To reach Durham College (DC), Jakob Henry Olive travels 10 hours south from his home in Michipicoten First Nation near Wawa, Ontario. While Oshawa may be far away, the Anishinabek/Ojibwe student has made DC his destination twice now, graduating from the Electrical Techniques program before entering his current Computer Programming program that he is set to graduate from in 2025.

Olive said he originally decided to come to DC because Oshawa seemed like the right-sized city for someone who had previously lived in a town of 3,000.

“Growing up, I was always up north, so I came to the conclusion that I needed to venture out and expand my mindset, and I knew I didn’t have it in me to live in downtown Toronto. I felt Durham and Oshawa was the perfect middle ground,” he said. While he plans to stay down south for a while, eventually Olive plans to return up north and work in IT.

At DC, Olive is a regular at the First People’s Indigenous Centre (FPIC), meeting with other members of the Indigenous community and occasionally attending events such as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and the Fall Feast. He says it’s a great quiet place on campus to do homework as well. He also recently connected with the DC Indigenous Education Circle and the Indigenization Council as a student member to share his experiences.

“I look at almost everything daily through an Indigenous perspective. Quite often it’s in conversation with other people, sharing stories, sharing experiences, and communicating almost nonverbally and verbally at the same time. Indigenous people have such a connection that it’s difficult to explain,” he said. “It’s a very close-knit group of people, almost like a family, a miniature Indigenous community within Durham College.”

Asked how he brings his Indigenous self to campus personally, Olive muses that he tries to do so daily. “Being raised up north and in a community, I bring my identity into everything, even into my computer programming. I feel like there’s lots of opportunity for me to bring up the inequalities that northerners have compared to people who live in the GTA, and the technological divide that’s evident, even more so since the pandemic,” he said, noting that his community only got high-speed internet about three years ago. 

Olive said he is eager to help others at DC learn more about the north and help build stronger relationships with nearby nations. “I’m hoping I can come forward with good recommendations for the Indigenization Council.”

Besides his studies, Olive is also an avid bead worker, a passion that started during the pandemic and now brings joy to his life. His first project was a simple pair of earrings with sky blue and fire colours along the sides.

Three years later, Olive still beads every day, in the morning as he drinks his coffee and, in the evening, after he finishes his studies. Creating new work regularly from earrings to dreamcatchers to wristlets, he sells his work through his brand Niished Out Beadwork at pow-wows, conferences, and cultural events.

Olive is planning to explore the offerings through FastStartDC, an extracurricular program that helps DC students develop and launch their businesses.

He’ll also continue to find community at FPIC, which he describes as a good place to facilitate conversations, (sometimes hard conversations) about the reality of First Nations life. “The conversations that arise from the events are what I enjoy most. To my knowledge, there is no other place in North Oshawa to have these conversations in safe, ‘community-based’ surroundings, which First Nations students would be familiar with.”