Indian Days Dollar - Banff, Alberta

Because Canada is a constitutional monarchy, it has a fairly convoluted system of government. The head of state of Canada is the British king or queen. All legislation passed in Canada or its provinces must receive "royal assent" to pass into law, which is almost always given - however, the British monarch has enough problems trying to deal with the United Kingdom, and has no time to spend dealing with Canadian laws. Therefore, a "Governor General" is appointed by the monarch every few years to do everything that would be expected of a Canadian monarch, and each province also has its own "Lieutenant Governor", who is recommended for the position by the Prime Minister of Canada and mainly works with the provincial government. Because of the constitutional nature of this "monarchy", the Governors' roles are almost entirely ceremonial.

Ralph Steinhauer of the Cree Nation was appointed the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on July 2, 1974. This made him the first Lieutenant Governor of full indigenous descent in any Canadian province.