Lena Johns (1934 - 2000)

Lena Johns was born at Lower Laberge to parents Alice and Jim Sam. Her mother was the daughter of [Maggie] Broeren. Her father, Jim Sam, came from the Hootalinqua area. Chief Jim Boss was Lena's great uncle.¹⁾ She attended the Chooutla Residential School in Carcross and the Whitehorse Mission School but was able to retain her Southern Tutchone language. In the 1950s she married Art Johns, the son of well-known Carcross/Tagish guide Johnny Johns, and they had seven children. In the late 1960s, she and Pete Borotsik Sr. married, and they had two children.²⁾

Lena worked for the Yukon Parka Factory, was the manager of the Yukon Trappers Association, and was the National Native Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program (NNADAP) co-ordinator for the Kwanlin Dün.³⁾ She was a band councillor under Chief Ann Smith from 1988 to 1990 and the second elected woman chief of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation, 1990 - 1993. Johns was elected again from 1993 to 1996 with deputy chiefs Albert Webber and Malcolm Dawson. The councillors from 1990 to 1993 were Norman Shorty, Malcolm Dawson, Roy Sam, Charlene Burns and Edwin Scurvey. The councillors from 1993 to 1996 were Diane Smith, Alan Taylor, Patrick Boss, Malcolm Dawson, Richard Peters and John Edzerza. During Lena Johns' administration, the Jackson Healing Centre was built, a safe house for adults with addictions was constructed, and progress was made in justice and healing.⁴⁾

Johns worked to stop the government from placing Kwanlin Dün children in non-Indigenous homes and was instrumental in building the Ashea Daycare and the Nàkwät'à Kų̀ Potlatch House at McIntyre Village. Circle sentencing and the Kwanlin Dün police force were developed during her administration. In 1993, Kwanlin Dün cooperated with Yukon archaeologists in an archaeological dig at Fish Lake and Johns valued this partnership with scientists.⁵⁾ Lena Johns resigned in March 1996 and Deputy Chief Malcolm Dawson took the position of acting chief. ⁶⁾