A Teslin Tlingit elder, whose community service spans much of her 86 years, has been named a member of the Order of Canada.

'I truly was honoured,' Pearl Keenan said in an interview early this afternoon.

Her initial reaction to being told she had been named to the order was 'Why me?' she told the Star.

Just a glimpse of Keenan's background shows why she would be nominated for the order.

From her work as a member of the newly-formed Yukon Human Rights Commission in the 1980s to her current member of the Council of Yukon First Nations' (CYFN's) elders' advisory council and environment board, Keenan has volunteered and been involved with many organizations in the territory through the years.

It was helping young people that 'really got me going,' Keenan said.

'I still love my young people,' she continued.

Education is extremely important for youth, she said. To help ensure Yukoners are provided with a good education, Keenan served seven years as the chancellor of Yukon College after succeeding the late Pierre Berton in the role in 1993.

She was also a founding board member and continues to serve on dana Naye Ventures, was a home-school co-ordinator and Tlingit language teacher in Teslin, a former member of the education and justice boards for the CYFN and recently served as a guest lecturer on northern first nations culture at both the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) and the University of Regina.

It's youth who will carry on and become the world's citizens, she pointed out. Today, it seems they especially need all the help they can get with the many distractions in society.

Even for Keenan, who has lived through many changes in society, it's difficult to adjust.

A short biography on the respected elder notes that she's witnessed enormous differences as time has passed.

They include the construction of the Alaska Highway in 1942, going 'from galvanized buckets to plastic pails, cotton to nylon; nib pens to ballpoint pens.'

Keenan was born as Pearl Geddes in a home cabin on the Nisutlin River about 39 kilometres (24 miles) from Teslin.

Her father, George, was Scottish, while her mother, Annie, was a full-blooded Tlingit member of the Eagle and Whale clan.

Perhaps one of the biggest differences with time has been in the means of transportation, having grown up on a family mink ranch about 19 kilometres from Teslin, when the only means of transportation were dog teams through the winter and boats in the summer.

In 1947, she married Hugh Keenan, who died in 1999, and together they raised two sons and a daughter. One son, Dave, served as a Yukon NDP cabinet minister from 1996 to 2000.

'Mrs. Keenan has been, and remains, active in countless areas of community service. This was recognized by the Commissioner of Yukon in 1986 with the Commissioner's Award for Public Service,' notes the biography used for her nomination to the order.

As Keenan continues working on youth issues, she is also extremely concerned about the environment and global warming.

'It really does scare me,' she said, as she recalled a time when there seemed to be four more defined seasons, including very cold winters.

'It was just wonderful,' she said.

There was a healthy environment with healthy residents, she recalls. Today, she said, there seem to be many deaths from cancer.

In addition to the volunteer work on the elders' council for the environment, Keenan serves as a northern elder for the Behaviour Health Foundation of St. Norbert, Man., and is a board member of the Selkirk Healing Centre in Selkirk, Man.

She's also a member of Native Women of Canada, worked as a first nations counsellor in British Columbia prisons, ran the Nishito Friendship Centre in New Westminster, B.C., and was the commissioner of the Yukon pavilion at Expo '86 in Vancouver.

As an advisor to the Yukon Salmon Committee, she also helped break a 17-year deadlock between Alaska and Yukon fishing interests on the allocation of Yukon River salmon stocks, it was noted.

Keenan will be honoured along with others named to the order at a ceremony, with the date to be decided later.