Ada Gallen

Ada Gallen (Dii duh nil naa) was an Upper Tanana River Athabascan Dene Elder from Northway, Alaska. She was born in 1923 to Peter Albert and Elsie Northway, sister of the late Chief Walter Northway. Ada grew up in and attended school in Northway through the third grade. The family lived a traditional seasonal subsistence lifestyle of hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering. Her parents died (her mother in the 1940's) when she was a teenager and she was left to raise her younger siblings. She and her brother trapped furs to earn money for groceries, and the family hunted and fished to help put food on the table. Being from a family of sixteen children, she had other older siblings who helped, as well. Ada was about eighteen years old when the Alaska Highway and the airstrip at Northway were built and experienced many changes that brought to the community. She was a talented beader, skin-sewer and birch bark basket maker. She understood the importance of getting an education in both the traditional and western ways, and was eager to teach traditional skills and crafts to the younger generations in order to instill in them cultural pride and the values of hard work and perseverance. She was known for her strength, courage, hospitality, generosity, warmth, stubbornness, and sense of humor. Ada Gallen passed away in 2016 at the age of 92. For more about Ada Gallen, see her obituary in the Anchorage Daily News newspaper.