Blenheim Resident Featured In Indigenous Reality TV Series
Jay Smith
Blenheim resident Jamie Sue Sykes has become an advocate for Indigenous communities locally and across Canada.
But, it wasn’t always that way.
In 2016, Jamie Sue was cast for and featured in a reality TV series that would change her outlook, her perspective and ultimately, her life.
Sykes thought she fit the bill signing up for a casting call looking for “adventurous, opinionated and outspoken” Canadians. But she had no idea what she was in for.
Jamie Sue got the part and was officially named as a cast member for the APTN and TVO reality series “First Contact”.
First Contact takes a group of six non-Indigenous Canadians with strong opinions on Indigenous people and immerses them into Aboriginal Canada for the first time. The six participants are tested in extraordinary situations, their beliefs are confronted, their emotions pushed to the limit.
Jamie Sue says her experience was “absolutely life changing”.
“It wasn’t until they selected the final six cast members that they told us we would be travelling all across Canada to different Indigenous communities and learning about their culture sand their way of life,” says Sykes. We packed up for 28 days, not knowing where we were going next. We started off in Winnipeg, went up to Nunavut, ended up in Edmonton, then Calgary and back to Winnipeg, followed by Northern Ontario. We got to meet so many communities, and heard stories from residential school survivors first hand.”
Recalling an eye-opening interaction, Jamie Sue says one specific story about a remote fly-in community spoke to her soul and was the final “nail in the coffin” for her, sparking the reality and scope of this dark history.
“One survivor told us a story about his community where a plane came in,” she recalls. “The kids were all playing and the pilot grabbed as many children as he could and just flew off. This gentlemen’s mom came out to call the kids for supper, and asked him where his brother was. All he could do was point to the plane in the distance.”
The 3-episode series is available to watch online and we encourage you to do so at the links below.
