Gertie Tom was born and grew up in the Big Salmon River region of central Yukon Territory, Canada. In 1948 her family moved to Whitehorse, where she still lives today. Her Northern Tutchone name is Et'áts'inkhälme and she is a member of the Crow Clan.
Mrs. Tom's bilingual work on native land use and place-names of the Big Salmon region
Mrs. Tom has been involved in native language work, directly and indirectly, for twenty-five years. From 1961 to 1965, she worked as a part-time translator and broadcaster for CBC radio in Whitehorse, and during the late 1960's and early 1970's was employed as a Community Health Worker by the Northern Health Service. In the latter job she used her knowledge of her native language to assist doctors and nurses in communicating with older Indian people. During the summer of 1977, she served as an occasional translator for the Alaska Highway Pipeline Inquiry.
The author signing copies of her book
In 1977 Mrs. Tom began working as a Native Language Specialist with the Yukon Native Language Centre. She assisted in the development of a practical alphabet for Northern Tutchone and was actively engaged in the writing of various booklets and materials. These include: Dùts'um Edhó Ts'ètsi Yu Dän K'í = How to Tan Hides in the Native Way (1981), Èkeyi: Gyò Cho Chú = My Country: Big Salmon River (1987), a student's noun dictionary, conversation lessons in Northern Tutchone, and an extensive collection of traditional stories, hers and those of several elders living in the Carmacks region. She has recorded a set of language lessons in her dialect which has been published by the Centre in the Language Lesson Booklets and Tapes series.
In 1986 Mrs. Tom received a Native Language Instructor Certificate from Yukon College, Whitehorse, signifying her successful completion of the three-year training course.
Since her retirement in 1992 Mrs. Tom continues to make valuable contributions to native language teaching and documentation as the Centre's founding elder. In 2004 her Northern Tutchone Language Lessons appeared on the YNLC web site with all newly recorded audio material. In 2007 she recorded the excerpt above from My Country: Big Salmon River which can be heard if you click on it.