Marilyn Maychak is an Inuk-Polish Ukrainian woman. She was born and raised on the Prairies in Treaty 6 territory in Alberta. Her Inuk mother is from Kinngait, Nunavut. Her Polish-Ukrainian father immigrated to Canada from Poland. As a ‘traveling friend’, Marilyn has lived and worked in Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto. She currently calls home the traditional unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw, a First Nation of the Coast Salish People on the eastern shore of Vancouver Island,  what is now known as Nanaimo. Marilyn is anaana (mother) to one, spouse, daughter, sister, auntie, great-auntie, niece, cousin and friend. 

As a cultural navigator and educator, Marilyn has been learning with and from Indigenous peoples, Black and Brown people (national and global) about Indigenous research, current practices and approaches to community engagement, learning through and with the arts as a form of self-expression, knowledge, identity, and a vehicle for reclamation, cultural continuity and social change.  Her work has evolved from being an educator to becoming a bridge between educators and the education system to parents and the community. She uses narrative inquiry and gathering to make and hold space for listening through oral, written, and visual stories about who we are, always doing her best to identify and empower the historically excluded, equity seeking and deserving voices in the community.

A bibliophile who loves picture books and children’s non-fiction books, especially from the growing masses of diverse literature from Black, Brown, and Indigenous authors; Marilyn embraces books and photography to decolonize and weave anti-racist, anti-oppressive approaches to learning and building intercultural understanding in ways that empower people to tell their stories that represent images of who they really are, where they are coming from and tell the whole story.