picdawnMy name is Dawn Kostelnik and I am the White Girl, Mola ‘tu ‘we’. In the 1960’s, my father was hired by the Canadian Government to work as an Indian Agent in the tiny native village of Fort Norman, N.W.T. My father is known by the people on the river as Somba ralla, the moneylender.

My books, The White Girl and The Adventures of the Audrey Eleanor, are now available at Kobo.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon.com. They have previously been published in the Whitehorse Star Newspaper, which has been in circulation for over 100 years and covers news in the Yukon Territory and Alaska.

The Adventures of the Audrey Eleanor, True Sea Tales, was to be a one-time venture in the newspaper. The first story, “The Screams of the Furies”, ran on Friday, June 27, 2008. Due to popular demand, the series continued to excite and amaze fans (they could not believe that we survived in spite of ourselves), until I felt that I should leave while I was ahead. I wanted to move on to my other project, The White Girl. The Adventures of the Audrey Eleanor came to an unofficial conclusion in January. 2011. By unofficial, I continued to do special interest stories of the Audrey Eleanor getting herself into yet one more “adventure.”

The White Girl began life in the Whitehorse Star in January of 2011. This collection of True North stories is about my childhood memories of growing up on the mighty Deh Cho, the McKenzie River and the shores of the Arctic Ocean in Canada’s Northwest Territories. This series ended in July, 2013.

When I say True Sea Tales and True North Stories, I mean that they are not fiction.

I won acclamation from UNESCO in 1973, for this soft haiku. It was a worldwide competition to celebrate and encourage the women’s movement at that time. International Women’s Year began in 1975; this was a forerunner to that warranted cause.

Ms. Pibus, my 9th grade teacher, asked if I would like her to submit this poem for me. It was beyond my scope at that time. Thank you, Ms. Pibus. I have not put the haiku down on paper again until now. This thanks to you should have come much sooner than it has.

This award has always been a crack in the wall of possibilities presented by the world. One day I would make time to empty the dusty recesses of my mind and put the jumble down in print. This is the day.

I wrote this when I was a full grown and worldly woman of 15. Sometimes, the road is long.

Me
I am a Woman
For the information of
man
I am a human being
Hoping
To be treated as such
I am not there
To be
Walked upon
Nor made a fool of
Neither am I
A rag doll
To be passed
From
Hand to hand
Or
Heart to heart
Wait
Until you look
To your side
And
There is
No one there