) Jamie Salé, 2002 Olympic Gold Medal Figure Skater

76) Jan Arden, Award Winning Singer

As an author, Jann Arden has written books and magazine stories. She is also a speaker at many special events. She has also hosted radio shows, TV shows, such as the Juno Awards in 1997, and she narrated the show “ER Vets”. Jann Arden also works with World Vision, Children’s Wish Foundation and the “MAC Cosmetics Fashion Cares AIDS” concert. She also performed at the Alberta Flood benefit concert and recorded a song to raise funds for rebuilding the Calgary Zoo after the flood. As a child, Jann Arden was interested in music and ice hockey. She played right wing in hockey and also played the guitar and trumpet.

By Laura Peace

77) Jerry Potts- Famous Metis NWMP Scout

Potts became a fierce warrior with a dreadful backstory, one that was an all too familiar backstory to many who lived in the Canadian and American northwest at this time; one characterized by murder, drunkenness, despair and exploitation. His father was murdered, and when his mother remarried, his stepfather abandoned him and his mother a few years later. His mother then returned to the Blackfoot tribe and left Jerry in the care of Andrew Dawson, the manager of the American Fur Company at Fort Benton. It was here however, that the legendary Canadian Bear Child would begin his true adventure.

Because Potts was raised under both European and First Nations influences, Potts learned how to navigate the land, speak many Native languages. Bear Child was extraordinarily influential in the 1877’s Treaty 7 commission negotiations between the government officials or Europeans, and the First Nations peoples, which many times, did not favour First Nations peoples. Fortunately, Jerry was there to translate, and although the effectiveness of his translation is debated, he nevertheless made an enormous contribution to the commissions.

Potts also learned how to hunt and track with both a bow and arrow and a rifle. Though he became incredibly skilled in business and trade with fur traders and various established companies, Potts still remained loyal to the spiritual traditions of the First Nations people. Unfortunately, he also adopted the practices of drinking and gambling endorsed by European settlers and businessmen, to which he would suffer further loss when his mother and brother-in-law were murdered by an individual under the influence of “firewater” or whiskey.

All of these traumatic experiences however, helped Potts find his true calling with the North West Mounted Police. Some have argued that securing the last, best West in Canada might not have been possible without him. Because of Potts’ hardened life experience as a hunter, backwoodsman and warrior, and his usefulness as a translator, he was an asset to the North West Mounted Police who arrived looking for a guide. They needed this guide to be able march them through the prairies on their quest to establish law and order in the Canadian western frontier. They paid him 90$ a month, which was twice the normal Mountie salary.

Bear Child succumbed to his lifetime of alcohol abuse and a case of tuberculosis in the 1890s, rendering him inadequate to serve on the now developing western front, passing away in 1896.

By Devin O'brien

78) John George "Kootenai" Brown- First Park Warden at Waterton National Park

Brown sailed to North America in 1861 and docked in Barkerville, British Columbia. Brown had no money when he docked and became a constable in Wild Horse Creek, seven hours from Barkerville. Browns pastime was spent with the Kootenay Tribe of British Columbia, which gave him his nickname “Kootenai”.

In the summer of 1865 while on vacation, “Kootenai” Brown travelled through the Waterton Lakes area and believing that this is what he had been seeing in his dreams, he made it home. Brown began running a trading post and later turned to hunting, ranching, fishing and acting as a guide for travelers of the area. In 1885 Brown spent three months serving with the Rocky Mountain Rangers in order to help quell the Metis disturbance led by Louis Riel, a Canadian politician and political leader of the Metis people.

Eventually, the prairies of Alberta changed as ranches increased. This made “Kootenai” Brown worry about the beauty and wildlife surrounding Waterton Lakes. Working with F.W. Godsal he wrote a letter to the Lethbridge Herald. Waterton Lakes became Waterton National Park in 1911 and “Kootenai” Brown was given the title of the park’s first superintendent at the ripe age of seventy. “Kootenai” Brown remained superintendent of the parks for three years until it was decided someone younger should have the position. “Kootenai” Brown kept his dedication to the park by working as a park ranger until his death in 1916 at the age of 75. John George “Kootenai” Brown is buried with his first wife, Olive, and later wife Isabella, near the shores of Lower Waterton Lakes, now a beautiful day’s hike.

By Jaden Baragar