Anderson, Anne

Dr. Anne Gairdner Calihoo Anderson (1906-1997) was a Métis Elder, cultural advocate and champion of the Cree language. Anne Anderson was born near St. Albert, Alberta in 1906 as Anne Calihoo Gairdner to William Gairdner and Elizabeth Calihoo, who was Métis. Anderson was the oldest daughter of ten siblings and grew up speaking Cree at home. She was educated in english at a nearby Grey Nuns convent before returning to work on the family farm after the death of her father in 1922. Anderson married, had children of her own and worked as a nurse’s aid throughout her adult life. In 1965, Anne’s mother, Elizabeth died and, on her deathbed, urged her daughter to teach and preserve the Cree language. While Anne had no formal training as a teacher or educator, she published her first Cree language manual in 1969 and would go on to write 93 books on the Cree language and Métis history before her death in 1997. She petitioned the Alberta school board to teach Cree in schools and taught language classes for sixteen years before opening the Dr. Anne Anderson Native Heritage and Cultural Centre in Edmonton in 1984. Anderson’s Centre provided Cree classes for children and adults, was a community hub for cultural events, boasted a library and museum, and also sold Indigenous and Métis arts and crafts. Anderson also organized programs to teach Cree at the University of Alberta, patients in local hospitals, inmates at the Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre and children and young adults in the fostercare system. Anderson published her books independently through her own organization, Cree Productions, and she is most well-known for her Cree-English dictionary, Dr. Anne Anderson’s Metis Cree Dictionary (1975, republished 1997) which translated 38,000 words into Cree. Anderson also wrote a history of the Métis in Alberta, The First Métis – A New Nation in 1985. Anderson received many accolades during her lifetime including the Alberta Achievement Award and a honourary Doctorate from the University of Alberta in 1975, the Order of Canada in 1979, and as a valued Elder in the Métis Nation. Anderson died in 1997.