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CROSS EXAMINED A woman of vision Victoria De La Ronde has not let being legally blind get in the way of her fight for native rights. BY JEFF MACKINNON hopes that I would get over this obsession with visiting places and seeing new things. I never have been able to get over it." She is not going to even try to get over work. The 65-year-old lawyer has offi- cially retired after a distinguished career that was highlighted by the past 10 years spent as the director of treaty policy for the department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Despite just recently eas- ing into a chair in front of the first televi- sion she has ever owned, De La Ronde admits she won't be sitting still for long. "I just need to rest a bit," she says. When you consider the path De La Travelling is at the top of Victoria De La Ronde's retirement to-do list. Ronde has travelled since leaving the fam- ily farm at Meadow Lake, Sask., at 18, it's no wonder she's decided to take a bit of a breather. Aside from decades of service with both INAC and Veterans Affairs, she has accumulated three master's degrees, including one from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is a member of the bar in both New York and Ontario and previously launched a market research business that would force the Canadian government to re-evaluate its role in the always-tricky relationship with the country's aboriginal community. She also worked in the Caribbean in the '80s researching ways of turning waste into ethanol to be used as lead-free fuel. "Victoria is very passionate about her been updated since she returned from a month-long South American cruise in the spring. That trip included a memo- A t last count the number of countries Victoria De La Ronde has lived in or visited stood at 64. But the total hadn't rable stop in Brazil to journey up the Amazon River. Having been unable to get over a lifelong bout with the travel bug, De La Ronde now says she has set her sights on reaching the 100-country mark. "At an early age this pressure began building up in me to travel," she says. "It was in my 20s. So, I began travelling in the 24 JULY 2011 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com work," says former colleague Ray Hatfield, director general of individual affairs for the former INAC, which in May was renamed Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Canada. "Whatever the job, Victoria got right into it. She was very conscious about her contribution and was a very progres- sive thinker. Also, the people skills that Victoria has helped her in the various positions she has held for the past 10 years. She is able to develop positive relation- ships with everyone."