Freda Ahenakew

Freda Ahenakew (February 11, 1932 – April 8, 2011) was a Canadian author and academic of Cree descent. Ahenakew was considered a leader in Indigenous language preservation and literary heritage preservation in Canada. She spent some of her teenage years living at St. Alban's Residential School in Prince Albert, and attended the Prince Albert Collegiate Institute. Her Master's thesis, "Cree Language Structures", was later published.

Awards Ahenakew has been the recipient of numerous honorary awards including an honorary degree from the University of Saskatchewan in 1997, and another from the University of Manitoba in 2009. In 1992, she was awarded the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations Citizen of the Year award. She was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1998 and was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 2005. In 2001, she received the National Aboriginal Achievement Award, now known as the Indspire Award.

Selected bibliography Cree Language Structures: A Cree Approach. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press (1987) "wâskahikaniwiyiniw-âcimowina / Stories of the House People. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press" (1987) Coeditor. How the Birch Tree Got its Stripes: A Cree Story for Children (1988) How the Mouse Got Brown Teeth: A Cree Story for Children (1988) kôhkominawak otâcimowiniwâwa / Our Grandmothers' Lives, as Told in Their Own Words. Told by Glecia Bear et al. Edited and translated by F. Ahenakew & H.C. Wolfart. Saskatoon: Fifth House Publishers, 1992. [facsimile reprint, with new preface: Canadian Plains Reprint Series, Canadian Plains Research Centre, University of Regina, 1998] kinêhiyâwiwininaw nêhiyawêwin / The Cree Language is Our Identity: The La Ronge Lectures of Sarah Whitecalf. Edited, translated and with a glossary by H.C. Wolfart & F. Ahenakew. Publications of the Algonquian Text Society / Collection de la Société d'édition de textes algonquiens. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1993. kwayask ê-kî-pê-kiskinowâpahtihicik / Their Example Showed Me the Way: A Cree Woman's Life Shaped by Two Cultures. Told by Emma Minde. Edited, translated and with a glossary by F. Ahenakew & H.C. Wolfart. Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 1997. The Student's Dictionary of Literary Plains Cree, Based on Contemporary Texts. with H.C. Wolfart. Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics, Memoir 15, 1998. Wisahkecahk Flies to the Moon (1999) âh-âyîtaw isi ê-kî-kiskêyihtahkik maskihkiy / They Knew Both Sides of Medicine: Cree Tales of Curing and Cursing Told by Alice Ahenakew. Edited, translated and with a glossary by H.C. Wolfart & Freda Ahenakew. Publications of the Algonquian Text Society / Collection de la Société d'édition de textes algonquiens. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2000. ana kâ-pimwêwêhahk okakêskihkêmowina / The Counselling Speeches of Jim Kâ-Nîpitêhtêw. Edited, translated and with a glossary by F. Ahenakew & H.C. Wolfart. Publications of the Algonquian Text Society / Collection de la Société d'édition de textes algonquiens. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1998.