“Do it scared,” is Jessica McKenzie’s go to advice for people and herself. She is a proud member of Opaskwayak Cree Nation, a sister, a partner, a beader and this year's Miss Indigenous Canada. She lives in Toronto, Ontario. She decided to go into the pageant on a whim and won. In her free time, she likes to bead and sew. 

 Professionally, McKenzie works for Scotiabank, creating their national Indigenous peoples development programs for individuals who want to move up at the bank. She’s been with the bank for a decade. She started off in an internship as a diversity coordinator, then moved into recruitment for eight years, then she moved into this team for Indigenous inclusion. “It always stems back to supporting the Indigenous community that just makes my heart really happy,” she beams. To get on this path, she took a personality quiz that said she should be helping people. When she was applying for jobs, all her applications went towards customer care or the Indigenous community, supporting and helping her people. 

When it came to her education, McKenzie did a liberal arts degree at York University. She took economics, business, and sociology. Her dad influenced her to take business classes but she also took what interested her. 

As far as obstacles go, McKenzie has struggled with anxiety and depression for the last 15 years. “Even being Miss Indigenous Canada, I'm going to be very honest with you all, I was very happy on that stage when I won, but I was terrified, I was crying, and it was a mix of happiness and a mix of pride, but also absolute fear,” she recalls. Going on stage or doing an interview, being in front of large crowds terrified her. She would shake, sweat and constantly doubt herself.  She still struggles with it and she’s working to find solutions. Until then, she tells herself, “Just do it scared. Do it shaking. Do it sweating. Do it nervous, because even when I'm out there really great things happen when I push myself out of my comfort zone.”

To keep her mental health in check, McKenzie would find accommodations to do the things she found too overwhelming. At first, she would make excuses not to do things but now she tells the truth about her anxiety. “Honesty, I found, has really helped my mental health. I felt like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders of just being truthful to yourself and being truthful to others,” she shares. Going to the spa is also helpful, getting her nails done and spending time with friends and family. “The number one thing that actually truly helps my mental health is reconnecting to land and my community. Taking a walk through a forest, taking a walk near the lake, going to powwow, going to ceremony, I find that that really helps me ground myself, but it also makes me happy. Seeing my friends, seeing my community, seeing my family around me, I feel like that really helps my mental health, and it just makes me go a little bit harder,” she explains.

“I found I'm really happy about this whole journey with Miss Indigenous Canada, because, yes, it taught me how to love myself again and do scary things. But it's also taught me how to be truthful to those around me and to be truthful to myself and who I am as a person,” McKenzie continues.

When it comes to inspiration, McKenzie looks to her family who have overcome so much. Her mother fled Indonesia where she wasn’t safe as a Christian. Her father faced discrimination as an Indigenous child who attended residential school alongside his family. “Seeing them now, being their true selves, and being happy and living like a beautiful life has been truly inspiring to me,” she says. 

Thinking about where she sees herself in a few years, McKenzie loves what she does with the bank and she also has a small business called Future Kookum which teaches beading workshops. She wants to continue with that, sewing, language learning, going to ceremony, but she also wants to slow down. She’s had 97 appearances in 11 months and she’s recently gotten engaged. She would like to focus on growing her own family and move out to the East coast. Within her business, she would like to focus on Indigenous youth, especially those facing challenges like addiction and homelessness.

When she first started her business, McKenzie was a youth herself and confused about where to start, what to do, how to do it in a good way where she is respecting Indigenous culture and to do it in a way that’s affordable for people. She started off by speaking to her community and asked for advice. What came back was to think about her values and the type of business that she wants to create and stick to those values even when it starts to grow. 

In closing, McKenzie shares the following advice, “I constantly heard you have to figure out what you want to do now that you're getting out of high school, you're finishing up your final years of schooling, you're getting into university or college, or you're starting your first job. You have to figure out what you want to do now and you don't, you really don't. You have your whole lifetime to figure out what makes you happy. You have your whole lifetime to figure out what you want to do. You're allowed to take one path and then take another path and redirect, that's what life is, and sometimes going through those obstacles and challenges or changes in careers or changes in your studies will actually help you figure out what you love and what makes you happy.”

Struggling with anxiety and depression and being crowned Miss Indigenous Canada, Jessica McKenzie learned to do it scared, and then she learned sometimes she doesn’t have to, if she’s being honest. Working for Scotiabank to help Indigenous people advance and in her own business to help Indigenous people learn traditional practices, her heart was made for helping. As she finishes her reign, she looks to the horizon for new titles and adventures.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.