Jenny Flett, seen at her 100th birthday celebration in December 2008, died Tuesday in Fort McMurray, Alta. She was 101. (Patti-Kay Hamilton/CBC)Northerners are mourning the death of longtime Fort Chipewyan, Alta., midwife Jenny Flett, who has passed away at the age of 101.
Flett, a Métis self-taught midwife who had delivered hundreds of babies in a career spanning half a century, died Tuesday morning at a health centre in Fort McMurray, Alta.
"She had an inquisitive mind and was very open to learning," Leslie Paulette, a midwife from Fort Smith, N.W.T., told CBC News on Tuesday.
"She obviously had the skills in her hands and in her heart. She just had a tremendous commitment to women and babies, and really I honour that."
A teenaged Flett took over her mother's midwifery practice in Fort Chipewyan at a time when there were no roads, running water, indoor toilets or electricity.
While celebrating her 100th birthday in December 2008, Flett told CBC News she had often travelled by dog team to deliver a baby.
"They give me 50 cents a day. Done all their diapers by washboard and tub. I liked the job … I really liked helping people," Flett said during that interview.
"I never lost a mother and I never lost a baby, 48 years a midwife."
Flett's life and career provided a wealth of historical northern Alberta knowledge to Patricia McCormack, an associate professor of native studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
"She has a significant role and her family has a significant role in Fort Chipewyan, the family being heavily involved with the fur trade, her own mother having been a community midwife and nursing people who were sick — a role that Jenny took over herself," McCormack said.
Details on Flett's funeral haven't been announced.
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