Day in the life: Kerissa Dickie

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF Kerissa Dickie has always been full of words. As an emerging writer, she penned the award-winning short story Wildflowers while an undergraduate in UVic’s writing program. Now, as communications and outreach coordinator for UVic’s Office of Indigenous Affairs, she finds that words are to her like a hammer to a carpenter or an atom accelerator to a particle physicist.

She uses them every day in preparing newsletters and handbooks or distributing notices through her email networks—all in an effort to “take away the mystical sense of inaccessibility of a post-secondary education.” She says she especially wants to help students who could easily be “more than 1,000 miles away from home trying to find special ground where they can feel accepted.”

Dickie was born and raised Dene-tha from the Fort Nelson First Nation in northern BC and also has Cree and German heritage. Her mother is Chief Councillor of the Nation; the local school is named for Dickie’s grandfather; and Wildflowers is taught as part of the school’s Grade-12 curriculum.

Dickie’s short story about a young girl at residential school won the Our-Story Aboriginal Fiction Writing Challenge in 2007 and was published in an anthology of Canada’s emerging Aboriginal writers by Theytus Books. Dickie says she had “big dreams of making my family proud, especially considering I’m the first generation not to be sent to residential school.”

After accepting her own accolades, she now works to ensure other Aboriginal students get every opportunity for recognition and success. UVic’s Office of Indigenous Affairs assists Aboriginal learners in accessing services and programs and supports them in their experiences while attending university on traditional Coast Salish territory.

Dickie herself graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from UVic in June 2008 and, drawing on her background in visual arts and writing, did a short stint at Trafford Publishing before beginning work at UVic later that same year. Her experiences prior to arriving at UVic helped contribute to the expertise she brings to her current occupation.

Immediately after high school, Dickie lived in Argentina on a Rotary exchange then returned home to take university transfer classes from the local Northern Lights College as well as work for the Residential School Healing Project with survivors in her community. During her time with the project, she had the opportunity to help publish a book of their stories and artwork.

“And since graduating, I have been blessed with job opportunities here including research assistant to the director of Indigenous education, administrative assistant to the LE,NONET Aboriginal Research Project, and now a wonderful position in communications and outreach,” says Dickie.

Her most important focus right now is the seventh annual Indigenous Student Mini-University Summer Camp. BC students of Indigenous ancestry from Grades 8 to 12 sample life at UVic from July 5 to 9, participating in academic, physical, creative and social activities including whale watching and cultural performances as well as learning more about the benefits of a post-secondary education and their options for the future. Next up is UVic’s annual Indigenous Week of Welcome and Indigenous Adult Orientation in the fall.

But next for Dickie herself is hopefully funding for her first book. An insatiable reader, she recommends her latest favourite The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich, but her “favourite of all time is Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie. I recommend it to everyone.”

It is unlikely her fingers will ever be idle on the keyboard, and it won’t be long before readers will have another chance to fill up on Dickie’s own words.