Betty Harnum, 'small and mighty' lover of language, dies at 73

A woman who pushed for Indigenous language revitalization in the Northwest Territories is being remembered as a passionate linguist, a generous friend and an animal lover with a wild streak.

Betty Harnum, the territory's first languages commissioner, died early Friday morning at the age of 73.

She "gave her whole heart" to preserving languages, said Mary Rose Sunberg, who had been friends with Harnum for 40 years.

Harnum was fluent in English, French and Inuktitut and was semi-fluent in Denesuline (Chipewyan), Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Tlicho) and Dene Zhatie (South Slavey), Sunberg said. 

Serving as the N.W.T.'s languages commissioner from 1992 to 1996 was only a fraction of the work Harnum did during her nearly 50 years in the North.

Harnum graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1975, then moved to Kinngait, Nunavut (which was called Cape Dorset at the time), where she learned to speak Inuktitut and write syllabics, Sunberg said. 

Later, Harnum moved to Fort Liard, N.W.T., and helped set up a craft shop there. 

Eventually, she began working at the territory's now-defunct language bureau in Yellowknife and, after serving as the languages commissioner, spent many years consulting. She also led CBC's Indigenous languages archive project — which is archiving 75,000 hours worth of recorded stories in eight Indigenous languages. 

Harnum raised a son, Beau, who was the "light of her life," Sunberg said.

A long list of her achievements also includes helping to establish the Goyatikǫ Language Society, developing an Chipewyan dictionary in Fort Resolution, N.W.T., and an Inuinnaqtun-to-English dictionary in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

Rosella Stoesz, a long-time friend, said Harnum lived with her on and off for about 15 years. 

"Our love of dogs, I guess, is one of the main things that brought us together," she said, reflecting on how that love led to an extra dog in the house on one particular cold winter day. 

Harnum rescued a dog that was tied up outside and unwanted by its owners, Stoesz said. Unsure of what they were dealing with, the two women put the animal in the laundry room. When someone turned on the drying machine, however, the dog panicked.

The dog was jumping all over the place, essentially trying to get through the door, said Stoesz. The unhappy pooch eventually ended up yanking on a plug and causing the dryer to short-circuit — earning herself the name Sparky.