About Me
Joan Jack is a Lawyer and Activist from the Berens River First Nation. She left home at the age of thirteen to attend high school in Winnipeg and enrolled at Red River College in the Business Teacher Education program upon completion. Upon completing this program, she taught Technical Communication at the University of Manitoba and held the position of Counsellor and Writing Instructor in the Engineering Access Program.
Joan attended the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Law in 1991 and has been practising law since 1996, when she was called to the Manitoba Bar. She also became an Aboriginal Governance Advisor in 1992 and has worked on constitutional drafting for First Nations governments, a task that has been both an honour and a privilege.
After graduating, she worked as the Lands and Resources Director with the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, where she immediately set to work on the Aboriginal Fisheries Management Agreement. She continued teaching at the Northern Lights College Campus in Atlin during this time.
Staying connected to her heritage and culture is very important to Joan, she and her husband, Watsait, Bryan Jack, started the Nakina CALL (Centre for Aboriginal Living and Learning) in 1997. The Nakina CALL operates a youth and young adult program every summer to teach survival skills, teamwork, and traditional food preparation. The program is a place where Indigenous people can learn traditional skills and ways of being while healing themselves.
In 2003, Joan opened the Joan Jack Law Office in Berens River, specializing in Indigenous, First Nation, Aboriginal and Treaty Rights. Later, in 2009 Joan joined the Alghoul Law and Associates team, where she specializes in aboriginal law. Most recently, Joan has joined Napoli Law Canada and is leading Indigenous Class Action litigation.
Joan is a stalwart in the activist community, participating in the Treaty Freedom Rides and The Medicine Wheel ride across North America.
The motorcycle runs are always undertaken for the primary purpose of shining light on the legalized racism and misogynist genocide that continues today in North America.
Joan currently lives in the Tlingit Country in Atlin, B.C., with her husband, Watsait, Bryan and her family. She continues to be very active in her community and with the Nakina CALL.
