Pearl Keenan, nee Geddes, T'aakú Tláa (1921 - 2020)
Pearl Geddes was born in a cabin on the Nisutlin River, about 39 km from Teslin, to parents George and Annie Geddes. Her father was a Canadian Scot who came north during the gold rush and her mother was a Teslin Tlingit member of the Eagle and Whale clans.1) Pearl’s Tlingit name, T'aakú Tláa (Mother of Taku River), was also her grandmother’s name.2)
In 1942, Pearl helped her family raise mink and grow vegetables for the Teslin store on a homestead near Teslin. They were very aware of the Second World War and Pearl heard Hitler had declared war over the radio in 1939. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941 it struck home to her family. Teslin is not far from Alaska where many Tlingit relatives lived. Most Teslin Tlingit people supported the war effort and some enlisted and never returned to the community. A road had been talked about for years and it was not a surprise when it came through Teslin.3)
Pearl and Hugh Balfour Keenan were married in 1947, and they raised two sons and a daughter. Hugh passed away in 1999. Their son Dave was a Yukon NDP cabinet minister from 1996 to 2000.4) Daughter Carol is a well-known film director and producer.
Pearl Keenan lived a lifetime of community service. She was a member of the newly formed Yukon Human Rights Commission in the 1980s. She sat as a member of the Council of Yukon First Nations’ (CFYN) elder advisory council and environment board. She succeeded Pierre Berton as the chancellor of Yukon College in 1993 and served in that position for seven years. She was a founding board member on the Dana Naye Ventures. She was a home-school coordinator and Tlingit language teacher in Teslin. She was a member of the education and justice boards for CFYN and was a guest lecturer on First Nation culture at the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) and at the University of Regina. She was a northern elder for the Behaviour Health Foundation of St. Norbert, Manitoba and was on the board of the Selkirk Healing centre in Selkirk Manitoba. She was a member of the Native Women of Canada, worked as a First Nation counsellor in British Columbia prisons, ran the Nishito Friendship Centre in New Westminster, British Columbia and was the commissioner of the Yukon pavilion at Expo ’86 in Vancouver. She was an advisor to the Yukon Salmon Committee and helped break a seventeen-year deadlock on fishing interests in Alaska and Yukon. Pearl Kennan received the Commissioner’s Award for Public Service in 1986. In 2007, Pear Keenan was named to the Order of Canada.5)
The Pearl Keenan collection of 259 photographic images is held at the Yukon Archives.