August 12, 1930 - Gwen O'Soup Crane

Human Rights a Day

Canada’s first woman aboriginal chief, Gwen O’Soup Crane, was born. Gwendolyn Lucy O’Soup was born on August 12, 1930 in the Key First Nation, Saskatchewan, a small community 220 kms northeast of Regina by the Manitoba border. Due to a government-mandated restriction on the education of First Nations people, Gwen was allowed to complete no more than grade eight. To combat this, she took a job babysitting the teacher’s children to have more access to education. At the same time, she worked diligently on her father’s farm. She married Clifford Crane and they raised nine children. At the age of 24, Crane was nominated for the position of chief and won by three votes in December 1954. Thus, she became Canada’s first woman First Nations chief. The Indian Act and racial segregation had a direct and heart-wrenching effect on Crane and her family. In 1956, while working at a mink farm in Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan, she took her infant son Norman to a local hospital when he suffered a seizure. The hospital turned her away because she was entitled to treatment only at the “Indian hospital” 40 kilometres away. Norman’s health worsened on his way to the Indian hospital, and he died two days after his second birthday. Crane, eventually separated from her husband, worked in various towns and cities as a seamstress, hospital porter and house and bus cleaner. She returned to Key to retire, and continued her involvement in her community and Anglican church. Crane instilled the importance of education in her children, six of whom earned university degrees. Crane died on August 10, 2005 in Regina.