Fox honoured during Indigenous Education Week

By Christine Smith (McFarlane)

TORONTO – Mary Fox, citizen of Wikwemikong and a long-standing Toronto First Nations community member was honoured at the opening of the 2015 Indigenous Education Week at University of Toronto First Nations House.

Mary Fox is Pottawatomi and Ojibwe, and is fluent in Anishinaabemowin. She left home for Toronto as a youth to help support her large family. She worked at Imperial Oil for 28 years as a data entry clerk and secretary.

She has been a committed volunteer in the Toronto Aboriginal community for the past 50 years. Her first volunteer experience was with the Native American Club (now the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto also known as the NCCT).

Upon retiring, she managed the Craft Shop at the Native Canadian Centre and received great praise and recognition for her contribution to the shop. Despite offers to demonstrate her craftwork elsewhere, she remained loyal to the NCCT Craft Shop, and the Toronto First Nations community.

Fox has shared her cultural knowledge with many Toronto organizations and post-secondary institutions over the years, including the Native Canadian Centre, Council Fire Native Cultural Centre, First Nations House at the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, Centennial College, and many other places.

She was also an instructor at the University of Toronto, where she taught a course called Arts and Crafts Theory and Practicum. It focused on her vast knowledge of craft making, including beading, quilting, moccasin making, birch bark, quill and leatherwork.

Fox is a generous and passionate teacher, who says about her years of teaching at First Nations House that “meeting new students and new people was exciting because you get a lot of inspiration from the young people and they’re energetic.”