Odille Morison

Who was Odille Morison?

Odille Morison was a linguist, artifact collector, and community leader from the Tsimshian First Nation of northwestern British Columbia, Canada.

She was born July 17, 1855, in the Tsimshian village of Lax Kw'alaams, then known by its colonial name of Fort Simpson or Port Simpson. She was the daughter of a Tsimshian traditional healer and midwife named Mary Quintal and French Canadian employee of the Hudson's Bay Company fort in the village, François Quintal. Following her mother in the matrilineal system of the Tsimshian, Odille was a member of the Gitlaan tribe and most likely of the Killerwhale crest. She grew up trilingual, in English, Tsimshian, and French, and also knew the Chinook Jargon trade language. When, in 1862, the Anglican lay missionary at Port Simpson, William Duncan, relocated a portion of his flock to found the nearby utopian Christian community of Metlakatla, the Quintals moved with him. Odille was educated in Metlakatla's mission school.

In August 1872 Odille, aged seventeen, married Charles F. Morison, an Englishman and a clerk with the HBC. They were married by a ship's chaplain because the missionary in charge, the Rev. Robert Tomlinson, for unknown reasons refused to marry them. The Morisons also kept a home in Port Essington, a cannery town whose founder, Robert Cunningham, had been Mary Quintal's brother-in-law.