When Jenn Smith received her degree on Thursday, she wore a Chilkat blanket in honour of generations of her family and First Nations tradition.
Smith, 38, earned a master of arts in leadership — health from Royal Roads University, one of 768 graduates taking part in convocation ceremonies at the Royal Theatre.
Attending the convocation and receiving honorary doctor of laws degrees were B.C. Lt.-Gov. Judith Guichon and Kathy Kinloch, a nurse and health-care administrator who is president of the B.C. Institute of Technology.
Smith wore the blanket to demonstrate that her personal achievement is only the latest in a long series of proud moments extending back through her family and peoples.
“There is a purpose for me to be wearing it,” said Smith just moments before the start of the convocation ceremony. “It’s a tradition and, for me, it’s an honour.”
Smith, of the Kwakwaka’wakw peoples, said the blanket’s story goes back 350 years, when it was claimed in battle from a Tsimshian chief. That explains how it became an heirloom of her family, whose people don’t weave blankets in the same fashion.
Her great-grandfather, who narrowly escaped arrest in 1921 for officiating at an illegal potlatch on Village Island, managed to hang on to the blanket.
In 1975, he sold it to the Royal B.C. Museum. Written into the bill of sale were provisions that his family and people could wear it on special days.
Martha Black, curator of ethnology at the Royal B.C. Museum, said the museum is happy to lend its preservation expertise but also to allow the blanket to be used.
“The museum holds the objects, but we don’t hold any cultural traditions,” she said.
Smith said she is comforted to know the blanket is well tended by people who respect its cultural importance.
“The sacredness of the blanket is still there,” she said. “You could feel it when it was wheeled out.”
At UVic, four to get honorary degrees
The University of Victoria has announced the names of the four people to receive honorary doctorate of laws degrees during its convocation ceremonies on Nov. 14 and 15.
• Barney Williams Jr. — A survivor of the residential school system, the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation member has distinguished himself as a counsellor. As a UVic elder, Williams is helping guide the university’s role in reconciliation.
• Neil Sterritt — Sterritt, a former president of the Gitxsan-Wet’suwet’en Tribal Council, was a driving force behind the 1997 Supreme Court of Canada Delgamuukw decision confirming the existence of Aboriginal title in B.C.
• David Flaherty — As a legal scholar, Flaherty helped lead the way toward a new focus on Canadian legal tradition, rather than English common law. He was also B.C. commissioner of information and privacy from 1993 to 1999.
• Sheridan Scott — Scott was the first UVic law graduate to serve as a clerk to the Supreme Court of Canada. She was named this year as one of Canada’s 100 most powerful women by the Women’s Executive Network.
