Sandy Johnson, nee Bastin (b. 1947)

Sandy Johnson was born and grew up in Victoria, British Columbia. She attended the University of Victoria but left to travel the world before graduating. Marriage to her first husband, Robbie Johnson Uzi Tà, gave her First Nation status as he was a Kluane First Nation citizen. They moved to Victoria to finish their education and Robbie drowned in a canoeing accident in 1971. Sandy was pregnant and wanted her daughter to know her grandma and grandpa, Little Grace and George John, so Sandy built a cabin in Burwash with the help of Robbie’s cousin Joe Joe Johnson. Joe Joe and Sandy got together in 1975 and they had three children together. Sandy started working to obtain a teaching position in Destruction Bay. After a year of teaching at DBay, she joined Mary Easterson in a campaign to open a school at Burwash with First Nation language courses and cultural training included. The new school opened in a log cabin with Mary and Sandy teaching about fifteen children. The school ran for four or five years and then closed. In the end, Sandy was raising four kids and teaching full time. Joe Joe was the chief and was away a lot for meetings in Ottawa and Whitehorse. Sandy sent the eldest child out for grade nine, but it did not go well, so Sandy and the kids commuted to Haines Junction where there was a high school. The school in Burwash closed because then there were not enough children to meet the requirements.¹⁾

The Kluane First Nation continued to lobby for a school in their community and, finally, in 2024, it looked promising.