From Oka to Radio-Canada
Born in 1937 in Oka-Kanesatake, Myra Cree is the only daughter of chef Ernest Arirhon Cree and Georgianna-Catherine Johnson. On her youth, Myra Cree will have her words: “I grew up in Oka, and when we are told about the heyday of my childhood, I remember only two things: at best, the cordial disagreement, at worst, the ‘indifference. ”
Growing up in English alongside the small family business, Myra Cree learned French from the sisters of the Congregation of Notre-Dame. First a teacher, she turned to journalism in 1960. Then mother of four young children, she tragically lost her partner in an accident in 1969. While raising her family in Oka with a partner, Myra Cree made a career at Radio- Canada. First female head of antenna at News in 1976 and then host on the show Second Regard from 1978-1984, it is on the radio that the public will be able to truly know the many facets of this warm and discreet woman.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Experiencing the Oka Crisis inside
Photo courtesy, Maude Bouchard-Dupont
Located in the Saint-Justin sector in Mercier, the rue Myra-Cree was named in 2008, three years after the death of the host. It is the only street in Montreal named after an Aboriginal woman.
–
–
–
The first rumors of the crisis come to Myra Cree’s ears in early July 1990, while she is on vacation. Back in Oka, his house quickly becomes a nerve center. For the granddaughter of great chef Timothy Arirhon, the hour is serious. The spirits are ignited around a luxury residential project and the expansion of a golf course on a pine forest where there is an old Mohawk cemetery, a territory long claimed by the community.
The intransigence of the authorities pushes several Mohawks of Kanasatake and Kahnawake to become radicalized. Faced with the escalation of violence and insults from the various camps, Myra Cree founded with several compatriots the Movement for Justice and Peace in Oka-Kanesatake to help resolve the crisis peacefully. For the woman of letters, the solution is embodied in dialogue and reconciliation. The Oka crisis had a profound impact on Myra Cree, who subsequently continued to get involved in her community and promote Indigenous cultures.
HERITAGE
A pioneer and a woman of convictions
City of Montreal archive photo, Nick Barker
The Oka pine forest was at the heart of the conflict during the Oka Crisis in 1990
–
–
–
First woman and first native to head the News, Myra Cree is a true pioneer. During her long career, she gradually allowed herself more freedoms. When covering the Pope’s visit in the early 1980s, the host will humorously say that John Paul II and Governor General Jeanne Sauvé both wear the dress well! But it’s on the radio show Boarding so late that the woman of great culture truly flourishes.
In the 1990s, Myra Cree openly asserted herself as a lesbian, which was rare for a public figure at the time. In addition to getting involved politically in Oka-Kanesatake, she promotes First Nations languages and cultures in many ways. She is involved with Land in Sights, in particular for the launch of the Montreal festival Présence autochtones.
Recipient of the Judith-Jasmin Prize and the Ordre national du Québec, since 2008 she is the only Aboriginal woman to have a street named in her memory in Montreal.
–
