Ione Christensen

Ione Jean Christensen, , ( Cameron; October 10, 1933 – September 15, 2025) was a Canadian politician who served as a Senator.

Life and career The daughter of former North-West Mounted Police constable Gordon Irwin Cameron, and Dawson City born Martha Ballentine Cameron, her family moved to Whitehorse in 1949. Christensen graduated from high school in 1953. She received an associate in arts degree in business administration from the College of San Mateo in California. In 1968, she married Art Christensen, a geologist.

In 1971, she was appointed the first woman Justice of the peace and judge of the Juvenile court in Yukon. In 1975, she was elected the first woman mayor of Whitehorse; on the same day, Yolanda Burkhard was elected as the first woman mayor of Dawson City. In 1999, Christensen was appointed at the recommendation of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to the Senate.

On December 31, 2006, Christensen resigned from the Senate to assist her ailing husband. Her husband died in 2020.

In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of Yukon's inaugural class. The first 10 recipients were named ahead of the ceremony on December 2, 2019. Christensen also received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012, and the King Charles III Coronation Medal in 2023.

Christensen died on September 15, 2025, at the age of 91.