THE ADVENTURE STUDIES PROGRAM HAS allowed Kiya Bennett to embrace her Secwépemc culture while pursuing a life of outdoor adventure.
“My Indigenous heritage is a big part of who I am,” says Bennett, recipient of the first Mustang Powder Indigenous Adventure Studies Award at TRU. The award was created to encourage Indigenous students to pursue careers in backcountry guiding.
“Being in the adventure studies program has inspired me to share what I can and integrate (Indigenous knowledge) into my teaching lessons, which I think is pretty awesome,” she says. “The best part is that people seem to listen and respect what I have to share.”
The award provides financial support, but it also comes with mentorship and employment opportunities at Mustang Powder, a cat skiing operation and lodge owned by Ali and Nick Holmes-Smith located between Salmon Arm and Revelstoke in the Monashee Mountains. The duo started Monashee Powder Cat Skiing (now known as Mustang Powder Cat Skiing) in 1998 and six years later opened Mustang Powder Lodge.
“In our early years of operation, we were flat-out busy trying to make our business a success. Now that our company is well established, we are in a position to assist local First Nations youth to pursue careers in adventure tourism. We are fully aware that Mustang operates on First Nations land (Secwépemc) — and for that we are grateful,” says Nick Holmes-Smith.
Mustang Powder Lodge Inc. donated $50,000 to create the Mustang Powder Indigenous Adventure Studies Award to be disbursed through individual awards of up to $5,000.
BARRY WILSON SPENT HIS YOUTH fighting for Indigenous rights through protests and activism. Thanks to those efforts, his daughter Tara-Lynn Wilson can continue the fight for justice and reconciliation from within.
“The things that we are able to do right now in BC started with the things that he (and others) were doing,” she said. “They laid the groundwork. Now I’m going to use this opportunity to fight in my own way within the system so I can help the Indigenous population as well.”
Wilson, who recently completed her second year of TRU Law, was the first recipient of the Future Indigenous Lawyers (FIL) Award by local Kamloops law firm, Fulton. The award is part of an initiative started by the firm to promote recruitment of and provide support to Indigenous law students. Fulton has committed $75,000 to the fund and invites others to join the initiative. To date, additional donors Margot McMillan, the Law School Admissions Council, and Edwards, Kenny & Bray LLP have added another $45,000 to the fund, which now sits at over $100,000.
“This gift had been in our plans for a long time — many at our firm developed deep connections to survivors while hearing their stories as part of work representing them through Indian Residential School claims from 2000–2016,” said Fulton partner Dan Carroll. “That work, along with the deep respect for our past and current Indigenous Fultoners, has shaped our firm’s desire to continue being active in supporting and learning about reconciliation.”
Wilson is Secwépemc on her mother’s side and Xen’ak’siala on her father’s side. She and her four sisters grew up northwest of Kamloops in Bonaparte but spent a lot of time in Kitimat territory as well. She completed a Bachelor of Arts in psychology at TRU but says at the back of her mind she always felt the pull of law school. She had the drive; she just needed the confidence.
“For a long time, I felt like I wasn’t smart enough to do it and then one day I thought, you know what, if I get in, I get in,” said Wilson. “I want to do all of this mainly for my nieces and nephews. I want to make sure they’re aware they can always go further. They shouldn’t let anything hold them back.”
Currently, only about three per cent of people working in the legal profession in BC identify as Indigenous. On the flipside, there is an over-representation of Indigenous people in the Canadian justice system, both as victims and accused. Wilson, co-president of the TRU Indigenous Law Students Association, is working to help increase the number of Indigenous students attending law school. She is hopeful that positive changes and improved cultural understanding will result from having more Indigenous lawyers.
In addition to receiving the Future Indigenous Lawyers Award, Wilson is also a Michelle Pockey Leadership Award recipient.
