Successful Anishnaabe women honoured with Influential Women of Northern Ontario Awards

Fort William’s Kateri Banning-Skaarup (left) and Red Rock Indian Band’s Wendy Landry (right) received Influential Women of Northern Ontario Awards on June 2 in Thunder Bay.
Fort William First Nation’s Kateri Banning-Skaarup (left) and Red Rock First Nation’s Wendy Landry (right) received Influential Women of Northern Ontario Awards on June 2 in Thunder Bay.

By Rick Garrick

THUNDER BAY— Small business owners, entrepreneurs, leaders, visionaries and trailblazers that have contributed to economic wealth and growth in the northern region were honoured and awarded with Influential Women of Northern Ontario Awards on June 2, in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

This year’s Awards Gala Dinner marked the 19th year of celebrating women who seek and create success for themselves, their staff and employees, and their communities in the business field. Two Anishnaabe women from their respective First Nation were honoured with their very own award; the recipients included Fort William First Nation’s Kateri Banning-Skaarup and Red Rock First Nation’s Wendy Landry.

Banning-Skaarup received the Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award while Landry received the Aboriginal Leadership – Thunder Bay Award during the annual awards ceremony, hosted by Northern Ontario Business at the Victoria Inn.

Banning-Skaarup and partner Dan Skaarup started up Skaarup Construction in 2005 and have since completed more than 220 projects. Skaarup Construction takes pride in building better homes for better prices which cater to all types of families and budgets.

“I’ve always known I wanted to build houses,” says Banning-Skaarup, Co-Owner, Chief Operations Officer and Project Manager of Skaarup Construction.

“We’ve done quite well for ourselves,” Banning-Skaarup says. “We’ve turned from a small renovation company that we started in 2005 into a multi-million dollar home building operation.”

Banning-Skaarup says Skaarup Construction will be one of the companies working on building new homes in Fort William’s newly developed 21-lot subdivision.

“We’re looking to start that in the coming week,” Banning-Skaarup says. “Everything we do is for families, it’s for children, it’s to help women, it’s to help low income families have the dreams that they want,” she added.

Banning-Skaarup and Skaarup also started up Thunder Bay’s Strongest Man competition in 2011, which helps support Camp Quality, a charitable organization providing camp experiences to children with cancer. They are both power lifting competitors.

“It’s a phenomenal organization to help a child that is sick and to give the parents that much-needed break for that week,” Banning-Skaarup says. “They are relieved of their stress and their child gets to be a normal child with all the other kids.”

Last year, Banning-Skaarup also started up Kateri, a house design and project management company.

Landry, Mayor of Shuniah and Manager of First Nations, Metis and Municipal Affairs with Union Gas, was “honoured and humbled” to receive the Influential Women of Northern Ontario Award.

“It’s inspirational to hear everybody else here today that is also receiving awards,” Landry says. “But I don’t do anything I do for recognition, so it is definitely humbling to be recognized,” she added.

Landry is the first First Nations woman in Ontario to be elected as a mayor — she was elected as Mayor of Shuniah in 2014.

“I’m enjoying the responsibilities that have been given to me and I feel that I can help bring the two worlds together in understanding,” Landry says. “Hopefully, if you can reach one individual and bring peace from that mindset, then that’s what I have to look forward to: a peaceful place for all.”

Landry worked in Corrections Services for 20 years; raised six children, including three foster children; taught at Confederation College for 10 years; served as President of the Thunder Bay Council of the Métis Nation of Ontario; developed the Shuniah Youth Centre; and sat on many boards and councils.

“Empowering women and young people and educating our communities and making our communities a better place to live is something that is a huge passion of mine,” Landry says. “I’ve worked very hard to educate people to bring better understanding between the two worlds of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.”

Landry encourages youth to strive for their goals.

“There is absolutely nothing that stops you from doing whatever it is that you want to do,” Landry says. “Take every opportunity there is — you never know where your journey is going to lead you. It might be something completely different than where you thought you might be.”