Dechinta Faculty and Staff
Elders and Knowledge Holders are the core foundation of how we learn and run programs here at Dechinta. Dechinta programming is defined by, and made possible through, the central role and contributions of Elders and community experts from Northern Indigenous communities. We are committed to taking a community-driven approach to education and research - we provide multi-generational programs that rely upon and celebrate the knowledge of Northern Indigenous Elders, knowledge holders, and community members.
Elders are the backbone of the Dechinta experience and we are so lucky to be surrounded by their brilliance and to learn from their knowledge and wisdom. Dechinta would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Yellowknives Dene First Nation elder Alizette Lockhart, elders from the Yukon/Dechenla - Norman Sterriah, Mary Maje, Dorothy Sam, Amos Dick and Fred Andrew, and elders from the Beaufort Delta Region - Noella Cockney, Ronald (Inung) Nuyaviak and Rex Noksana, who have made incredible contributions to our programming and whose work and knowledge has been invaluable to our organization. Mahsi Cho!
Kelsey Wrightson
Executive Director
Meet Kelsey Wrightson, the Executive Director of Dechinta! She is based in Yellowknife, but works closely with all the regional programmers. Kelsey grew up in Edmonton Alberta, and completed her PhD at the University of British Columbia in 2015. After finishing school, she worked for a year with Dylan Robinson at Queen’s University in the Centre for Indigenous Arts, and then returned to UBC and worked for 2 years in research grant administration.
Glen Coulthard
Faculty Member
Glen Coulthard is the founder of Dechinta Centre for research and Learning and has been a faculty and board member for 13 years! Glen is Yellowknives Dene and an associate professor in the First Nations and Indigenous Studies Program and the Departments of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), winner of the 2016 Caribbean Philosophical Association’s Frantz Fanon Award for Outstanding Book, the Canadian Political Science Association’s CB Macpherson Award for Best Book in Political Theory in 2014/2015, and the Rik Davidson Studies in Political Economy Award for Best Book in 2016. He is a board member and instructor at the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning.
Lianne Marie Leda Charlie
Faculty Member
Lianne is one of our full-time faculty members at Dechinta Centre! Lianne has been working as a land-based professor at Dechinta since 2021. Lianne Marie Leda Charlie is Wolf Clan and Tagé Cho Hudän | Big River People (Northern Tutchone speaking people of the Yukon). Her maternal grandparents are Donna Olsen (first generation Canadian of Danish ancestry) and Benedict Larusson (second generation Canadian of Icelandic ancestry), and her paternal grandparents are Leda Jimmy of Tánintsę Chú Dachäk | Little Salmon River and Big Salmon Charlie of Gyò Cho Chú | Big Salmon River. She was born in Whitehorse to her mother, Luanna Larusson, and late father, Peter Andrew Charlie. Lianne grew-up and went to school on unceded Lekwungen territories in what is commonly referred to as Victoria, BC. She has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa (UHM). Her research focuses on modern treaty politics in the Yukon, where she now lives. Lianne is multimedia artist and mom to Luka Gyo. She has created community murals in Whitehorse, Łu Ghą, Somba K’e, and Mayo; and co-created four pieces for To Talk With Others (Valerie Salez, 2018), including a life-size hot pink papîer maché bull moose made out of the Umbrella Final Agreement. Lianne says: “Dä́ninchi’i. Dechinta has made my journey back to the land possible. I'm so grateful to be part of this team and to learn from and alongside my colleagues, students, Elders, and the land. I am most grateful for the opportunities Dechinta has provided for my son, Luka. I get so much joy from watching him fall in love with the land”
John Crapeau
Yellowknives Dene First Nation Elder
Berna Martin
Yellowknives Dene First Nation Elder
Charlie Sangris
Yellowknives Dene First Nation Elder
Paul MacKenzie
Yellowknives Dene First Nation Elder
Kyla LeSage
Land-Based Program and Outreach Coordinator
Meet Kyla LeSage, who has been working as our Land-based Programmer and Outreach Coordinator at Dechinta for the past six years! Kyla is passionate about the transformative impact that land-based education can have on the lives of Indigenous people and communities in the North. Kyla is Vuntut Gwitchin from Old Crow, Yukon, and Anishinaabe from Garden River, Ontario. She grew up on Chief Drygeese Territory in Yellowknife, NT. Kyla is a Dechinta alumni where she received credits towards her UBC Degree in Political Science and Indigenous Studies. After graduating, she moved back to Yellowknife to work as a land-based and outreach coordinator with Dechinta, where she organizes and runs land-based programs for the public, our students, and in partnership with numerous community organizations.
Charlene Liske
Director of Traditional Knowledge
Meet Charlene Liske, our Director of Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Resources at Dechinta! Charlene is a Yellowknives Dene First Nation member from Te?ehdaa, NT. She has 4 children that actively participate in all Dechinta Programming. Charlene graduated high school in Yellowknife and furthered her education in Early Learning and Child care at the Grande Prairie Regional College. She previously has worked with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation as the Community Wellness Programmer, where she is known to coordinate all the special & culture events in the communities of Dettah/Ndilo. Where she was dedicated to working with the youth in her communities. She now sits on the Dettah District Education Authority as the vice-chair person. At her current position with Dechinta she works closely with the elders in her region and coordinates all on the land programming and semesters. She is also in a language revitalization program to strengthen her skills. At Dechinta she loves the environment she works in, everyone feels like family and our kids are involved in all camps. Dechinta Seot’ii (Dechinta Family). Mahsi
Randy Baillargeon
Land-based Educator and Traditional Knowledge Holder
Meet Randy Baillargeon, one of our land-based educators, traditional knowledge holders, and community mentors at Dechinta! Randy has been working with Dechinta for the past 8 years. In addition to teaching students cultural knowledge and land-based skills during our post-secondary courses, Randy also harvests year-round for the YKDFN community. He is passionate about his Dene culture and passing on traditional knowledge to the next generation. Randy was born in Yellowknife and has lived in Dettah for his entire life. He is an avid hunter and a strong traditional Dene man who travels across the country for Dene drumming. He is the father to his son Ahfrè, who is already learning how to drum at the early age of one!
Josh Barichello
Yukon Regional Programmer
Josh Barichello is a kuskāni dena (white person) who grew up in the territories of the Kaska Dena, Shútah Dene, and Kwanlin Dün. For the past 15 years, Josh has worked with the Tū Łídlīni Dena Council Lands Department and assisted the Elders Council on various projects related to Dena knowledge documentation, language resurgence, and struggles for self-determination. Josh has also helped to develop and facilitate a variety of land-based programs in Kaska Dena territory. With Dechinta, Josh works as a Regional Programmer. He has been with Dechinta on and off since 2018. Josh loves this work because he gets to spend time on the land with friends and family and put energy into the beautiful goals of fostering love of the land and creating spaces that centre Dena ways and support anti-colonial movements. Josh currently splits his time between the Dena community of Tū Łídlīni, or Ross River, and at Lhù'ààn Mân, or Burwash Landing.
Irene Sangris
Yellowknives Dene First Nation Elder
Archie Liske
Yellowknives Dene First Nation Elder
Mary Rose Sundberg
Yellowknives Dene First
Nation Elder
Madeline Judas
Tłįchǫ Elder
Morgan Tsetta
Filmmaker and Photographer
Morgan Tsetta is a Yellowknives Dene First Nation filmmaker and photographer, currently living on unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Watuth Nations, colonially referred to as Vancouver, Canada. With a passion for film, photography, and her Native culture, Morgan is committed to emphasizing the voices of Dene people and the power of self-representation for Indigenous sovereignty. After graduating film school, Morgan began work with Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning as their Digital Media Coordinator to connect with her sub-arctic home community in Denendeh and her Dene culture whilst simultaneously continuing her documentary filmmaking career.
Noel-Leigh Cockney
Safety Coordinator and Regional Programmer for the Beaufort Delta
Meet Noel-Leigh Cockney, our safety coordinator and regional programmer for the Beaufort Delta at Dechinta! Noel is from Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik, Northwest Territories. His whole life he has grown up along the coast of the Arctic Ocean hunting and fishing. Once he graduated from high school in Inuvik he went to college in Wisconsin, at Northland College, for four years and graduated with a major in Outdoor Education and minor in Native American Studies. After graduating, he worked for six years for NOLS, instructing backpacking, rock climbing, and whitewater canoeing courses all over the United States. He moved back home in the winter of 2018, working in tourism for over two years, before finding his current position at the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning. Noel writes: “Working for Dechinta, it feels like my life has come full circle in two ways: When I was a student in college I was running outdoor education programs, and I always dreamed of having a job like this. Now, I am able to create and run the types of land-based programs I have always dreamed of in my home territory. Second, the camp at Galiptut where we run our Dechinta programs in the Beaufort Delta region is very close to me. My nanuk and daduk (grandma and grandpa) used to take my peers and me out on the land to learn the cultural knowledge and skills that I am now teaching in the programs I am able to run in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region”
Sydney Krill
Curriculum Developer and Knowledge Mobilization Coordinator
Sydney has worked at Dechinta for the past three years as a curriculum developer, researcher and knowledge mobilization coordinator! Sydney is a settler who was raised in Calgary, Alberta on Treaty 7 territory. During her Master’s degree at the University of Calgary, she focused on gendering and queering how we understand settler colonialism in Canada. She started her PhD at the University of Victoria in Political Science in 2019, but left the program in 2020 to join the team at Dechinta. At Dechinta, Sydney works to create diverse resources for students, the community, and for the public that are informed by the brilliant land-based work happening in the North. In particular, she is passionate about creating resources and curriculum that centre Indigenous queer, two-spirit, and LGTBQ+ individuals, in order to foster land-based learning environments at Dechinta that accept and encourage all forms of gender diversity, and to mobilize and uplift queer Indigenous land-based knowledge, theory, and practices in the North and beyond.
Thumlee Drybones Foliot
Traditional Knowledge Holder
Thumlee Drybones-Foliot is Dënesųłıné with family roots in Katché where her great grandparents Noel and Madeline Drybones spent their lives. Growing up she lived on a houseboat off the shore of Somba Ke in Chief Drygeese territory and each morning she walked up to school in town. After graduating high school she spent time in southern Canada before answering the call to come back to Denendeh. Taking a semester at Dechinta in 2016 Thumlee went on to be a graduate of the certificate program. Since that time she has continued to work with Dechinta. “At Dechinta I spent time on the land with elders and teachers listening to their stories. I could recognize and name shared frustration with colonization while nourishing my desire to learn skills; hide tanning, beading and living on the land. I felt a connection to my ancestors and knew the importance of this program and others that get people on the Land. It has given confidence to find and create other spaces to continue to strengthening my relationship to with the land, community and myself”
Rena Mainville
Child and Youth Program Coordinator
Meet Rena Mainville, our land-based educator for children and youth at Dechinta! Rena passionately advocates for culturally safe Indigenous land based learning and language revitalization for Indigenous children, families and communities. Rena Mainville is Sahtu Dene and Metis from Tulita in the Northwest Territories of Canada, born and raised in the Northwest Territories. Rena has a bachelor of Early Childhood Care and Education from Capilano University and took Indigenous Studies at Langara College. Rena now works full time with Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning. Rena also lends her voice as a Consultant to the Arctic Athabaskan Council and collaborates with the First Nations Pedagogy Network. Rena loves being on the land learning and sharing knowledge at Dechinta where she creates safe learning spaces for children and youth that supports their overall positive well being.
Denenize Basil
Land-based Educator and Traditional Knowledge Holder
Denenize Basil is a land-based educator and traditional knowledge holder at Dechinta! Dene writes: “My name is Denenize Basil. “Denenize” is my traditional name in my language. It means ‘I am among the people and the old ways of life’. I was born in Yellowknife and raised in Lutsel k’e by both my mom and grandparents. I was taught my culture and traditions and was brought up as a young trapper, gatherer, and hunter. I now live in Yellowknife, have a family of my own, and always look for opportunities to go out on the land and pass on everything I know on to my family and all people”
Kynyn Doughty
Reporting and Evaluation Coordinator
Kynyn is a Dechinta alum and has been working as a program support staff with Dechinta for the past year, recently transitioning to the role of research and evaluation coordinator. She is a white person born and raised in south-western Ontario and has been living in Yellowknife and Dettah since 2018. She loves learning from everyone at Dechinta and passing on what she learns.
Elyse Vanderpost
Student Pathway Support
Elyse is a settler raised on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishnaabeg Peoples in Brantford, Ontario. During post-secondary, Elyse studied Sociology and Social Service Work to fuel her passion for social justice and advocacy work. She has lived in the Northwest Territories since 2013 and has worked closely with Northern families as a counsellor and coordinator over the last decade. Elyse is grateful to currently call the Inuvialuit and Gwich’in lands of Inuvik home. She enjoys serving her community as a firefighter, Secretary of the fire association (IFA), as well as President of the pan-territorial association for social workers (ASWNC). At Dechinta, Elyse provides support to students all the way from contemplating applying to getting off the plane and on the land. She is honoured to get to spend time with the land while supporting people’s success!
Mandee MacDonald
Pre-Doctoral Researcher and Instructor
Mandee McDonald is a hide tanner, facilitator, and a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta where her work focuses on Indigenous governance and land-based learning. She is a co-founder and the Hide Camp Director for Dene Nahjo, an Indigenous innovation and arts collective based in Somba K'e. Mandee is Maskîkow (Swampy Cree), originally from Mántéwisipihk (Churchill, MB), and has resided in Sòmba K’è (Yellowknife) for the past twenty years. Her writing has been published in Decolonization: Indigeneity and Education Society, Northern Public Affairs, and in Visions of the Heart: Issues Involving Indigenous Peoples in Canada 5th Edition.
Rilee-Anne Lloyd
Director of Finance and Operations
Rilee-Anne is the Director of Finance and Operations at Dechinta. She is a settler who was born and raised in rural Manitoba on Treaty 1 territory and is currently based in Yellowknife. In 2015, she graduated from the Professional Program of the School of Contemporary Dancers in affiliation with the University of Winnipeg, completing a Bachelor of Arts degree (honours) with a major in Dance. She went on to obtain her Chartered Professional Accounting designation through the CPA Western School of Business. At Dechinta, Rilee-Anne provides support in the areas of finance, operations, and strategic development. She is thankful for the opportunity to learn from Elders and to be a part of the Dechinta community.
Krista Zawadski
Pre-Doctoral Researcher and Instructor
ᐅᓗᔪᒃ ᓄᓇᕘᒻᒥᐅᑕᕐᔪᖅ, ᐃᒡᓗᓕᒑᕐᔪᖕᒥᓪᓗ ᑲᖏᕐᖠᓂᕐᒥᓪᓗ ᐱᕈᖅᓴᕐᓂᑰᔪᖅ. Krista Ulujuk Zawadski is from Igluligaarjuk (Chesterfield Inlet) and Kangirłiniq (Rankin Inlet), Nunavut. She identifies as an Inuk curator, anthropologist, arts leader, researcher, scholar and writer. Her areas of expertise are Arctic anthropology, collections-based research, storywork, Inuit curatorial research and practice. Krista’s outlook, research and work are deeply rooted in her upbringing in Nunavut, and she feels it reflects in many aspects of her work. Spending time with cultural materials in homes and in museum collections, Krista uses the belongings as a catalyst to foster engagement between Inuit knowledge holders and younger generations.