Emma Reelis

Emma Reelis was born in Nain, on the north coast of Labrador, one of six children. Her family later moved to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, where her father worked on the military base. He died suddenly in 1956, when she was about ten.

After his death Reelis and her siblings were sent to the Yale School, the residential boarding school in North West River run by the International Grenfell Association, where she lived in the dormitory for about five years until 1963. She later spoke publicly about the abuse and loss of culture she and other children experienced there. "Down at the dorm you were told ... the impression that they gave you was, you were nothing, you're only an Eskimo person, you're not gonna amount to anything in your life, you're nothing," she said in a 2020 interview with CBC.

She left the school at 16 and took a job at the nursing station in North West River.

Reelis moved to Goose Bay and worked at the hospital there before settling in St. John's in 1964. Once her children were in school she went to work in food service at the Waterford Hospital, a job she held for 27 years.

In St. John's she became active with the St. John's Native Friendship Centre, known today as First Light, an urban Indigenous organization serving thousands of people in the region. She served on its board and as both president and vice-president. As an Inuk elder she was a mentor, cultural adviser and role model, and she was often the elder asked to give the opening prayer or land acknowledgement at public events across the province. She took pride in writing a new prayer for each occasion.

She lit the kullik, the traditional Inuit oil lamp, at ceremonies including in the House of Assembly in St. John's, and in 2019 was one of the elders in Memorial University's Visiting Aboriginal Elders project. "This project will help our young Aboriginal students coming to university today to feel more welcomed, more supported," she said at the time.

Reelis campaigned for children in Newfoundland and Labrador's K-12 schools to be taught about Indigenous peoples and the realities of residential schools, and she advised on the design of a garden in St. John's to honour residential school survivors. "I know there are a lot of people who don't like talking about residential schools but I want to talk about it because a lot of people were abused and never went home," she told CBC News.

Reelis met her husband, Kevin, while working at the hospital in Goose Bay, and they married in 1964 before moving to his hometown of St. John's. They had five children, and she later had grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Though she lived in St. John's for more than 60 years, she travelled back to Labrador often and visited the Labrador Friendship Centre in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Her friend Stanley Oliver said she was always proud to be a Nunatsiavut beneficiary, an Inuk and a woman, and that young Indigenous people often sought out her calm, direct advice.

Emma Reelis died on Monday 12 October 2026 at the age of 78. The cause of her death has not been made public.

Flags at Government House in St. John's were lowered to half mast on 13 October, and First Light closed its programs for the day. "She meant so much to so many, and her loss is felt deeply across our First Light family," the organization said, adding that it would wait for her family's wishes on service arrangements.

Lieutenant Governor Joan Marie Aylward said her honours were "a testament to her leadership, kindness and empathy" and added, "We are better people for having known Elder Emma Reelis." Lela Evans, the province's Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, called her a "kind soul" and said she had a way of speaking about painful history so that people felt positive afterwards.

Reelis was recognised with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal for her work with youth, women and Indigenous people, a Newfoundland and Labrador Seniors of Distinction Award in 2020 and the King Charles III Coronation Medal.

She was one of the survivors who helped put the history of residential schools in Labrador and Newfoundland before the public, through interviews, school visits and ceremonies, and she remained active to the end, attending National Day for Truth and Reconciliation events in Mount Pearl and St. John's less than two weeks before she died.