In this episode, we welcome Leah Prisque. Leah is of Metis heritage and has always wanted to explore the world. Her teacher encouraged her to pursue her dream of travelling abroad, and after doing a school project on New Zealand, she became fascinated with the country. Without hesitation, through the IEC program, she booked a one-way flight to New Zealand, much to her parents' surprise. She embraced every opportunity that came her way and worked as a cleaner in her hostel, an apple picker, and a grape harvester in a vineyard. Despite the challenges of living in a different country, Leah cherished every moment of her journey. Hear Leah's story now!
Emily Harrington: Before we begin, we would like to recognize that this podcast is hosted from the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe. We at CBIE are grateful to have the opportunity to learn, work, and live on this land.
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Welcome to Audio Alumni, a podcast that features both Canadian and international voices sharing their lived experiences of going abroad. These conversations offer insight into the opportunities, the challenges, and the transformational impact that an international experience can bring. In this season, we are talking about working and traveling overseas. You'll hear personal stories from our guests about what inspired their travels, what obstacles they had to overcome, and ultimately, how their time abroad shaped their lives today. This podcast is brought to you by the Canadian Bureau for International Education, or CBIE, in partnership with International Experience Canada.
CBIE is a national non-profit association dedicated to supporting the Canadian international education sector in its global engagement through advocacy, capacity building, and partnerships. International Experience Canada, or IEC, gives Canadian citizens aged 18 to 35 the opportunity to work and travel abroad. IEC provides youth with a path to a work permit or visa to work and explore one of the 30 countries and territories. Taking part in IEC allows youth to gain valuable international work experience while exploring the world and finding inspiration.
My name is Emily Harrington, and I am so excited to be your host this season for Audio Alumni. We're really excited about our conversation today with Leah Prisk. Leah is of Métis heritage and has always had a desire to explore the world. She was encouraged by her teacher to pursue her dream of traveling abroad, and after doing a school project on New Zealand, she became fascinated with the country. Without hesitation, through the IEC program, she booked a one-way flight to New Zealand, much to the surprise of her parents. She embraced every opportunity that came her way and worked as a cleaner in her hostel, an apple picker, and a grape harvester in a vineyard.
Despite the challenges that came with living in a different country, Leah cherished every moment of her journey. Let's get right into this story. I'm excited to chat with you today, Leah. I've read through a little bit about you and I'm absolutely fascinated by what I know of your story already. I cannot wait to deep dive into this. For anyone who has not done some social sleuthing, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Leah: Yes, absolutely. I am originally from Port Severn, Ontario. That is near Georgian Bay in the Muskoka area. I'm Métis, and I currently live on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Nation in Ottawa, and I've been here for about four years. I've done some traveling and backpacked a few different places, but New Zealand is my biggest travel experience. I am currently the youth coordinator for the National Association of Friendship Centres, and just really busy planning for a youth forum this upcoming summer.
It's been really great looking forward to spring. I just bought a house a year and a half ago, so it's been really nice to enjoy that. I have a diploma in tourism and travel and another one in Indigenous community and social development. I'm hoping to join another program for Indigenous policy and administration in June. So that's that. The town I come from is very small, but I loved it there. It's a beautiful place to grow up. I have started a deep dive on my cultural background over the last five years or so and so I've been able to connect a lot with the Métis community and really building community up. That's been a really nice feeling to just connect and reclaim that lost culture that [laughs] my family was never really a part of. That's been a really wonderful experience and I'm happy to be here.
Emily: I want to deep dive into your time abroad and how your experience as a Métis woman and being able to understand, like you said, explore that Indigenous culture that you didn't have an opportunity to before the last five years. Can we start to talk a little bit about what first sparked your interest in New Zealand?
Leah: When I was about 20, I decided to enroll in a program, the tourism and travel diploma program that I took. We had done an international development program and so we had to choose a country to focus on and different types of tourism that were there. Particularly in New Zealand, there was so much ecotourism, green tourism, adventure tourism. When I was 17 in high school, I really wanted to go to Australia but when I was in this program and doing so much research, it really opened my eyes to a country that is so progressive in many ways, including really weaving in the culture of the Maori people that are there, just into everyday society that is there.
I just thought of all of the places that I could go, I felt like New Zealand was the safest choice. I had actually listened to a guest speaker who had come in during that program and she had spoken about her experiences, her family moving away for a year and bringing her kids. They started off in New Zealand because it was safe and comfortable. They could speak the language and then they moved over into Africa and some other countries. I just remember, in combination with learning about the country, as well as hearing a story that kind of linked it together and then also just my desire to go out that way really pulled it all together.
Fast forward, I had done a co-op out in Canmore in Alberta and that was pretty wild. It was six months out there. I'd never been out west. I had met one of my friends who was telling me about working and traveling abroad. I had met a few people from New Zealand out there because I live closer to Banff and lots of people come there for snowboarding and all of these adventure sports that Banff has to offer. It was just like there was so many different links that really just brought me there.
Then one day while I was working in the concession stand, actually, [chuckles] at the golf course, I had access to the computer and I was just looking up certain things and it was just like it became more attractive. I booked a one-way ticket to New Zealand so it was pretty wild. My joke was that if I go to New Zealand now, everywhere else that I go for the rest of my life will at least be closer. My mom didn't really think that that was very funny. That's a very long story about, I'd say, how I chose New Zealand but I'm really glad I did.
Emily: That's fantastic. That's exactly the kind of understanding we want about what drove you there. That leads into my next question a little bit is how did your family feel about this one-way ticket to the other side of the world? I feel like thinking about my own kids, that would put me in a mild panic.
[laughter]
Leah: My mom, I had called her pretty soon after. I think it was after I finished my shift that day. I said, "Hey, mom, I just want to let you know I booked a one-way ticket to New Zealand." I think there must have been like a full 20-second pause just of silence. She was like, "No, you're kidding. What do you mean?" [laughs] Because I'm my mother's only child so she was just beside herself. She was like, "Well, what do you mean?" I was like, "Well, mom, the ticket's already booked so I can't go back now. This is when it is." Really, there wasn't anything she could do about it.
My poor mom, she probably had a few gray hairs come in after that one. When I called my dad, he was like, "Uh-huh." That's all he did. He goes, "Why would you want to do that?" I was like, "Well, I've always wanted to go abroad. It just seemed like a great idea and here we are." He didn't really have a whole lot to say about it but secretly, I hope he was a little bit impressed. They were both very supportive after the motions kept coming through. I used to call them and they were okay with it but my mom was certainly more worried than my dad.
Emily: I can feel my heart rate rising thinking about getting a phone call like that. Bless your parents for just rolling with the punches. Can you walk us through a little bit about what that whole process was like of getting ready to make a move like that? Working through visas and savings and organization to what you pack to move to the other side of the world.
Leah: [laughs] I was really fortunate because that friend who told me about the working holiday visa, she was sort of there to be like, "Oh, and this and this and this. You can go and stay in hostels." She really had just some knowledge that I was able to take away. When I started doing the application process, I was looking online at what you needed to do and I thought because she had done that working holidays, "You know what, I think I'd like to work there." There's such a big opportunity for doing agriculture work, harvesting work. Just work that I wouldn't usually do here in Canada. Because of that, she said it was always good to have that visa in your back pocket. You can travel. It's the working holiday so you go with the intention to travel with the possibility to work. I thought that that was really flexible enough for me so that I could still enjoy myself but if I did need to work, then I would be able to. I went online, found out that there was the application process, filled that out.
They did require $4,200 to have in your savings account to qualify for the visa and so I was like, "Okay." I was in Alberta for my co-op so I was still sort of technically in school and still had some student loans going on. The place where I was working was a golf resort. I worked a lot of events, a lot of weddings. I worked in the restaurant. I worked on the golf course. That particular summer I felt like I was able to save cash. I remember every time I would get tips at the end of the day, I would roll them up and put them in a sock in my drawer and just keep packing away a little money here and there, here and there.
I was able to actually put a pretty good chunk down on my student debt. I think I paid it off for the most part before I left or I still had a little bit after that. I just wanted to make sure I didn't have that debt following me across the world. It was just definitely saving cash, saving cash. I thankfully lived in the staff accommodations that was right across the street and the rent to stay in the trailer, the staff trailer, was very inexpensive and so not having to worry too much about the living cost I think really helped.
I certainly acknowledge it was a special situation that I was able to be able to save for this. As you know, many aren't in that type of role. That really helped me to get to where I needed to go. I just remember taking all of my little rolled-up fives, tens, and twenties and putting them in my account. Also, too, I had a travel rewards visa at the time. What I used those travel points for was I actually booked a hotel for the first three nights when I got to New Zealand, just so that I had a place that was my own so I didn't have to share sleeping space or anything like that.
That was really great. I was able to use that towards those first three nights and just sort of get situated. Then leading up to it, so this was October, I was coming back into Ontario from Alberta so I had October, November, December, and then I was flying out in January. When I got home, I think my mom was just so happy to see me after being gone for six months that she was just ready to be there to support me and get ready. We went and I remember buying the backpacking backpack and feeling so cool to have that and some good shoes.
I had gotten a little first aid kit for Christmas to be able to take over, which was really awesome and then I bought one of those little sleeping mats and a pop-up tent, and a little itty-bitty pillow, just everything that I could make small and bring with me. It's just sort of collecting those items, being home for Christmas. It was actually pretty wild because on the day that we were driving to the airport, there was the biggest snowstorm. It was like, "Oh my gosh, my poor mom." She's not the most confident driver so she's white-knuckling it down to the Toronto airport and I'm like, "I hope I can go."
If I didn't make it, I don't know what I would have done. It was a pretty long process. The visa paperwork I was really, going back to the whole paperwork process, but I was just praying that it would be accepted. I feel like it was so long ago, but the process like adding in all of your information. They check you out. You've got to make sure that they're able to access your bank account. There was a lot of information that went into it. I think I just remember when I wasn't working, just really trying to pull it all together, playing the waiting game, and making sure that they were able to see that I had the money in my bank account.
I don't even know if I had the full amount at the time, but I think I was pretty close. It was a really cool summer because I was away working, meeting new people, and my view was just incredible with the mountains and this beautiful bowl of breathtaking scenery that you see in the movies. Ontario is not that [crosstalk] pretty flat. It was quite the experience.
Emily: Bless her heart for taking that phone call with a grain of salt, and then still getting you to the airport and all the other things. Once you got there, you said you had a hotel for the first couple of days. Then what was it like really integrating into this whole new culture and finding a job and getting yourself set up? What was that experience like?
Leah: I had to lay over in China for about seven hours. I had met a whole bunch of people that were going to New Zealand. I had actually met this guy from New Zealand and he had his own business. He was there and so I was like, "Oh, this is what's going on." He was very friendly and he ended up driving me and this other girl to our location. She was going to stay at a hostel, and I was going to my hotel. He was actually nice enough to drive us out from the airport, which I thought was just-- Of course, you were apprehensive but that was honestly the first, I guess, step into just the hospitality of every person that I met in New Zealand.
He drove me out there, no problems, gave me his phone number, told me to call him anytime if I needed anything. He also let me use his address. You need to get set up if you do want to go work with this visa. Kind of like how we would have our SIN number here, I had to go and get that set up and I needed an address to be able to state that I technically lived there, which apparently people do all the time, whether it's a hostel, or whether it's a friend that they meet, you're able to actually use that. It's good enough to get you through so that you can start working. When I got there, I remember, oh, I was so tired. I was so jet-lagged. It was just the longest flight. It took 42 hours to get there.
Emily: Oh my goodness.
Leah: It was a really big flight path, I would say. The restaurant in the hotel was closed. I didn't really know where to go. The first thing I did when I got off the plane, though, was I went and got a phone and a phone plan. That was the first thing. Just I needed to have some sort of connection, got set up, extremely cheap over there. It was way less expensive than it is in Canada so I was pretty happy by that. I was just trying to find a place to go and get some groceries in the area. I remember going to the supermarket and I was picking out all of these things, picking out, and then I get up to the cash, and it was cash only.
"No, where's there an ATM?" They were like, "Oh, there's one way down the street over there, whichever." I just was like, "Oh, my gosh." That was the first and plus being very tired and just trying to figure things out, it was like, "Okay." I felt a little hopeless there for a second and then I walked down and there was a little shop where I was able to get-- I remember getting a garlic loaf, sun chips, and a bottle of water because there wasn't a whole lot there. [laughs] I wasn't feeling good either so I was just trying to kind of survive. That was the first night just sort of walking up and down the street where the hotel was on.
Then that night, just trying to take a sleep. I was laying in the bed, and it was quiet and it was the first moment that I realized that I was there. This is where I am. I think I fell asleep almost immediately and I woke up quite early. The next day when exploring down the strip there, and it was really cool. I remember trying to-- I had my camera in my hand, but I was like, "Hmm, if I look around too much, certainly I'm going to look like a tourist." I really didn't want. I was like, "Let's try and blend in as much as possible here."
Obviously, when people think of backpacking, sometimes it can seem a little scary so it's like, "Okay, if I don't look like a tourist, I might not get robbed." I had all of these thoughts going through my mind. It was really a really nice day. That was day one of when I got there. Then after the few days were over, I looked up another place where there was a hostel nearby that had really great reviews and I just set out and began the whole backpacking part of my journey, which took me from Auckland all the way up to Paihia, which is in the northern part of the North Island. That was when I got my first job. In certain hostels, you're able to actually do some cleaning to subsidize the cost of the room itself. I was cleaning the kitchen and the washroom for about a week to subsidize that. I actually met a few locals up there that were from a little bit closer to Auckland and they're like, "Oh, yes, if you ever need a place to stay, you can come stay with us." I actually took them up on that offer. I got a ride back down to the city because there was bedbugs and so I was like, "I don't want to stick around too much anymore."
I got out of there, went and met up with the people that I had met and they suggested that I look into maybe getting a car, which I was like, "What do you mean?" They actually let me use their, what would be the equivalent of Kijiji, use their account and they had online car bidding. I was like, "Okay, this is interesting." They helped me get a car actually. It was a 1990 Mazda. I was just amazed that it was so old. It had no rust on it whatsoever because there's not a lot of snow there.
Emily: You would never see that in Canada.
Leah: I was like, "This car is older than I am." It was really, really cool. It was blue, it was a hatchback, it had the pop-up lights, it had the fold-in mirrors. I couldn't believe how lucky I felt to get this car. The only thing, it didn't have a radio so here I am buying a radio at this audio store. Like, "Yes, let's put in this really cool-looking radio."
Emily: Into your 1990 Mazda.
Leah: Yes, because before that I had the little speaker in the console and that was how I was listening to music through my phone. [laughs] I was like, "This isn't going to do." Wildly enough, I got the car for $992 so that was just amazing. It was supposed to be 94, but then I only had $2 and so she's like, "It's fine." It was very nice family. The people that I had met actually, they drove me down to pick up the car. Funny enough, you drive on the left side of the road. The only time I messed up it was when I pulled out of their driveway.
I feel proud for that and thankfully I'm left-handed too so it felt good. It was quite the experience. Then once I got my car, I drove up the Eastern side of the North Island and traveled back down into the center. I saw some really amazing views. Everywhere that I would go I would drive for as long as I wanted. Then when I was looking for a place to stay I would just check online on the maps for hostels in the next town. I would look at the reviews and then obviously the cost and see which one and then I would just call ahead, show up, and that was going to be where I slept for the night or for however long.
I felt like I was pretty independent throughout most of the trip. I did meet quite a few other backpackers but when I did end up doing work, it wasn't actually until I made it to the South Island. Throughout all of the North Island, I did the Tongariro Mountain Cross, which was the trail that Frodo had to do in the Lord of the Rings all the way to Mount Doom. I did that and it was 20 kilometers. I think I got shin splints the first 20 minutes in so I was like, "Oh no." The only thing that kept me going was the fact that the bus only picks you up on the other side so I actually had to keep walking.
It was certainly an accomplishment as well. Then when I finally made it to the South Island the first job I ended up getting was doing apple picking. It was this place called MA Orchards and it was the day after St. Patrick's Day. There were quite a few people who really wanted to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, so to speak. Of course, I had to join. The first time, the first morning apple picking, it was so awful. I didn't feel good at all. They're like, "Here's your bucket. Put it on your stomach, your chest, you know, pick the apples, be really gentle."
It was a terrible way to start a job but I kept going and it was actually really cool because strangely, you learn a lot about things on that end of the food spectrum like where you would get that food from initially and how to clip the apple stem. Sometimes when you see a little poke on top of the apple, it's not actually just from birds. It can actually be from the clippers and they clip them off the tree.
Emily: How interesting.
Leah: Yes. Even when you see red and yellow or green parts on the apple, the green part is just where a leaf was over top of it so the sun didn't get to it. Just really neat stuff. That was the first job. Then the second one was grape picking a little bit further down south and that was amazing too. We would sometimes have quotas of 18 tons of grapes needed per day. Eighteen tons is a lot, a lot of grapes. From sunup to sundown, as soon as the sun started going down over the mountain, it was like, "Okay, time to pack it in." I think that was one of the hardest jobs I've ever done physically, especially because it was on quite an incline, probably a slope.
I can't even tell you. You're standing sideways trying to pick the grapes. That's how wild it was. Cool experience but also just so wild. Those were the two biggest jobs that I had while I was in New Zealand. They were for six days on, one day off so they were pretty long stretches, but I think each one was about three weeks in length. It was just definitely something that I wouldn't do back home. Well, never say never, but that I haven't done. Those were really cool to be able to say. I met so many people from all over the world that were there. It's just funny when you're like, "Oh, you're from Argentina, you're from the UK, you're from Denmark." All of these people just in the same place. It was a really awesome way to meet people as well as locals.
Emily: First of all, they take their winemaking and their grape picking very seriously by the sounds of it.
Leah: Yes, I would say so. Especially that orchard, they were very proud. I keep looking for seeing the wine in the LCBO, but they said actually Ontario is a very hard market to get into just compared to other provinces.
Emily: Now, there's so many rabbit holes we can go down with all the things that you did while you were there but what I really want to touch on is you mentioned in the beginning that over the last couple of years, you've had an opportunity to really start exploring your culture and your heritage and being able to work in the field on top of that. How did having that experience in New Zealand play into giving you the confidence to start exploring and to find your voice or to use your voice?
Leah: To use it even more, I guess. [laughs] Honestly, it was such a reset to go there. The biggest takeaway that was just having the moment to just really learn about who you are because all you have is yourself when you're over there, especially when you go by yourself. All of these soft skills that I had to develop basically on the fly or enhance when I was in a situation where I really had to figure my way out. Then also just seeing how involved the modern culture is. There's signs, the road signs, the language, it's everywhere. The people, they're beautiful.
It was just like, "This is so interesting to me." Also being Indigenous myself, I really wanted to be a part of it, but that was before I actually started reconnecting. I had gotten home in 2015 and I started working at a casino that was on reserve near my house. Then there was more Indigenous integration there and that was really cool, just starting to meet people there and making those linkages. Then I looked into-- Also, the Métis Nation of Ontario was able to help me with schooling. I started connecting to them just before, but I wasn't really involved.
My dad, he's like, "Just check out the Métis Nation again. See if they have anything to help with career or whichever." Then I called, looked into any opportunities they had, and then I became a Summer Youth Cultural Program Facilitator. When I was there, I learned so much about the Métis culture. We had weeks of immersive training and just learning how to bead, learning how to make a capo, learning the history, learning the dance, and just learning all of these things.
Through the Métis Nation, we ended up going to this conference and it was called the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education. It was in Toronto and we, as the youth, were going to be facilitating workshops. It was there that I was immediately surrounded by a bunch of Maori people again from New Zealand, Indigenous people from all over the world. It was like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm here." We were listening to all of these speakers. It was such an energy. To be in that space, it was like I was allowed to be in that space. I was able to be proud in that space. I just remember feeling like I want to be somebody who can come to an event like this and I can go up to somebody and say, "Hi, my name is Leah. I've done this. I can do this for you. How can I help you?"
I just wanted to be able to be somebody who has impact, who was able to share their story and just inspire other people or just spark something in someone else. It was a pretty wild day. I remember it was midway through the event. I had this overwhelming energy to just do something. My friend actually had taken the program that I had taken but he's like, "You know what, there's this program at Trojan College that I think you'd really like." He told me a little bit more about it and then I just had this really crazy well up of emotions where it was like, "You know what, I feel like this is meant to be like."
I was just floating. I've had that feeling a few other times in my life and they've really always sort of turned out to be some of the best decisions of my life. I remember sitting there, we went for wings, and I was typing online trying to check out the program when it started. This was in June or July. I remember applying two months before the program started for Indigenous Community and Social Development. It was just all of these things and I just had such a positive outlook on it. Every barrier that I went against was, I think this is just a little test to really test me on is this something that I want to do?
I got through it all. Then with this newfound sense of cultural connection, and then this opportunity of attending this wild international event with people that were just so committed to making positive changes for Indigenous people around the world was just something that I knew I wanted to be a part of. Going into the program, building that sense of community and that connectedness and learning from my teachers and everybody that I was in school with, it just made me feel like this is where I'm meant to be. Traveling and then coming here gave me such a different perspective and also, an open-mindedness.
I wanted to be able to go back to that event that basically changed my life. Through that experience at that event is where I met my now friend, but a friend of mine who worked in government, she was talking about working and traveling abroad and how you could be a youth ambassador and if you had taken the program. I was like, "Oh, I think I did something like that." It had been two years later. She's like, "Oh, really?" I was talking to her about that and I thought she was joking because she was in the government and from the town that I come from, government workers are like post office and liquor store workers. [laughs]
Many people don't work in government from where I come from and so I was like, "No, no, no, this can't be true. She was very persistent. She's like, "I think you have a story to share." Then I ended up becoming a youth ambassador for International Experience Canada. I traveled around Canada and told my story to other Indigenous youth. Looking back on it now, actually, I don't feel like I ever gave myself any credit for it but just being able to inspire just one person in a group of people, that was the thing that I focused on. Just so many things that happened and just being able to be given so many amazing opportunities and that connection really just made me feel so grateful to just have the opportunity to share.
I think that everything that sort of came my way since I threw myself into the first school program of tourism and travel. That was another one that was two months before the start date. I don't like to say that I like to live on the edge, but it seems like the edge finds me. [laughs] That was that.
Emily: First off, just to hear you talk about the way that the experience had kind of led you into all these other incredible experiences, and this exploration of self and all of these skills that you had to learn and teach yourself on the fly, you sound so at peace when you talk about it, which is absolutely incredible. There's so much power within that so I don't think you're giving yourself nearly enough credit for how amazing just even the little pieces of this story that we've been able to dive into are.
I want to absolutely give you so much credit for and say thank you for being able to share some of your story because it is inspiring that you take a chance on yourself. You've taken a chance on yourself at every opportunity and that's not something that a lot of people have the confidence to do. It's absolutely inspiring and I'm so grateful that we've had the time to chat and connect like this. Before I let you go, I just want to ask if you have any words of wisdom you'd want to share with someone who's kind of on the fence about taking a chance on themselves, whether it's traveling abroad, or starting to dive into their own culture and heritage. Like you said, putting themselves in these rooms and these events that you walked into that have really inspired this phase of your life.
Leah: I feel like every decision that you make for yourself, even though it's difficult sometimes when you have people in your world that may not be on the same page, I would say hold those desires, hold that thing close to you that you want to do or that you'd like to achieve or the place you'd love to go because sometimes not everybody is able to give you that encouragement that you just need. To be able to just do it but when you throw yourself into a situation where if you do something, and once you do it, there's really no going back. Obviously, you wanted to do it so it's like that saying, "Don't think too hard about those big decisions. Just go for it."
When it comes to a smaller decision or something that's not so huge, then you can take some time to think about it but you're never wrong when you choose to do something for yourself if it's going to bring you one step closer to that happiness that you are hoping to find.
Emily: That is amazing advice. Before we wrap this up, the last question I will ask is just anyone who is inspired and wants to learn more about your story or just ask questions to navigate their own career path and their own travel journeys, where is the best place to find you?
Leah: I am on LinkedIn. That is where usually I would reach out to people who are interested in connecting about that. Certainly email for sure. I do have Facebook, it's maybe a little more personal so I would say probably LinkedIn or email.
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Emily: That ends this episode of Audio Alumni. We want to thank our listeners for joining us today. We also want to thank our guests for their openness in sharing their stories and our partner International Experience Canada for collaborating with us this season. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast for new episodes and visit us at cbie.ca for more content about international education in Canada. Until next time.
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