'Very humbling': Deputy mayor to receive provincial honour

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Kate Akagi was in Saint John for a KAIROS blanket exercise and had forgotten all about the application when her phone lit up.

“I saw the number from Justice and Safety and thought, what ticket did I miss?” Akagi said, and picked it up to speak to a government representative.

“She said, ‘Don’t hang up, this is good news! You will receive the Order of New Brunswick.’ I said, really? and she said, ‘Yes, really.'”

Akagi, deputy mayor of Saint Andrews, was one of five people named to the Order of New Brunswick Nov. 11. She is due to receive the award Thursday at Government House in Fredericton. Akagi, who retired after more than 30 years as a teacher, currently helps with KAIROS blanket exercises, a tool to teach about Indigenous history in Canada, and works with NBCC Saint Andrews and Anglophone School District South presenting Indigenous teaching sessions for Anglophone School District South students.

Akagi said her nomination was put in by the town and when she finally learned about it, she had to keep it quiet – until it was mentioned at a council meeting a day before the formal announcement.

“My eyes were really big, because I thought I got everybody to make sure they didn’t say anything.” she said. “It was just one day, I’m okay, they won’t take it back.”

She said she’s been “very very honoured” by the response, with many people contacting her to tell her they’re proud.

“I find it very humbling that people think this way of me, because I am me, I’m not going to change, I’m going to do all the same way I did before,” she said. “I don’t do it for recognition, I do it for the fact that I like to volunteer for my community, I like to share my knowledge, especially the Indigenous side.”

“Kate has been a dedicated member of the community with her volunteerism, education and awareness with Indigenous activities and learning opportunities, and service through municipal government,” Mayor Brad Henderson said in a Facebook post congratulating her for the honour.

Akagi was speaking on the road in Fredericton on a trip for Dial-A-Ride after taking someone to the Stan Cassidy Centre for a doctor’s appointment.

“I guess I’m always on the road, or I’m always doing something, I’m never quite home all the time,” she said. “As my family said, ‘always doing for somebody else.’ That’s just my nature.”

Akagi was born in the family house on Indian Point, and described herself as “a true Saint Andrews born person, and New Brunswicker.” She was first elected to council in 2008, and after an unsuccessful run for mayor in 2016, she returned as a councillor in 2018. She was voted deputy mayor by council in 2021, where she also serves as chair of the finance committee.

“I enjoy it very very much and I like the council that I’ve been working on,” she said. This one, especially, is wonderful, because they’ve embraced the Indigenous ways … this council has been open to whatever I suggested or wanted done.”

She named the indigenous crosswalks along Indian Point and Day for Truth and Reconciliation memorial ceremonies, which she co-hosts with Judith Moses, as two such projects the town has supported. In 2021, she said they had 200 people for the event and silent march.

This past year, they held events both for National Indigenous Peoples Day June 21 and the memorial on Sept. 30. She said that a year ago, they had 50 drums made, and have made 25 more that she hopes can be brought to next year’s memorial to those who died and to the residential school survivors.

“I am hoping that we will be able to parade the silent walk with all these drums beating,” she said. “The heart will be there, and you’ll hear it, and that’s what I’m looking forward to.”

Akagi is a member of the Skutik tribe of the Peskotomuhkati, a nation recognized in the U.S. but not Canada, where their people are seeking federal and provincial recognition in Canada. Her brother, Hugh Akagi, is the chief.

“We continue to hope and pray that our tribe will be recognized in Canada at one point, but we work together to promote that,” she said. “I do a lot of the knowledge and education thing in schools, and he’s doing the governmental thing of getting our recognition back.”

She is one of three, including Charlie Nicholas, of Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation), and Constance Sewell, from Oinpegitjoig (Pabineau First Nation), helping organize KAIROS blanket exercises, which “raise awareness of continuing injustices and impacts of colonization” and teach the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and other work in that field, according to the KAIROS website.

“It’s unique, and we like unique,” she said. “Nobody talked about it for years, now the time has come, we need to talk about it, we need to educate, we need to share the knowledge, and that’s what we’re doing.”