Advocating for Indigenous youth through personality pageants

Alisha Danielson is quick to say her participation in pageants has nothing to do with her looks.

“I want to be judged on who I am and what difference I’m trying to make, rather than what I look like,” said Danielson. “That’s the biggest thing for me.”

The 20-year-old is one of Yellowknife’s newest residents, having moved to the city earlier this month. She grew up in Prince Rupert, British Columbia and has ties to Kehewin Cree Nation in Alberta.

Danielson was crowned Miss Queen Teen Alberta 2024, Miss Queen Teen Canada 2024 and, more recently, Miss Teen Universal Petite Canada 2025.

In June, she will go on to represent Canada in her first international pageant, on a cruise from Florida to Mexico.

Danielson says she’s excited to tell people she’s from Yellowknife, especially Americans who may not be familiar with the North.

She began participating in virtual pageants two or three years ago, a process that involves submitting a video of her evening gown walk, conducting an interview over Zoom and doing an Q&A on Instagram Live.

Virtual pageants, she says, help nervous people, “especially if you’re trying to put your foot in the door for pageantry but aren’t ready to take that leap of stepping on stage.”

All types of pageants require a lot of work to prepare, Danielson says.

She competes in roughly two a year and says she requires about six months to be performance-ready.

The process involves finding sponsors to help cover costs, practising for the interview portion of the competition, working with coaches, keeping her social media pages up to date and finalizing her wardrobe.

Each contestant is expected to put together their own outfits, including the aforementioned evening gown, athletic wear and a themed or “fun fashion” outfit.

For previous pageants, Danielson has created ocean and starry-night themed gowns that she says help her bring individuality and creativity to the role.

For her upcoming international competition, Danielson is tasked with creating a costume to represent Canada.

She hopes to work with a designer who can help bring her ideas to life, though she says pageantry isn’t all about the “glitz and glamour of the sash.”

Ekati to pageants

Danielson said she is interested in using the platform she is building to help empower Indigenous youth.

Personality Pageants International executive director Sophia Lia said advocacy work is a requirement of all competitors within the organization.

“We have title holders who advocate for a range of different things,” said Lia.

“They get to choose something that they themselves are really passionate about, and it’s kind-of that driving force for them to get out in the community and do more and really get involved.”

Danielson’s advocacy involves travelling the country and speaking with youth about building self-confidence, Indigenous healing, western self-care and more.

In the past year, she has run workshops at the K’àlemì Dene School in Ndilǫ and Home Base Yellowknife’s youth centre.

“I wasn’t a very powerful student in school. I lacked a lot of motivation and confidence with that,” said Danielson. Now, she goes to schools “having that confidence, that public speaking and showing them that if you put yourself up there, you can actually do these things.”

After running a workshop, Danielson says she sometimes gets messages from students who say it was meaningful for them to hear her speak, or who are interested in pursuing pageantry themselves.

“That’s such a crazy feeling for me, knowing that somebody’s out there looking up to me and wanting to follow in my footsteps,” said Danielson.

Danielson also runs a website and social media page called Whispers Between the Braids that discusses things like generational trauma, homelessness and mental health.

“She’s definitely grown a lot and has gone out there a lot, which is really inspiring for others as well to see,” said Lia.

When she isn’t preparing for pageants or travelling for speaking engagements, Danielson works at the Ekati diamond mine. She jokes that Ekati almost feels like a break to her.

“Because when I’m home, like, go, go, go, go, all the time,” said Danielson.

She said the nature of rotation work is convenient as it allows her to fit travel and pageant prep time into the two weeks she has off from the mine.

Danielson says her parents and her First Nation are some of her biggest supporters.

Kehewin Cree Nation sponsors her work (the entry fees listed on the Personality Pageants International website range from $195 to $1,685) and her father – who she says has never missed a pageant – helps find other sponsors.

After June’s international competition, Danielson says she’d like to compete for the title of Miss Personality for the Northwest Territories.

The pageantry structure allows competitors to continue to compete for most of their lives. Danielson says she hasn’t thought that far ahead yet but she’d like to continue her advocacy.

“I could be competing until I’m 70,” she said. “We never know.”