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Nellie Carlson School celebrates courageous namesake

Thu, 6 Oct, 2016

News item: Nellie Carlson School celebrates its courageous namesake

Hundreds of guests visited Nellie Carlson School on October 6 to officially open the K-9 building and honour the school’s namesake. Officials from Edmonton Public Schools, the province and the city joined Nellie Carlson and her family to celebrate Carlson’s achievements.

Her decades-long battle to win back treaty rights for aboriginal women and their children helped change the country, ending gender discrimination in the Indian Act. Born into the Saddle Lake Cree Nation, the mother of nine fought against rules in the Indian Act that stripped aboriginal women of their treaty status if they married non-status men.

Nellie Carlson School sits on sacred land in the MacTaggart neighbourhood. Meet the tenacious woman behind the school’s name in this video.