Haida Gwaii

August 26, 2022 By: T00472990

My mother’s family was located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, and her family was transformed by World War Two. My grandfather went to war and came back a changed person. My grandmother raised the family with her parents. My grandmother was one of the first female executives in downtown Toronto, working at Standard Life as a head underwriter. She told me many stories of unfair treatment and discrimination while performing her duties in a male-dominated profession. This was really important to my mother as she has always fought for women’s rights. They lived in an area called High Park, which had been settled for a couple of hundred years. This place was utterly transformed from its natural state and affected how my mother viewed the world as she grew up. My father grew up in a small Norwegian fishing community on Steward Island. My grandfather fished and logged for a living and harvested most of the food they ate from the environment they called home. My grandmother on my dad’s side died early from cancer, which hugely affected how my father looked at the world around him. My grandfather was one of the first union organizers for the United Fisherman’s and Allied Workers Union and worked in many coastal communities fighting for the environment and workers’ rights. My parents say I am union made.