Announcing the 2024 Indigenous Resource Leader Award Winner: David MacPhee

David MacPhee

President & CEO

Aseniwuche Winewak Nation/Aseniwuche Development Corporation

We’re excited to reveal that David MacPhee is the recipient of the 2024 Indigenous Resource Leader Award!

Dave MacPhee is president of the Aeniwuche Winewak Nation of Canada – the Rocky Mountain People (AWN for short).  AWN ancestors moved west with the fur trade and established themselves in the area of the current Jasper National Park in the early 1800’s.  After creation of the Park in 1907, the Federal Government, in 1909, moved the people to what is now the Grande Cache area, where they currently occupy seven parcels of land widely dispersed along an 80km stretch of Highway 40, north and south of the Town of Grande Cache.

Between 1971 and 1973 the community, at the direction of the provincial government, organized itself into four cooperatives and two enterprises to take legal ownership of these tracts of land, totalling 4,159 acres.

Not unlike other Aboriginal communities throughout the country the Grande Cache Aboriginal people faced many hardships but through Dave’s leadership and based on the philosophy “As caretakers of the earth we commit to work together … in unity, in faith, for life” the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation today is held up by the province, the local government, and industry as an example of a group with a clear sense of place and destiny, and one that all want to be associated with.

As CEO of the Aseniwuche Development Corporation (ADC) Dave MacPhee is placing resource development in perspective effectively balancing the protection and preservation of the land with economic development for his community. AWN, through its development company ADC, has established a very successful and widely recognized track record of fulfilling the contract needs of the resource industry. The company has earned a reputation for good work, delivered on time, within budget.

David was raised in a small, isolated community, north of Grande Cache by his grandparents who maintained a traditional native lifestyle throughout his childhood. In addition to a formal education, David is  a trained counselor, experienced logger, and skilled translator.

David is a family man and shares his life with his loving wife Yvonne and four children, Clyde, Bonnie, Yvette, John and Iris.

Celebrate Mr. MacPhee’s outstanding achievements, along with those of our other award recipients, at the Alberta Chamber of Resources Annual General Meeting and Awards Banquet on March 20, 2025, at the Edmonton Convention Centre.

Tickets are on sale now! Don’t miss your chance to be part of this special evening—get yours before they’re gone!