Dora Grandjambe Print Email

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Dora Grandjambe is a K’áhsho Got’ı̨nę language specialist, reader and teacher. She was taken to Grollier Hall residential school in 1958 when she was four years old and continued school until she was fourteen years old, returning home to live with her family every summer. Along with her fellow K’ásho Got’ı̨nę students, she managed to maintain her knowledge of Dene language despite the prohibition against speaking it in school. She first gained experience as a language and traditional knowledge researcher with the Fort Good Hope Dene Language Research Project during 1980-1985. During that time she and other community researchers attended the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Based in Yellowknife, worked as an interpreter-translator for the Northwest Territories Language Bureau during 1990-1997, and continued providing interpreting and translating services for various organisations and projects, including the Legislative Assembly, Dene Nation, Supreme Court, National Energy Board and Stanton Territorial Hospital until 2012. In 1996 she was the first Dene person to be certified as an interpreter and translator by the Canadian Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters Council. She then moved to Norman Wells and began part time employment as an Aboriginal and Cultural Teacher at Mackenzie Mountain School, a job that she loves.