Dan David, Mohawk journalist and Indigenous news trailblazer, dies at 73

By Canadian Press on January 18, 2026.

WINNIPEG — Dan David, a renowned Mohawk journalist and the founder of Aboriginal Peoples Television Network’s news department, has died.

His sister Marie David says he died last week after a long struggle with cancer.

He was 73.

Karyn Pugliese, an APTN host and producer and David’s friend and colleague, says his death is a huge loss for the dozens of Indigenous journalists he mentored.

She says David helped found APTN in 2000 — then called InVision News — to transform the way Indigenous stories are told after witnessing news reports of his own community of Kanesatake, in southwestern Quebec, being distorted by mainstream media during Oka Crisis in the summer of 1990.

The crisis, also known as the Mohawk Resistance, was a 78-day standoff between Mohawk protesters, Quebec police, the RCMP and the Canadian Army over the expansion of a golf course in Kanesatake.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 18, 2026.

The Canadian Press

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