Featured Profile: K’unya Laurie Bevan, CNF Board Chair
- Feb 17
- 6 min read
Life hasn’t always been smooth sailing for K’unya Laurie Bevan, but today she is a successful legal and governance professional and current Board Chair of Coastal Nations Fisheries.
K’unya was born in Prince Rupert, BC, the “halibut capital of the world” in the early 1970s at the height of intense activity in the fishing industry. Her parents, Leona and Larry, met in high school in Prince Rupert and soon found themselves in love, pregnant and married. Leona, Caucasian, dropped out of high school at 17 to become a stay-at-home mom and Larry, Haida, dropped out at 19 to work at the local pulp mill. A couple of years and another daughter later, and with dreams of commercial fishing dancing in his head, Larry moved his family to Second Beach, Kay Llnagaay, in Skidegate.
Larry’s dreams of commercial fishing came to an abrupt end in May 1978, when Leona was brutally murdered in Skidegate at just 21 years old. “It sent shock waves through the village and the entire island,” says K’unya. “I was just four years old and my two younger sisters, only one and two.” Larry, suddenly a widower at 23, became a tree faller to support his young family of three daughters. As K’unya and her sisters became teenagers Larry once again got back to commercial fishing during the summer season, often fishing with one of his uncles. Sadly, in 2001, Larry died in a logging accident.
In the face of tragedy, K’unya was always proud of who she was and where she came from. That deep connection to Haida Gwaii and her close-knit community instilled a strong will and confidence that has never wavered. “I do think that losing my mom at a young age had a large impact on who I am today, and why I have done the things that I have done,” she says.
At age 10, K’unya attended Rediscovery T’aalan Stl’ang—a summer camp at the far northwest end of Haida Gwaii, accessible only by air or ocean, that connects Haida youth with their culture, lands, waters and traditions of their ancestors. “I remember walking on the ancient trail through the village of Kiusta, marveling at the ancient totem poles struggling to stand and the thick moss-covered longhouse pits,” she recalls. “I also remember the awe I felt seeing the triple mortuary pole carved by Chief Albert Edward Edenshaw at the far end of the village. It was here, in this beautiful ancient village covered in moss, that it hit home that I was Haida. This is where I came from.”
K’unya says she was sitting on a massive log on the beach in front of the ancient village of Yaku, when her camp counsellor pointed across the water to the west side of Langara Island, telling the group it was Cloak Bay, the site of first European contact with the Haida. As a 10-year-old child, K’unya vividly remembers her feelings in that moment: “I had an overwhelming sense of awe, imagining what it must have been like for our people, 250 years ago, to look out and see these tall, monstrous ships.”
As much as K’unya loved growing up on Haida Gwaii, she also wanted to see the world. Over the years, she was able to travel a fair amount—including all over North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. “I love to go to new places and learn about other cultures around the world,” she says. “I live and breathe history.” As wonderful as those experiences have been, she says Haida Gwaii is her favourite place and will always be her true home.
“My way to connect with Haida culture is out on the land and water, even laying in the moss in one of our ancient villages,” says K’unya. She says her great Naanay, Margaret Williams, lived and breathed Haida culture, and the family would go seaweed picking and berry picking with her, as well as fishing every spring. As with anyone born into the Haida way of life, fishing is fundamental to identity. “From a very young age, the entire family would go over to Copper Bay to catch our sockeye for the year,” says K’unya. “It wasn't just two or three of us, it was grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts and cousins. It just brings back really fond memories. The adults would be cleaning, cutting and canning fish and the kids would be running around and scooping the black flies out of the lemonade.”
K’unya’s Haida name actually came from her great Naanay Margaret, originally passed along by her great Uncle Rev. Johnny Williams, Chief Gitkun. It translates to “the fair one”—highlighting her lighter skin tone, not her disposition—although K’unya says she shares a “feisty” disposition with her great Naanay, too. It wasn’t until grade school that K’unya noticed her skin colour was lighter than most of the Haidas around her. “I was teased endlessly when I proudly shared that I was an Eagle,” she says, referring to one of the two main Haida clans, along with Raven. “I heard, ‘Ya right, you’re a seagull’ many times growing up.”
Looking back at her younger self, K’unya says she always knew she would make something of her life. “I knew that I was going to leave Haida Gwaii to go to school, and one day I’d come back home to make my Nation proud,” she says. “I knew that from the very beginning.”
In 1993, K’unya packed up with her two-year-old son and moved to Vancouver. “I went to school and became a legal secretary,” she says, then worked her way up, eventually becoming a paralegal in a law firm in 2003. “I wanted to be in social justice, and help my people in First Nations,” she says, “so I began working in a boutique Aboriginal Law firm that specialized in Aboriginal rights and title, economic development, specific claims, and Indian Residential School litigation. I absolutely loved it.” When she reached a point where she couldn't advance any further without becoming a lawyer, K’unya moved into corporate governance, which ultimately led to her working in First Nations organizations, such as the First Nations Financial Management Board and the First Nations Health Authority.
“While things started off really scary in my life, I’m happy with my life and proud of what I have done,” says K’unya. “Yes, life had been difficult, but I'm stubborn or determined, whichever. Probably equal parts both.” Her husband, Joe, is a respected Indigenous leader and her four children—Jacob, Rena, Toni and Marcus—are now successful adults. K’unya’s step-daughter, Kristie, is thriving, while her four grandchildren (baby Leona, Kara, Taysha and Lorenzo) continue to fill her with pleasure and keep her young.
“I am fortunate to be a hands-on Naanay and get to spend a lot of time with my only grandson, Lorenzo,” says K’unya. “If my dad were still alive today, they would have been kindred spirits and inseparable. I have no doubt Lorenzo would be out on the water, or standing on a river bank, catching his first fish with his great Chinnay, Larry.” K’unya says having grandchildren is like having a second chance—you get to sit back and watch them learn and figure things out for themselves. “Being a young mom, I know I made mistakes with my children growing up, but you learn from those mistakes,” she says. “Being a Naanay just keeps you young at heart.”
As for her role as CNF Board Chair, K’unya said she was encouraged to put her name forward by her cousin Missy, who “has always believed in me and is very familiar with my professional background.” K’unya also jumped at the opportunity because her maternal grandfather, Alan Hale, had ties to the fishing industry in Prince Rupert for over 50 years. Fishing has always sustained not just her family and the Haida people, but all First Nations on the coast. “Fishing is essential to cultural identity and food security, supporting our communities and local economies, and upholding the rights and traditions of our Nations,” she says. K'unya shares that she was greatly humbled by the Board's confidence in her when the inaugural members unanimously appointed her to the role of CNF Board Chair.
K’unya believes strongly that fishing can continue to sustain coastal communities into the future. “We just need to take back our leadership role as stewards of the ocean,” she says. “It’s not just about economic self-determination, but also fostering reconciliation and sustainability, ensuring a balance between economic prosperity and community wellbeing.”
Sustainable practices are crucial, says K’unya, because that will maintain a thriving sector over the long term. It’s a relatively new term, but sustainability is just another way of describing how coastal First Nations have managed the ocean’s bounty for countless generations. By taking back that ownership role in fisheries management, including all the benefits that flow from that, she says it’s also an “opportunity to continue working collaboratively with other coastal Nations, nurturing relationships we’ve had for millennia.”
K’unya says her work on the Board has been challenging at times, with lots of learning, but every last effort is worth it, because reviving coastal fisheries is so critically important. “To me, fish means culture, identity, sustenance and survival,” she says. “I do this work for the sake of my children and grandchildren, and generations yet to come. I want them to understand fish and the ocean as the cornerstone of our existence.”
