To mark International Women’s Day on March 8th, the Montreal branch of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) is proud to recognize the contributions of Heather White, naming her the 2026 ACTRA Montreal Woman of the Year.  

A celebrated actor, educator, and devoted mom, Heather has been breaking boundaries and challenging societal norms from the get-go. 

A self-proclaimed ‘hybrid,’ born to a Mohawk mother and a Stoney father, she grew up within two different Indigenous communities. Heather’s experience introduced her to the best of two worlds, creating a sense of duality that shaped both her personal perception and that of the larger world beyond her communities.

Exploration of self, identity, culture, and belonging sits at the core of Heather’s work, and that connection to her roots shaped her love of the performing arts. When she was twelve, Heather’s Mohawk grandmother, Sylvia, signed her up for Kahnawake’s Turtle Island Theatre’s summer drama camp, and her world changed. There, she fell in love with theatre, and honed her skills through acting and singing.

After graduating from Concordia University’s Theatre Program, Heather attended Toronto’s Center for Indigenous Theatre where she worked on innovative projects, including the Muriel Miguel collaborative creation, A Series of Savage Events: A Love Story; Alanis King’s play Gegwah, which was performed entirely in the Ojibway language; she also worked under the tutelage of acclaimed playwright Tara Beagan on a semi-autobiographical play about a young woman growing up in two different communities.

Heather went on to perform as Caitlin, in the acclaimed, celebrated, and Canadian Screen Awards-nominated APTN television series, Mohawk Girls. This project gave her a platform to encourage other plus-sized actors follow their dreams while also breaking down beauty-standards, as documented in the APTN documentary series, Working It Out Together, where Heather was featured in the episode “Rebel With A Cause.” Heather also appeared in the Macleod 9 Productions animated short First Contact, in the television series Future Man, and in the feature film Fatherhood.

A lifelong lover of literature, Heather was proud to successfully defend Richard Wagamese’s beautiful novel Indian Horse for CBC Montreal’s “Turtle Island Reads.” She was also selected as a playwright for Teesri Duniya’s Fireworks playwright development program, and continues to explore the themes of identity, community, and resilience. 

Since 2011, Heather has been instilling the importance of creativity, storytelling, and representation working with her community in Kahnawake, as an English Language Arts Teacher at Kahnawake Survival School. 

Heather grew up never seeing herself reflected in the media, and though she is proud to have been part of this change through her creative work, she is excited that her students get to experience increased representation and opportunity for First Nations artists; she can’t wait to see what stories this next generation will bring to the world. She is equally excited that her son, Shatekarahkwí:io, is growing up in a time where he can now see himself represented onscreen and, though much more work needs to be done, that will he live in the kind of world that Heather once dreamed of as a child. 

ACTRA Montreal is proud to support Heather in all of her future endeavours, and we are thrilled to have her as our Woman of the Year!