Chancellor

Shaan Tlein Carol Geddes was born in Teslin, Yukon. She is of Tlingit and Scottish ancestry.

A distinguished filmmaker and writer, Geddes’ first major film, Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, won awards at the San Francisco Documentary Film Festival and DreamSpeakers Festival in Edmonton. Since then Geddes, has produced 25 documentary films and television programs. Whether writing, producing or directing, Geddes highlighted the stories and struggles of Indigenous life in Canada. Her credits include documentary Picturing A People, which earned her a Gemini nomination in in 1997 and the animated film Two Winters. Geddes wrote and directed the youth series Anash and the Legacy of the Sun-Rock, which earned a number of national and international prizes and garnered a second Gemini nomination for Canadian dramatic series.

Geddes has been a long-time member of the Yukon University community. At the age of 18, Geddes studied practical nursing at what was then the Whitehorse Vocational Training Centre. There she was introduced to research and academic life. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Psychology from Carleton University in 1978, and a Graduate diploma in Communications from Concordia University in Montreal in 1981.

From 1991 to 1996, Geddes led Studio One, a unit of the National Film Board dedicated to Indigenous production.

In 2002, Geddes was awarded the Queen’s Royal Jubilee Medal for her outstanding contributions to the cultural community. She has served on the Teslin Tlingit Council; The Yukon Heritage Resources Board; the Canadian Council for the Arts; the Yukon Human Rights Commission; the Canadian Conference of the Arts; the National Film Board of Canada; and the Women in Media Foundation.

Carol co-authored the first ‘User-friendly Guide to the Yukon Land Claim Agreements’ which was instrumental in guiding Yukon First Nations in their understanding of the legal foundations of the Yukon Land Claim.

In 2008, she began studies in Mediation at the Justice Institute of BC. Over the course of five years she took required courses for a certificate in Mediation Studies and began practicing mediation in Teslin and Whitehorse.

Carol is an adjudicator with the Yukon Human Rights Tribunal, a long serving member of the Yukon University board of governors, and served as the first indigenous member of the Canada Council. She has been a member of various national task forces on indigenous issues.

Recently, she has authored ‘History of the Tlingit People’ (Beech Street Books, 2019) a brief overview for grades 2-3.

Chancellor