School of determination
Identifying the employment needs of aboriginal people

NNSL (Nov 16/98) - As aboriginal employment co-ordinator for BHP, Robert Beaulieu's primary duties are to identify the needs of the aboriginal candidates in the NWT and to connect them with the best job opportunity.

For those already on staff, he's been focusing on keeping their work environment to their satisfaction.

He also liaises with the three groups involved in the impact benefit agreement, the Akaitcho, the Dogribs and the North Slave Metis Alliance.

All of this comes as a result of Beaulieu's resolve to make the most out of what he was given in life and it was a rough start.

The son of a Chipewyan mother and an African-American member of the U.S. army, Beaulieu was abandoned in Fort Smith at the age of three. His mother died and his father had left the North before he was born.

"Life was not easy for me when I started, but I stayed in school," he told students at Thomas Simpson school in Fort Simpson during a career symposium. "You can be anything that you want to be... if you have a good attitude, they can teach you the rest."

Beaulieu was sent to residential school in Fort Resolution, where he attended until the building burnt down when he was 13. He then moved to Breynat Hall and eventually to Grandin College, both in Fort Smith. Despite the obstacles, Beaulieu persevered and obtained his high school diploma.

"It was a combination of having no place to go and I was interested in sports," he recalled. "A good opportunity for me to participate in sports would be through school... it was a good, healthy pastime."

Among other things, Beaulieu participated in boxing, basketball and hockey. As a Grade 12 student, he was the recipient of the Tom Longboat award as the most outstanding Indian athlete in the country. He later earned a tryout with the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League but didn't make the cut.

"From that, I've learned that sometimes in life our best lessons can be in the form of failure," he said. "Through accepting that situation, one can grow and be challenged to keep focused. It's easy to quit when you're down."

Jacques Van Pelt, an RCMP member who was one of Beaulieu's coaches, and Darrell Clarkson, a phys ed. teacher who went on to become principal, were two role models who proved instrumental in Beaulieu's pursuit of education, he said.

He went on to the University of Calgary on a hockey scholarship and graduated with a phys. ed degree and transferred to the University of Alberta, where he obtained a recreation administration degree.

Having treaty status with the Salt River First Nations, Beaulieu is proud of his heritage. But, being part aboriginal and part African-American, meant that he has endured a significant degree of racial intolerance in his lifetime.

"You're always going to run across some ignorant people," he said. "But I just needed to stay focused and not lower myself down to their level."

However, his personal background and schooling made him attractive to the city of Edmonton, which hired him as a recreation consultant. He spent several fulfilling years helping inner-city youth as aboriginal program liaison. But, he said he yearned to return to the North, which he considers home and where he could lend others some of the support from which he benefitted.

When BHP approached him about becoming their aboriginal employment co-ordinator, he said he knew it would be a big challenge.

"I said, 'Well, what if I don't make it?' And then I said, 'Well, my only failure would be in not trying,'" he said.

As of last month, the Ekati mine became operational. Close to 75 per cent of its workforce was hired from the North, with more than half of them being of native descent.

"Already I'm hearing some positive comments from the foremen, so it's really rewarding," Beaulieu said from his office at the mine site in Lac de Gras. "The communities realize that there are some good employees out there... the workforce that is in at the start of the mine is blazing a trail for the younger generation."