Bessie Cooley Kèyishí (b. 1944)
Bessie Cooley was born in the Teslin Lake area to Bobby Thomas Jackson and Elizabeth Johnston Jackson. In the 1950s and 1960s, Bobby Jackson was a pillar of the Teslin Anglican church.1) His mother lived in what is now called the Freddy and Nina Johnston House, restored by the Teslin Tlingit Council as a historic remnant of the Teslin Old Village. Bessie also lived in the house when she was young and remembers after a snowstorm that her father had to tunnel his way out from the house.2) Bessie’s thesis “Life in a Tlingit Society” describes her upbringing.
Bessie has an Associate of Applied Science degree in Native languages Education and a BA in Native Studies from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.3) She completed her master’s degree (MA) in Indigenous Languages and Linguistics from Simon Fraser University in 2023.4)
Bessie married Bonar Cooley in the early 1960s, and they worked together on a comprehensive genealogy for the Teslin Tlingit in the early 1970s.5) She was an Inland Tlingit language instructor in Teslin for decades. In 2012, there were perhaps four fluent speakers of the language in the Yukon.6) Bessie was appointed to the Yukon Geographical Places Names Board in September 2012.7)
Bess Cooley was inducted into the Order of the Yukon in 2020 for her demonstrated excellence and achievement and her outstanding contributions to the social and cultural well-being of Yukon and its residents.8)