Dawn Dumont facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Dawn Dumont
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Dawn Dumont in 2007
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| Born | Dawn Marie Walker 1973/1974 (age 50–51) Okanese First Nation |
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Dawn Dumont is the pen name of Dawn Marie Walker, a Plains Cree writer, former lawyer, comedian and journalist from the Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2022, she became the subject of multiple criminal investigations after allegedly faking the death and disappearance of herself and her son.
Contents
Career
Writing
Her first book, Nobody Cries at Bingo (2011), is a fictionalized, humorous account of her own life growing up on a reserve. Dumont says that the book was inspired by the writing of David Sedaris. In 2012 it was shortlisted for an Alberta Readers' Choice Award and a Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Award, and selected for the Canadian Children's Book Centre's Best Books for Kids and Teens. In 2021, the French translation of the book (On pleure pas au bingo, translated by Daniel Grenier) was nominated for the Governor General's Award for English to French translation at the 2020 Governor General's Awards.
She followed up with Rose's Run (2014), the story of Rose Okanese, a single mother, who enters a marathon in an effort to boost her self-esteem. Writing in Pacific Rim Review of Books, Chuck Barker described the novel as "integral Canadian literature" and praised Dumont's "self-depreciating, honest, comprehensive, and confidential" sense of humour. This book won the 2015 Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction. The Saskatoon StarPhoenix hired Dumont as a twice monthly columnist in 2015.
In 2017 she changed formats, publishing a collection of short stories titled Glass Beads. In more than twenty stories, Dumont explores the relationships between four First Nations characters over a period of two decades. Shannon Webb-Campbell, reviewing the book in The Malahat Review, notes that "much like beadwork, each strand or story stands on its own, but can only be fully formed in relation to others." Glass Beads was shortlisted for four Saskatchewan Book Awards, including the Book of the Year Award and the Indigenous Peoples' Writing Award. It won the Fiction Award.
In 2022, her book, The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour, was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. The announcement of the shortlist was made while Walker was still considered a missing person.
Other
In addition to her books, Dumont has performed as a stand-up comic. She was a story editor for the animated APTN program, By the Rapids, and she wrote regular columns in Eagle Feather News and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
Dumont has served as the Executive Operating Officer of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) since 2016.
In 2021, Dumont, as Dawn Dumont Walker, ran as a candidate for the federal Liberal Party in Saskatoon's Saskatoon-University riding. She lost but received ten percent of the vote.
| Canadian federal election, 2021 | ||||||||
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| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | ||||
| Conservative | Corey Tochor | 20,389 | 48.0 | -4.13 | ||||
| New Democratic | Claire Card | 15,042 | 35.4 | +5.64 | ||||
| Liberal | Dawn Dumont Walker | 4,608 | 10.8 | -2.27 | ||||
| PPC | Guto Penteado | 1,778 | 4.2 | +2.78 | ||||
| Green | North-Marie Hunter | 405 | 1.0 | -1.98 | ||||
| Christian Heritage | Carl A. Wesolowski | 195 | 0.5 | -0.15 | ||||
| Communist | Jeremy Fisher | 100 | 0.2 | – | ||||
| Total valid votes | 42,517 | 99.31 | ||||||
| Total rejected ballots | 294 | 0.69 | +0.12 | |||||
| Turnout | 42,811 | 69.17 | -7.1 | |||||
| Eligible voters | 61,894 | |||||||
| Conservative hold | Swing | -4.89 | ||||||
| Source: Elections Canada | ||||||||
Personal life
Dumont was born and raised on the Okanese First Nation. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Saskatchewan in 1995. She holds a law degree from Queen's University.
As of 2022[update], she has one child.
See also
- List of solved missing person cases
