United For Literacy

United For Literacy (formerly Frontier College) is pleased to be named one of three beneficiaries of the sale proceeds of A Métis Man's Dream, From Traplines to Tugboats in Canada's North, written by United for Literacy board member, Neil Gower KC. Neil is the secretary to the board, a member of the Executive Committee and until recently chair of the Governance Committee. Neil's donation is to honour his subject Gordon Gill, and Gordon's father, Clarence Gill. This biography/oral history tells of the life and times of Gordon Gill, Métis shipbuilder and entrepreneur, from a childhood of poverty through exploration, marine transport, shipbuilding, and the ownership of a major crane company in the Alberta oilsands, against a backdrop of the opening of the Canadian north over the last fifty plus years. Clarence moved to northern Alberta from drought ridden Saskatchewan in the 1930s, and worked with Gordon's maternal grandfather, Noel L'Hirondelle, on his original trapline. That country was largely bush, populated by Indigenous people and newcomers in those days, most without basic reading and writing skills. Clarence spent countless hours helping people with their mail, and 'official' business, helping them read what came in and writing letters and other communiques that needed to go out. These covered a variety of communications; family, government officials, land titles, military claims, sending furs to market, and whatever else the early peoples, pioneers and immigrants needed. It is to recognize this early work, much like that performed by early Labourer-Teachers with Frontier College now United for Literacy, in rail, lumber and mining camps, that this donation is made. Congratulations on the book and thank you Neil! #Literacy #UnitedForLiteracy #BookRelease