Two prominent Canadians, an internationally renowned author and a lawyer who blazed a trail in his fight for the legal recognition of Aboriginal title, will both become honorary alumnus of UNBC this May.
Thomas Berger and Lawrence Hill are slated to receive honorary Doctor of Laws degrees during the 2018 convocation at UNBC. Berger is known for his pathbreaking work as a lawyer and for his tenure as a former B.C. Supreme Court Justice, while Hill is best known as the author of such titles as The Illegal and The Book of Negroes, the latter of which was developed into a six-part TV series starring Aunjanue Ellis and Cuba Gooding Jr.
"I'm always struck every time we do an honorary degree announcement like this," UNBC president Daniel Weeks said.
"The individuals themselves are quick to express how honoured they are. But in fact, it's really the reverse. They honour us by allowing us to give them an honorary degree. The honour is ours that they will now attached their name to UNBC forever as alumni."
In 1973, Berger represented the Nisga'a Nation in the Supreme Court of Canada in the Calder case which first established the existence of Aboriginal title. At the time, both the B.C. Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal had rejected the claim. The appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada had been viewed as a risky move, but was validated by a ruling that recognized the existence of Aboriginal title to land that had existed before colonial law.
This ruling would set in motion the modern treaty process in Canada. It eventually led to the Nisga'a treaty signed in 2000.
Berger served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of B.C. from 1971 - 1983. During that time, he served as the sole Royal Commissioner of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry. In his subsequent report, he recommended that wilderness parks be established on the northern coast of Yukon to protect the calving grounds of caribou. He also recommended that no pipeline be built along the Mackenzie Valley until Indigenous land claims were settled. The Government of Canada subsequently followed his recommendations.
In 2013 he was counsel for the Manitoba Mtis in their successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada for recognition of the 1870 promises of land made by then-Prime Minister John A. Macdonald to Louis Riel. In 2017, he successfully won protecting of the Peel Watershed at the Supreme Court of Canada, as counsel of behalf of First Nations and environmental groups.
Last year, Berger spoke at a regional celebration held in Gitwinksihlkw, near the Wilp Wilxo'oskwhl Nisga'a campus of UNBC, where he also received a Nisga'a certificate of appreciation. According to Weeks, the speech may have inspired his initial nomination for the honorary degree.
"It likely resulted from that speech and the work that he had done in ensuring the rights of aboriginal people," Weeks said.
Hill, a creative writing professor at the University of Guelph, is the author of 10 books, including The Illegal, The Book of Negroes and Any Known Blood.
He is a two-time winner of CBC Radio's Canada Reads and has won numerous awards.
The Book of Negroes tv series, which he co-wrote, attracted millions of viewers in Canada and the US and won 11 Canadian Screen Awards in 2016.
Hill delivered the 2013 CBC Massey Lectures, based on his non-fiction book Blood: The Stuff of Life. He has extensive experience volunteering with organizations such as Book Clubs for Inmates, the Black Loyalist Heritage Society and Crossroads International, with whom he has travelled to Niger, Cameroon, Mali and Swaziland.
Hill is currently working on a new novel about African-American soldiers who helped build the Alaska Highway in Northern B.C. and Yukon in the midst of the Second World War.
The May convocation will mark Hill's first visit to Prince George.
"I'm very much looking forward to the opportunity to meet students, faculty and others in the community," Hill said in a media statement.
"I'll bring an engaged speech and my hiking shoes!"
