May 8, 1935 - February 28, 2025
In loving memory ~
Our mother, Renee, was a loving mother, teacher, and author who spoke nostalgically of her childhood in 1930s-1950s Abbotsford.
Her parents were kind, ethical, and hard-working with family roots in the Canadian Pacific Railway and timber trades. Mom excelled at Philip Sheffield High School and furthered her education with an undergraduate degree at UBC, later teaching for three years at Vancouver's Point Grey Junior High School.
Bristling against traditional female stereotypes, Mom's adventurous spirit led her to travel to Asia as a passenger on a merchant marine ship in 1960. The following year, she was hired by the federal government to teach Inuit children in Rankin Inlet. There, she met our father, Ninian "Casey" Jones, the general manager of the Hudson's Bay Company store, and they were married in 1963.
After Mom's ten years in the Arctic, our parents moved south and raised their boys in Edmonton (1971-1979) and Montreal (1979-1986). As an empty nester in Winnipeg, Mom rediscovered her passion for academics, earning an MA from the University of Winnipeg and then a PhD in History from the University of Manitoba, specializing in Arctic studies. While teaching at the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg, she co-wrote Trader, Tripper, Trapper: The Life of a Bay Man (1989) and authored In Order to Live Untroubled: Inuit of the Central Arctic, 1550 to 1940 (2001).
After retiring to Vancouver Island in 2005, Mom continued her research for her final book, dedicating approximately 25 years to The Life and Times of Augustine Tataneuck: An Inuk Hero in Rupert's Land, 1800-1834, which was published in 2023. Mom received numerous awards and scholarships throughout her life, the last of which arrived in 2024 when the Augustine book won the William Mills Prize for Non-Fiction Polar Books.
On February 28, 2025, Mom passed away quietly at home. Renee is survived by her two sons, William Jones (wife, Fabienne) and their daughter, Sarah; and Andrew Jones (wife, Mairi) and his son, Connor.
You will be in our hearts forever,
and we love you.
In lieu of flowers or other kind gestures, please consider making a donation to a local Canadian university history department or to The Centre for Rupert's Land Studies.