REST IN POWER
Gloria Cranmer Webster, first Indigenous woman to graduate from UBC, dies at age 91

Story by CBC/Radio-Canada • Yesterday

Gloria Cranmer Webster at U’mista Cultural Centre in 1980. Friends say she will be remembered for the work she did to repatriate items stolen from a potlatch held by her father in 1921.© Vickie Jensen. Submitted by the Museum of Anthropology at UBC

Gloria Cranmer Webster, the first Indigenous woman to graduate from the University of British Columbia and a trailblazer in the field of repatriation in Canada, has died at age 91.

Cranmer Webster was born in Alert Bay, B.C. in 1931, the eldest daughter of Kwakwaka'wakw hereditary chief Dan Cranmer.

Cranmer Webster graduated from UBC with a degree in anthropology in 1956. She received an honorary doctorate in law from UBC in 1995 and was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada in 2017.

She paved a new pathway for museum curation and Indigenous reclamation, says the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

"She will be truly missed by those who were privileged to witness her passionate and tireless advocacy for the reclamation of First Nations culture, language, and traditions," it said in a statement.

Cranmer Webster was hired as an assistant curator at UBC's Museum of Anthropology (MOA) in 1971 when it was still located in the basement of the univeristy's main library— now known as the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre — says a release from the museum.

When Cranmer Webster learned federal and provincial authorities raided a 1921 potlatch hosted by her father, she set out to find the items and return them to the community.

She, alongside other Kwakwaka'wakw leaders and community members, were successful in repatriating most of the collection, which included masks, rattles, regalia, and other family heirlooms, says the museum.

Webster went on to open the U'mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay in 1980, where the returned potlatch items are displayed.


Some of these items are also displayed in the Nuyumbalees Cultural Centre at Cape Mudge on Quadra Island.

Daughter Kelly Webster says her mother was very hospitable, and often opened their home to family and friends who needed a place to stay.

"She would say, if you need somewhere to stay, come and stay with us and we will house you and we will feed you," said Webster.

She recalls former governor general Adrienne Clarkson stayed at Cranmer Webster's home in Alert Bay while visiting the island.

Webster also said her mother did a lot of work around language revitalization.

Cranmer Webster worked with linguist Dr. J. Powell to write a series of language books and an alphabet sheet of the Kwakwaka'wakw language, which Kelly says is still used today to educate people in their community.

Foundation of repatriation

Karen Duffek, a curator at the museum of anthropology, says Cranmer Webster helped build the foundation for the repatriation process in Canada.

"Repatriation at that time wasn't common practice ... it was a process that had to be created and negotiated and worked out," said Duffek.

Duffek, who collaborated with Cranmer Webster on projects over the past decade, says she will remember her as a smart, vibrant, and curious person.

"It was great to be able to stop by her house and to visit her and sit around her kitchen table because she was such a character," Duffek said. "She just had such a rich life and accomplished so many things."

Duffek says MOA staff would regularly reach out to Cranmer Webster to ask her opinion on curation and research matters.

"She had such a idea of what could be possible, what to strive for, what would be good for the community," said Duffek.