Died in Ottawa, Ontario

Olive Dickason died on March 12, 2011, in Ottawa, Ontario, just days after her 91st birthday. Her death marked the end of a remarkable career that spanned journalism, academia, and Indigenous advocacy.

By the time of her death, Dickason was widely regarded as the pre-eminent historian of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Her seminal 1992 book, Canada's First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times, had become a standard text in Canadian universities, fundamentally reshaping how Canadian history was taught and understood.

Tributes poured in from across academic and Indigenous communities, recognizing her as a trailblazer who broke barriers both as a woman and as a person of Métis heritage in the historically white, male-dominated field of Canadian history. She had also been a named plaintiff in the landmark human rights case Dickason v. University of Alberta, which addressed mandatory retirement policies.

Her legacy lives on through the continued use of her scholarship in classrooms, her influence on subsequent generations of Indigenous and non-Indigenous historians, and various commemorations including entries in the Canadian Encyclopedia and ongoing discussions of her work by institutions like the University of Alberta and the Métis Nation. She is remembered as a woman who, against significant odds, rewrote the historical narrative of Canada to include the voices and contributions of its First Peoples.