Mr. Speaker, hadih or hello. I rise today to pay tribute to Lheidli T'enneh elder Mary Gouchie.
Mary passed away last Friday at the age of 97. She was at every community event and always had a smile for everyone. She prided herself on being able to figure things out and would tease that she was a scientist, a finance minister, an engineer and a professor, but most of all, Mary understood that our words connect us to our past. Our words and our music are two of the foundations of the human experience. Without them, we have no past. Without them, we have no future, and without them, we have no awareness of who we might be.
Mary was a keeper of the Dakelh language. She was one of the last fluent speakers of the Lheidli dialect and she did everything she could to help preserve the language. Mary had 10 children, 21 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren and 11 great-great-grandchildren, but all of Prince George were her family and she will be missed.
[Member spoke in Dakelh and provided the following translation:]
“God be with you.”