Yellowknife (Jun 19/06) - Canada's governor general will spend Aboriginal Day in Fort Simpson, part of a five-day visit to the Northwest Territories.

Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Michaelle Jean, Governor General of Canada, flies into Yellowknife today.

Governor General Michaelle Jean

While here, she and her husband Jean-Daniel Lafond will meet with Premier Joe Handley, plant a tree on the legislative assembly grounds, attend a dinner and meet with Canadian Rangers, youth and members of the francophone community.

Wednesday, Aboriginal Day, she arrives in Simpson at 9:30 a.m. Jean will tour the community, meet with leaders, elders and youth, and take part in a community feast. On Thursday morning, she will visit Nahanni National Park Reserve to learn about the proposed park expansion before returning to Yellowknife. She said she's looking forward to her first official visit to the NWT.

"My goal is to give a voice to people who are voiceless, people who are not heard from enough, people who are excluded," she said.

"I'd like to get a sense of the challenges you face, the problems you're concerned about, and your success stories," she said. "And I'd like to share that with other Canadians."

Jean's seven-year-old daughter Marie-Eden, will not be coming; she's staying behind in Ottawa to finish up her last week at school, a decision her mother strongly supports.

"She's very serious about school and I'm happy to see that," she said. "Like my mother always told us, education is the key to freedom."

Jean was born in Haiti and emigrated to Canada as a child. She studied Italian and Spanish at the Universite de Montreal and received a masters' degree in comparative literature.

While studying, she worked at Quebec shelters for battered women. She is fluent in French, English, Italian, Spanish and Creole. From 1988 until her appointment as governor general, she was a journalist with Radio-Canada.

By tradition, each governor general visits every province and territory during their first year in office.