Jane Constance Cook

Jane Constance Cook (Ga’axstal’as) (1870–1951) was a First Nations leader and activist of the Kwakwakaʼwakw people.

Biography Ga’axstal’as was born in 1870 at Port Blakely in Puget Sound, Washington. She was the daughter of Gwayulalas, a Kwa gu'l noblewoman from Tsaxis (Fort Rupert, British Columbia) and a European fur trader William Gilbert. After her mother died, Ga’axstal’as returned to central coast villages and was educated by a missionary couple in 'Yalis (Alert Bay, BC). In 1888, Ga’axstal’as married Nage, Stephen Cook whose mother Kwak'waballas was from the Mowachaht and 'Namgis nations and whose father John Cook was an English ship builder. They had 16 children, ran a general store and a salmon saltery, and later, established a family commercial fishing fleet. Ga’axstal’as was the only woman to serve on the executive of the Allied Tribes of British Columbia Ga’axstal’as's views changed as she witnessed persecution of potlatchers under colonial law. Later, Ga’axstal’as worked with potlatching chiefs, scripting a petition against the potlatch ban and she also advocated for a chief whose potlatch goods had been confiscated by the colonial government. Her context was one of rapid change and social upheaval. As a bilingual, literate, economically secure, high-ranking Kwakwakaʼwakw woman, Ga’axstal’as had a powerful place from which to speak. "But her location only enabled what was certainly a remarkable will to act and be heard."

Standing up with G̲a'ax̱sta'las: Jane Constance Cook and the Politics of Memory, Church, and Custom. In 2012, the University of British Columbia Press published Standing Up with G̲a'ax̱sta'las, (L. Robertson with Gixsam clan) a collaborative, intergenerational biography on her life and impact on future generations. The book was on the short list for the François-Xavier Garneau Medal and received the Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Prize from the American Society for Ethnohistory, as well as the Aboriginal History Prize, the Clio Prize and the Canadian Committee on Women's and Gender History book award from the Canadian Historical Association.