Antoine Mountain was born on the land near Rádeyı̨lı̨kóé (Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories) in Treaty 11. When he was seven, he was stolen away from his home and sent to a residential school three hundred kilometres away. Over the next twelve years, Antoine was forced to attend three different residential schools that systematically worked to erase his language and culture.

Today, Antoine is a celebrated Dene artist, painter, and activist who focuses on depicting the Dene way of life, his love for the land, and the spiritualism of his faith. His memoir, From Bear Rock Mountain: The Life and Times of a Dene Residential School Survivor (2019), documents his journey of healing and the reclamation of his Dene identity after residential school. Antoine has attended the Ontario College of Arts and Design for a Bachelor of Fine Arts and holds a Master’s in Environmental Studies from York University and a PhD in Indigenous Studies from Trent University.