Edith Josie was born in Eagle, Alaska to Paul Josie and Elizabeth Nukon Josie. Her parents were from Fort McPherson. They moved to Eagle in 1909, and she and her four brothers were born there. When her mother’s brother, John Nukon, died in Old Crow, Josie’s family left Eagle in October 1940. They arrived in Whitestone Village in February 1941 and stayed there for a year before Josie’s father died, and then the family moved to Old Crow. Her mother died in 1964. Josie had three children: Jane, William, [and a boy that died in 1985].1)
Josie started writing “Here are the News” for the Whitehorse Star in 1962.2) Her column ran for forty years in the Yukon paper, depicting life and events in Old Crow.3) It also ran in the Edmonton Journal, the Fairbanks News-Miner, and as a syndicated column was picked up by other newspapers for free. She received the Canadian Centennial Award in 1967, the Yukon Historical Museums Award in 1994, the Order of Canada in 1995, and a National Aboriginal Achievement Award in 2000.4)
In the early 1980s, Ellen Bruce, Edith Josie, Effie Linklater and Charlie Peter Charlie were licensed as lay readers in the Anglican Church.5) Edith delivered her services in Gwich’in. She regretted that the practice of visiting and telling stories was in decline. In 1994, she related stories at the Yukon Storytelling Festival in Whitehorse and then travelled Kelowna to perform at another storytelling festival.6) She travelled and continued to take classes at Yukon College into her sixties. Edith was very busy, and her columns appeared less frequently and finally stopped.7)
Edith Josie’s articles were compiled in book format twice, and the years 1963 and 1964 were published separately in the late 1960s. Her work was eventually translated in German, Italian, Spanish and Finnish.