Derek Neary
Northern News Services

Fort Simpson (June 14/02) - Having turned his life around through dedication to his craft, Dakota House encouraged students at Thomas Simpson school to ignore their detractors and pursue their ambitions.

While in Fort Simpson for the Peter Gzowski Invitational golf tournament last week, House spoke openly about his rocky upbringing in an inner-city Edmonton neighbourhood where thugs and prostitutes were an everyday sight.

"I grew up fast and I grew up tough," he told high school and junior high students seated in the school's lobby. As a teenager he got mixed up in crime, eventually serving a brief jail term for being an accessory to a break-and-enter. He said he fell in with the wrong crowd, and his so-called friends turned their backs on him when he got caught.

Looking to do something productive, he decided to attend acting classes. What interested him in acting, he explained, is the ability to elicit a range of emotions from his audience, making them laugh, cry or feel scared.

When others initially found out about his aspiration, they laughed all right.

"They said, 'What are you doing? You can't be an actor. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,' " he recalled.

"It doesn't really matter what anybody thinks of you, it's what you think of yourself."

Not only did he prove his doubters wrong by landing the role as Teevee Tenia on the CBC series North of 60, he pulled up to his high school in a Jaguar at age 18. It was the same school where he had been voted the least likely to succeed by his peers.

"You can do anything you want and never, never let anybody tell you that you can't," said House, a martial arts and vehicle enthusiast.

"One thing you are going to need for sure is your schooling."

In addition to being an accomplished actor, he is now a director, producer, script writer and acting coach. A father of three daughters, he has also written a children's book that is due for release on Friday.

"I'm pretty excited about it," he said.

Grade 11 student Amanda Norwegian, who had seen House on North of 60, was among those who sat quietly, listening to the presentation.

"He seems like a good role model to students," she said.