It was a busy 24 hours for Tréchelle Bunn, the newly elected chief of Birdtail Sioux Dakota Nation in Manitoba.
On the evening of April 9, Bunn received an Indspire Award in Vancouver. The next day, Bunn was back home in her community about 300 kilometres west of Winnipeg as polls closed for the chief and council election.
Bunn, 25, was elected with 191 votes, while her opponent Gloria Chalmers-Rach got 85 votes. She is the first woman to be elected as chief in her nation. She is also now the youngest serving chief in Manitoba.
The former University of Calgary Dinos and Manitoba Bison hockey player previously served as Southern Chiefs’ Organization (SCO) youth chief.
She’ll serve a four-year term and Bunn joked that it would take time to get used to introducing herself as just “chief.”
“I’m used to introducing myself as youth chief of the Southern Chiefs’ …