“I carry my community, my culture, my learning, my family with me, and all the traditions that I grew up with, but I've learned how to live and work in the world of academia in a formal colonial education system,” says Masiana Kelly. Growing up in Fort Simpson and Kugluktuk with eight brothers, she is Dene and Inuk. She graduated in Fort Simpson before leaving for the University of Alberta to become an elementary teacher, spending an extra year studying language and literacy. She moved to Nunavut and then Fort Smith with her family after six years of teaching in Fort St John, BC. “The North is my home, and so that's where I feel most at home and most connected is around our people, our communities, and around the land in the North,” she explains.

Kelly’s also been a principal and she’s an award-winning published author of four books with another new book coming out called You Make My Heart Happy. She always wanted to be an author as a child and now, she shares her engaging stories with Connected North classrooms.

When studying for an administrative technology diploma, Kelly realized she wanted to do more with her life. She remembered how she helped care for her brothers, worked in a daycare and toy lending library. “I just loved working with kids and helping them be the best person they could be, and helping them be in a safe space, and just celebrate the unique little people that they are,” she recalls.

Talking to her roommates studying education, Kelly thought, “I'm meant to work with kids. I’m meant to celebrate literacy. I’m meant to help them be the best version they can be and help them along in their educational journey, because the little people we work with, they have such amazing personalities, and they have such potential.”

Her development as an artist came from watching, learning and beading alongside her grandmother in Hay River in the summers. Her grandmother would inspect her work. Kelly learned to create with a good heart and good intentions, never angry when cooking, sewing, or baking, and taking her time to do things right. Recently, she’s returned to beading to honour the memory of her grandmother, making earrings, pins, and hair pieces. She also learned to add a pocket to a ribbon skirt and she’s made four ribbon skirts and a ribbon shirt for her son. In the future, she wants to make a vest and finish a quilt she started in high school.

For her education, Kelly has taken education leave for a course-based Master’s of Education program based on 21st century learning. Learning virtually, she has connected with educators across the country and plans to graduate next spring. Eventually, she wants to learn her languages and also ASL.

As far as obstacles go, moving away from her tight knit community after high school, Kelly had to create her own support system, learn to pace herself and be responsible for her own learning. She also had to learn how to be a good teacher and says, “Nothing can ever fully prepare you as when you are fully in that classroom.” Substitute teaching students from kindergarten through grade nine for a year, she learned about teaching different age groups, teamwork with other teachers and improving the school’s learning environment.

When it comes to Indigenous students considering leaving their home communities to pursue their education, Kelly is supportive but acknowledges, “When you're choosing not to leave the community, it doesn't mean that you can't contribute to your community and make a positive change there as well, especially with the world that we live in. You can do your learning online, thankfully.” She still suggests experiencing living somewhere else, learning to live independently, developing one’s own voice, growing connections with different people and gaining new perspectives, adding, “Just because you leave your community doesn't mean you can't go back….I really encourage everybody to travel, to leave the community to better themselves, to learn more, and that only strengthens our communities when we go back.”

If Kelly could share a message with her younger self it would be, “Push through. Keep going. Sometimes life can feel so overwhelming and so hard, and it just feels so insurmountable. ” She would also say it’s okay to ask for help and, “Life is hard, life is not always easy, but it can be so rewarding and it can be so beautiful.” As a child, she never imagined she would become a published author of four books, a mother of two, a home owner, that she would have so many beads and time to do things that bring her joy. “There’s so much more to life and you can do it…There are going to be more hard parts, but you will get through it and life will be amazing. Life will surprise you in the most amazing ways,” she continues.

To balance her mental health and wellbeing, Kelly does a lot of breathing to calm her body and reset her system. She reads a lot and enjoys the meditative rhythm of beading and crochet. She likes to draw and paint, spend time with family, do puzzles, watch movies, bake and cook.

For inspiration, Kelly pays attention to the things in her life. One of her books, We Love You As Much as the Fox Loves Its Tail, was inspired by a classroom activity she did with students to celebrate their relatives on special occasions. Her book Bannock in A Hammock shares her bannock recipe and love of making frybread. She’s also inspired by nature, her culture and traditions.

Kelly recommends finding an author or genre of books you enjoy and reading more from there. For reluctant readers, she suggests comic books or graphic novels. Trying out different books and not forcing yourself to finish a book is her advice, along with checking out the local library. “I encourage everybody to find a good book to read, something that you enjoy, not what other people might say is the best book of all time, but something that you actually find joy in reading,” she urges.

Helping students learn and grow through literacy is author and educator Masiana Kelly’s passion. She loves writing books and creating with beads, being part of Northern education and making her childhood dreams come true. She’s been a teacher, a principal and she shares her stories with Connected North classrooms as she pursues her Master’s degree, learning as she goes.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.