Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught as Honorary Chief of the Iroquois Confederacy

Queen Victoria’s third eldest son, Prince Arthur, served as Governor General of Canada between 1911 and 1916. The prince had first visited Canada as an army officer in 1869–70. At that time, he made a two-month tour of the country and became the first member of the Royal Family to attend the opening of the Canadian Parliament. So much did he enjoy his experiences that he wrote to his sister, Princess Louise, when her husband Lord Lorne was appointed Governor General in 1878, ‘You know what a Canadian I am in feeling so you can imagine the interest I take in all that is going on there now.’

This photograph shows the prince in 1916, at the end of his tenure as Governor General. He is dressed as Great Mountain Chief of the Stoney-Nakoda First Nation. This was not the first such honour he had received: in 1869 the prince had been adopted into the Mohawk (Kanien’keha:ka)

First Nation. He was appointed a chief of the Iroquois Confederacy with the name Kavakoudge, which means ‘the sun flying from east to west under the guidance of the Great Spirit’.