Trailblazing journalist Dan David passes on

Every morning at breakfast, the eight kids of the David family would sit and eat to the sounds of CBC News. In the evening, CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite would light their living room.

At the David family home, the latest issue of the Montreal Gazette and the now defunct Montreal Star were always picked up, and visits to Longhouse, where they’d learn of news within the Confederacy, were routine.

It was in this environment that trailblazing journalist Thaioronióhte Dan Peter David grew up.

“They would be talking about politics around the kitchen table, and we grew up just listening,” said Marie David, Dan David’s sister, referring to their parents. “That was ingrained in all of us growing up – and he just took that and ran with it.”
Dan passed away on January 12, 2026, at 73 years of age, following a battle with cancer.
During his lifetime, Dan revolutionized Indigenous news in Canada. Among his goals, said Marie, was to cultivate Indigenous reporting that factored in Indigenous history and culture, while improving coverage and holding leaders to account in local and national Indigenous affairs.

Dan’s journalism career began at CBC News in Whitehorse, Yukon, in the early 1980s. A few years later, he took part in the team of volunteers who helped build the original radio station in Kanesatake, now called Reviving Kanehsatà:ke Radio (RKR).

In 1990, everything changed. During the Siege of Kanehsatake, Dan came home to help support his family but was barred from officially reporting on the event with CBC News, said Marie.

“They valued his input, but they didn’t value it enough to pay him,” said Marie. “They felt like he was too involved to cover the story.”

The treatment left a sour taste in his mouth, she said. And following the event, Dan accepted an opportunity to travel to post-apartheid South Africa to help train journalists and rebuild the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

In Africa, he was struck by the similarities between the apartheid and the Indian Act system in Canada. While mentoring reporters, he was inspired by the journalists’ passion to have their own media outlet to be able to tell their stories – and he steadfastly encouraged them.

“Danny with his Mohawk Warrior spirit nudges us all towards the impossible. He is giving us back our power in a way that helps me understand the deep unspoken bonds between his people and mine,” wrote Sylvia Vollenhoven, former SABC current affairs executive producer and presenter, in a tribute to Dan. “Some cry, overwhelmed by the freedom they are being asked to embrace.”

It was with this spirit, where following his return to Canada, Dan helped launch APTN National News – formerly called InVision News – in 2000, serving as its first news director. The outlet brought, and continues to bring, Indigenous journalism onto the mainstream stage.

“When you are trying to start an Indigenous national newscast from scratch, and it’s never been done before, there are so many, so many challenges, so many problems to be solved,” said Duncan McCue, journalism professor at Carleton University and former CBC broadcaster.

“Dan was really at the forefront of bringing that whole vision of our news, our stories, for our people, to life,” said McCue, who is Anishinaabe, a member of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation.

Dan consulted McCue, who was one of the few Indigenous journalists in Canada at the time, in the early stages of the APTN’s launch.

“I loved sitting back and talking about ideas and dreams, about what our news could look like,” said McCue.

Despite handling all the challenges of building an Indigenous news network, Dan always made time to mentor journalists.

“Teaching and mentoring was so, so very important to him,” said McCue. “He really believed in giving young Indigenous journalists a chance, giving them the kinds of training and coaching and support that they needed to be able to go on the air and talk about news that mattered to us, to our people.”

And Dan also watered sprouting talent back home. In 2024-2025, Dan helped advise a local media course for Kanehsata’kehró:non that was delivered in conjunction with Kiuna College. The concentrated five-month course featured a week of Indigenous news, an addition made at Dan’s behest.

“I put a bunch of links to his videos and his articles, and I told students, ‘Go, take a look,’” said Karahkóhare Syd Gaspé, president of Mohawk MultiMedia Inc., the organization which oversees the RKR radio station. “We have this, I guess you’d say legend now, in Kanesatake, that worked in journalism – and this is what you’re learning.”
Dan was a long-time mentor to Jorge Barrera, CBC News journalist currently based in Mexico City. Barrera often called Dan when reporting on Indigenous stories, and said it was Dan’s beautiful writing and skillful reporting that first attracted him to seek out Dan for advice.

Published in This Magazine in 1997, Dan recalled the Siege of Kanehsatake in a story that ended with the moment he met the late Queen Elizabeth II.

”Are you some kind of an Indian?” she asks in that familiar voice. “Yes, I am, your Majesty,” I reply, slightly confused, but pulling myself up to my full height. “I’m from Canada.”

“Oh,” she continues. “What kind of an Indian are you?”

“A Mohawk,” I say.

“A Mohawk.” She pauses slightly. “You’re not one of those naughty Mohawks, are you?”

I wait for a second before answering: “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

While Dan earned awards and recognition for his work throughout his life, he never liked to draw attention to his many accolades.

“He was very, very humble,” said Kawisaienhne Albany, Dan’s grand-niece. “He never bragged about anything he did.”

Awards, such as the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Journalist Foundation, always came as a surprise. Dan was the first Indigenous journalist to receive the award, for which past winners include former CBC News anchor Peter Mansbridge and CTV News anchor Lloyd Robertson.

For Albany, what is top of mind when she remembers her “favourite grumpy uncle” was his story telling and integrity.

“He always reminded me of how the elders, the first-language speakers, the elders in our community, how they tell the story is so beautiful,” said Albany. “It’s all in the language, but he was able to do that in English. You could just sit there and just listen to his stories or read his stories for hours and not be pulled away from it.”

Albany cited her uncle as an inspiration in protesting against deforestation in the Pines last summer.

“I go, I’m not scared,” said Albany. “I don’t think of anything besides, ‘This is the right thing to do, and this is what my uncle would do.”

His kindness towards others will always be remembered, said Marie. She remembers how he always took family members out for their birthdays.
And even while Dan suffered from cancer in the last few years of life, he took time to raise money for children’s cancer research through cycling and writing. 
On February 1, a memorial service will be held at Les Salons Funeraires Guay in St. Eustache.

Friends, family, and colleagues will always remember Dan’s self-depreciating humor and his straightforwardness, his courage, and his love.

“He was funny. He was stubborn,” said Marie. “It’s just my big brother. I’m going to miss him.”

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