The poet, actor and Canadian Indigenous icon of Chief Dan George

Chief Dan George was many things.

He was an actor.

He was a dancer.

He was an athlete.

He was a poet.

But more than anything, he was a spokesperson and a champion for his people throughout his life.

Dan George was born Geswanouth Slahoot on the Burrard Indigenous Reserve on July 24, 1899. His mother was a descendant of Chief Wautsauk, who went aboard the ship of George Vancouver when he explored the area in 1792.

“I think I began my life here on Mother Earth just when my people, the Coast Salish, were starting to change from their old ways to the new ways of today,” George said of his birth.

“Before that, we lived the old life, hunting and fishing; that’s the only way I can describe it, hunting and fishing.”

His English name was Dan Slaholt, but his last name was changed to George when he was forced into Residential School at the age of five. At the age of 16, he left residential school to begin working.

As a young man, he worked several different jobs to make ends meet including as a school bus driver, longshoreman and construction worker. Around 1920, he married his wife, Amy. They remained together for 51 years, raising six children.

In 1951, he was elected the band chief for the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, remaining as chief until 1963. Well into his later years, George was also a gifted dancer and continued racing canoes into his 50s.

In 1963, he chose to pursue a new career. This one came to define him and make him famous across North America. It was acting. The acting bug bit him when his son, who was acting in a CBC film, told him the producer was looking for an old man to play an Indigenous person.

George jumped at the chance, and in 1960, at the age of 60, he took his first acting role in a CBC series called Cariboo Country. More roles soon followed on The Littlest Hobo and The Ecstasy of Rita Joe.

Lost amid his roles as a chief and actor, was the fact George was a highly gifted poet, and nowhere was that more evident than when he took Canada to task during its biggest celebration.

In 1967, Canada’s Centennial Year, he attended the City of Vancouver’s celebration, performing his soliloquy “Lament for Confederation,” which was an indictment of the taking of Indigenous territory by Europeans. The speech greatly increased Indigenous activism in Canada and touched off a strong pro-Indigenous sentiment among non-Indigenous Canadians.

“The man who took the boldest look into Canada’s future at her Empire Stadium birthday party Saturday was probably the person most tempted to look into the past,” wrote the Vancouver Sun of the speech.

In 1971, George gained his most famous role, acting alongside Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway in Little Big Man as Old Lodge Skin. The role earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, making him the first Indigenous person to ever be nominated. At the time, he was 71 years old and had 36 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

“If you think deeply on the relationship of the white boy and his Indian grandfather, it shows the worth of integration, which is what we’re doing today and what I’ve dedicated my life to, the integration of Indians with the white man,” George said of the role.

Following his nomination, many film critics stated a shift began in Hollywood and its portrayal of the Indigenous, eventually leading to movies like Dances with Wolves, which featured another Oscar nomination for a Canadian actor, Graham Greene.

On March 11, 1971, Chief Dan George Day was proclaimed in Vancouver. The day was chosen by the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs to recognize the contributions made by George in changing the public image of Indigenous people.

During many interviews for the movie, George used the opportunity and his new fame to speak of Indigenous rights in Canada. At one point, talk show host Dick Cavett asked him if it was easier to be Indigenous in Canada, to which George replied with a firm “No.”

While he did not win the Oscar, George won awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle.

The same year he was nominated for an Oscar, George was awarded the Order of Canada.

The year was not without heartache though, as George’s wife, Amy, died after 51 years together. Around the time he received his Oscar nomination, she knew she was near death. She told him that if she died, he should not hesitate to go to the ceremony.

After his Oscar-nominated role, George began to get several offers for various roles. He acted in the play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, performing in Vancouver, Ottawa and Washington, DC. He also took on the recurring role of Chief Moses Charlie on the iconic Canadian show The Beachcombers. The role gave him the chance to act with his daughter, Charlene Aleck, who starred on the show for 18 years. He played the role of Ancient Warrior in Kung Fu and had roles in Alien Thunder, The Bears and I, and Harry and Tonto. He was also scheduled to play the role of Shakespeare’s King Lear in 1973, but he had to cancel due to other commitments.

Throughout the 1970s, George used his fame to help. In 1972, he was the national chairman of the International Brotherhood Week, and he was involved in the annual TB Christmas Seal drive. In 1972, he was the grand marshal for the Calgary Stampede Parade.

As an avid hockey fan, his fame rose just as the Vancouver Canucks joined the NHL. The Canucks management always made sure they had a couple of tickets put aside for him for each game.

He used his fame to campaign for Indigenous prisoners in Canadian penitentiaries. He was also made an “honorary con for life” after he and a rock group performed two one-hour shows for prisoners at a British Columbia penitentiary.

“One thing we all know is that those who are here on the inside, when they go to the Happy Hunting Ground, the good Lord will say to them that you have paid,” George said at a potlatch ceremony at one prison. “You have paid, down on Earth.”

In 1974, he released his album Chief Dan George & Fireweed in Circle. That same year, he wrote “My Heart Soars,” a poetry work that was widely praised.

In 1976, he starred along with Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales, his last major film role.

Four years later, in the summer of 1980, George fell and injured his hip, an injury he never fully recovered from.

On September 23, 1981, Chief Dan George died at the age of 82 in Vancouver. In 1982, a collection of his poetry was released as My Spirit Soars.

While George’s health had been declining the previous years, his son said his death came down to the death of his beloved wife a decade prior, saying his father died of a broken heart.

In 2010, Donald Sutherland would narrate a quote from “My Heart Soars” at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

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