Simonie Michael dating history

Details

Simonie Michael (1933 – November 2008), also known as Simonee Michael, was a politician from the Eastern Northwest Territories, later Nunavut, Canada, who became the first elected Inuk legislator in Canada. As a carpenter and business owner, and one of very few translators between Inuktitut and English, Michael became heavily involved in community activism in Iqaluit, and was a prominent member of the Inuit co-operative housing movement. As the first elected Inuk member of the Northwest Territories Legislative Council, he worked on infrastructural and public health initiatives. He is credited with bringing public attention to the failings of the disc number system that was used in place of surnames for Inuit people, and with prompting the government to authorise Project Surname to replace the numbers with names.