Cassie Ayoungman knew from a young age that she wanted to work for her nation. Passionate about sport and fitness, she took a job at Siksika Nation and pitched her boss on setting up a series of fitness classes for the Siksika community. Then, after going to school to become a paramedic, and becoming a medic in the military, she discovered the outdoors: rock climbing in particular. Now Ayoungman is a mentor for other Indigenous youth and is encouraging people to think about the land they’re on when they’re outside. 

Canadian Geographic spoke with Ayoungman about her work — and what she hopes to see for her nation, and Indigenous climbing, in the future.

On getting into climbing

I don’t know where the drive came from because my family didn’t do many mountain activities.  I’ve been in and out of Calgary. I would move back to Calgary for school and then move back home. I would be away for military training every summer. But I think I just saw the mountains there and I was like: “I want to explore”. I found the outdoor life, and once I got out there, I wanted more. 

I ended up meeting a friend who was into climbing. So I started with the basics, started indoor climbing. I never thought I would get into it. I thought, “Oh, it’s too hard. I don’t belong here.” Then all of a sudden I felt like I wanted more. I thought to myself, “OK, this is challenging. I like a challenge. Let’s push it.” And I really found the passion since then. I found my mental state changing through climbing, and I knew I wanted to introduce climbing to my Nation as well. Everything I do, it’s always related back to my community — I always want to bring something back. I’m the only Blackfoot person that climbs from my community, and I think maybe the second Indigenous person in Alberta to climb. I want to change that.

On the mentality of climbing

The outdoors is my therapy. Rock climbing has changed my mentality for the better. There’s so many mental aspects to climbing. When I’m climbing, there are so many thoughts running through my head, “am I going to fall here?”. Trying to push yourself on the wall and coaching your breathing through it all. I’m definitely thinking differently about even day-to-day situations I come across — and I have rock climbing to thank for that. I want to show that to the youth in Siksika and other First Nations.

On climbing and being on Indigenous land

The more I climbed, the more I thought about being in relation to the land. I kept having more thoughts about where our ancestors were. Our native people roamed through these mountains as well. Our people have a spiritual connection to the lands. Now whenever I’m traveling either for climbing or mountaineering, I try to understand: “OK, who’s lands am I on?” We have pictographs and petroglyphs throughout the mountains in the Rockies here. I want people to understand that — those were our stories that were told on the rocks. 

I actually put a poll up on my social media saying: “How much do you know about pictographs and petroglyphs?” And the responses that I got were “I want to know more. I don’t know much about it.” First Nations told their stories on these rocks and they’re disappearing over time because the oils on our skin ruin it by people touching them. So all in all, I’ve found l’m relating to the land more, learning more about myself, understanding… and just gaining more knowledge every year.