Indigenous Community Alumni Award recipient Crystal Clark is a Cree/Dene and Métis mother, an artist and an Indigenous education specialist who has worked within First Nations and public schools. She holds a Master of Educational Technology, Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Fine Arts, New Media Diploma and a Native Creative Writing and Visual Arts Diploma. Her teaching experience includes working with the Tsimshian Nation in Lax Kw’alaams, BC, O’Chiese First Nation and Sunchild First Nation, AB. 

“I had a unique experience with the University of Victoria back in the 1990s,” she recalls of her time in the Department of Visual Arts, where she received her BFA in 2002. “UVic has a relationship with Penticton First Nations’ En’owkin Centre, founded by [Fine Arts alumna] Jeannette Armstrong… It allowed me a creative way to enter the field of post-secondary, but in a kind way for an Indigenous person to connect with other Indigenous scholars and artists… Fine Arts became a tool to express who I am and how I was feeling in relation to my identity as an Indigenous person trying to navigate society.”

Along with teaching, Clark has gained experience as a vice principal and First Nations Student Success Program coordinator as well as an Indigenous Education Consultant with the Alberta Teachers Association, College of Alberta School Superintendents, Canada Sports Hall of Fame: Indigenous Sports Heroes, National Film Board of Canada and Pearson Education. 

She has received a Prime Minister’s Teaching Achievement Award, Esquao Award for Education Service with the Institute for Advancement of Aboriginal Women and is a two-time Peace Hills Trust Art Award Recipient. Her public has been displayed in downtown Vancouver, Red Deer, Edmonton and Calgary. Her most recent work can be seen at Red Deer Polytechnic’s Indigenous Student Centre.

A bigger world

Born in Treaty 8 Territory in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Clark is currently living in Treaty 6 Territory in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta. 

“It was particularly challenging, the high schools that I went to, moving a lot and not feeling a sense of belonging as an Indigenous person, also going through a lot of family trauma,” she recalls of her early years. “I learned that post-secondary education in a university setting, if designed to nurture and celebrate Indigeneity, was meant for me. I felt like I belonged and was able to connect with Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples from across Canada and around the world. I felt a sense of belonging. It was an opening to a bigger world that’s out there and that I could make my way in. I felt comfortable.”

One thing that’s helped her over the year’s is what she describes as having a “smudge mindset.” “That’s a term I made up . . . it’s like smudging with sage or sweet grass and what I’m thinking and feeling when I smudge. I can’t always take smudge into every situation I’m in to help me in ways like calming down or being grounded, but I can think those thoughts, like ‘Please help me be patient and kind in this situation, help me see the world in a good way and with kindness and walk in a good way.’ We live in a reactionary society these days, and sometimes it’s important to remind myself to not always jump the gun and to have that sense of patience and gratitude.”

What I’ve learned with age

“Aging has taught me not worrying and not to be as anxious as much about the little things. So, stopping being so hard and critical of myself, and not always worrying about what other people might think. As one of my cousins says comparison can be the killer of joy. I have come to know that I’m valued and needed, and as an Indigenous person that I do belong.”

With aging, however, also comes perspective. “We’re all lifelong learners,” she says. “School can be a beautiful place to expand our minds, practice and learn, but after that it’s the work that you get into where you really start to put what you’ve learned into practice. And that’s where I think you grow the most is learning that you don’t stop learning once you graduate. That’s just the beginning.” 

All my relations

“When I went to En’owkin, the satellite of the UVic campus, I learned a concept from my Anishinaabe friend and poet Vera Wabegijig called ‘all my relations,’ which I’ve always carried with me. In Cree, the concept is called Wahkohtowin. Rather than saying goodbye, you can say ‘all my relations.’ It’s essentially saying that everybody in this world, we’re all connected to each other… not only to each other as humans, but we’re related to the land, the natural world, the sun, the moon, the stars, the water, the air, the trees, the animals and plants. We all need each other to exist. It’s not so much advice, but more of a worldview that’s helped me maintain good relationships with people and the land that I’ve encountered and work with, and in my everyday life to know that we need to all love and respect each other.”

Speed round!

Something that brings me joy:

“Nature. I love being out on the land. And art.” 

If I had an extra hour of free time: 

“I always need time to do more art. I think most artists would say that.”

A concert I attended recently:

“The Looney Tunes Symphony in Edmonton.”

 Secret talent: 

“Aging gracefully. Some call it great genes, others call it a mystery—I just call it my secret superpower!”

 One skill I wish I possessed: 

“Being part of a community with so many great examples of living with the land has shown me the beauty of self-sufficiency—something I wish had been part of my upbringing. There’s something deeply fulfilling about knowing how to grow your own food, raise animals, identify indigenous plants and medicines and sustain your way of life. I often find myself longing for that connection, not just to the land but also to my roots—especially the ability to speak one of my Indigenous languages.”

 My go-to karaoke song: 

“Proud Mary” by Tina Turner. I would bring the house down with that song.”

 Read more about UVic’s 2025 Alumni Awards here