Ruby Dawson Cranmer
Kwak’wala Language Champion, Story Teller, and Linguistic Consultant
August 11, 1939 – March 15, 2026
It is with heavy hearts that we mark the passing of Ruby Dawson Cranmer, but also with gratitude for everything that she taught us about her first language, Kwak’wala, and more broadly, for the example she set in courage, generosity, and how to live a hard life with grace and humour.
I (Henry) was introduced to Ruby by Peter Jacobs in the summer of 2009. I wanted to work on a Northern Wakashan language and had the opportunity to teach our two-semester Field Methods sequence that year. Though she had taught language and culture in various venues throughout her life, Ruby had never worked with linguists before. I asked her to take on the demanding job of language consultant for the class, and she accepted without hesitation.
Ruby proved not only to be an outstanding consultant, but an inspiration to her students. An exceptional number of them (both graduate and undergraduate) continued to work with her after the class finished, obtaining Jacobs Research Fund Group Grants in 2010, 2012, and 2013. Doctoral dissertations by Pat Littell (UBC: 2016) and Katie Sardinha (UC Berkeley: 2017), as well as MA theses by Hannah Greene (UBC: 2013), Laura Sherer (UBC: 2014), Jon Janzen (Trinity Western: 2015), and Ayako Moewaki (2016: UBC) all rely heavily on Ruby’s knowledge and insights into Kwak’wala. Several of her most devoted students, including Katie, Jon, and Daniel Frim continued to work with her right up till the end of her life.
Aside from the formal linguistic work to which she contributed so much, Ruby also loved to tell stories in Kwak’wala. Many of these appear in the text collection T̕sit̕sa̱k̓ala̱mes Ruby: Ruby’s Stories, transcribed and edited by Jonathan Janzen and Katie Sardinha, and published in 2019 by UBC Occasional Papers in Linguistics (now PNWLL Press).
In addition to their considerable linguistic value — they comprise the first major published collection of Kwak’wala texts since Boas — these stories also tell the story of Ruby’s life. They begin with her happy childhood in Ga̱yux̱w (the cannery at Knight’s Inlet, Glendale Cove, where she was born), Gway̓i (Kingcome Inlet, her home community), and G̱way̓asda̱m’s (Gilford Island), where her family also had a house. The stories go on to recount the misery she endured (along with so many of her generation) in Residential School, first at the ‘bad big house’ (St. Michael’s in Alert Bay, now thankfully demolished), and then in Port Alberni, before continuing with her training and first job interview as a secretary in Vancouver. She finishes with a story about her youngest child, Jessie, born with a severe learning disability. Ruby cared for Jessie devotedly as a single mother for thirty years, until her tragic death from complications of pain-killers she was mistakenly given by a dentist.
In the last sentence of her introduction to the stories, Ruby remarks: Ḵ̓aḵ̓ut ̓ łatła̱n laksuł x̱a 80 dła̱w̓ i da 90! (‘I guess I’ll be teaching till I’m 80 or 90!’). And she is still teaching; there is a group of students who meet regularly to study Ruby’s Stories: they call their meetings “Ruby Tuesdays”.
Through all the adversity she endured throughout her long life, Ruby never lost her spirit or her sense of humour. Katie Sardinha remarks that “Ruby always brought laughter into the room”, and that is how we will remember her.
— Henry Davis (with help from Katie Sardinha)
