When it comes to her teenage years living in rural Yukon, Aja Mason speaks frankly. “I was bad,” she says. “I was a very young dropout, heavy drug user and deeply involved in the criminal justice system. I left because I was running from the Hells Angels … it scared the crap out of me, and I was like, I’m leaving and never coming back.”
But running wasn’t the end of her story. Twenty-five years later, Mason is back in the Yukon and using her education and life experience to tackle complex challenges by bridging data gaps in rural, remote and northern communities – all while building her own home, quite literally, from the ground up.
From academic upgrading at Lethbridge Polytechnic where she discovered a passion for science, to excelling in neuroscience research, advocating for social change and founding a consultancy to help shape northern policy, Mason’s journey is one of resilience, reinvention and an unshakable commitment to her roots.
“Aja is proof that our origin story doesn’t define us,” says Mason’s long-time friend Shayne Dahl (General Arts and Science 2004), who is now an instructor in the polytechnic’s Centre for Business, Arts and Sciences. “We have unlimited potential when we choose to grow, and Lethbridge Polytechnic is a great place to discover that. Aja’s curiosity led her to excel – and her life unfolded from there.”
“I grew up 40 minutes south of Whitehorse on a huge homestead, very self-sufficient, no running water, no power,” Mason says. “It [was] hard to be a teenager and live very rurally in the early ‘90s.”
She says she tried to leave home several times but it finally “stuck” in 2000 after an emancipation from her parents and a run-in with the Hells Angels. It just wasn’t safe to stay, she decided.
So at 17 years old, Mason left the Yukon and hitchhiked to Lethbridge, making brief stops in central Alberta and the Crowsnest Pass along the way. She got a job working the nightshift at Normerica, a cat litter factory on the north side of the city.
“It was a full-fledged factory,” she recalls. “The train cars came in, there was this conveyer belt to bring the clay in and then there were different assembly lines on the floor of the warehouse for either bagging, jugging or bucketing [the cat litter].”
Mason describes that version of herself as “freaking jacked” (think 15 one-armed pullups at a time) but also “super poor and basically a vampire” who rarely saw the sun. “I was totally malnourished and running off piss and vinegar and spite,” she says.
After nearly three years of bagging, jugging and bucketing, Mason realized she needed to go back to school or face a future “dying of lung cancer from silica poisoning,” so she enrolled in the Academic Upgrading program at Lethbridge Polytechnic.
The first semester didn’t go well, she admits, but by the second semester Mason says she had found her groove. She started building community and relationships with instructors and other students, organizing study groups and channelling her competitive nature toward school.
And she did well. Really well.
“I started pulling off, like, 98 per cent,” she says. “And then thinking, oh my god, you mean I didn’t kill my brain with all the horrible things, and dropping out of school doesn’t necessarily equate to 100 per cent guaranteed you’re stupid and illiterate?”
Mason says she was deeply drawn to biology and science, and she credits her instructor and first academic mentor Kelly Oikawa for supporting her and encouraging her to lean into her strengths.
“So many students in upgrading, they were [previously] unsuccessful for whatever reason, so they come in with very little confidence,” says Oikawa, who still teaches biology at Lethbridge Polytechnic. “You watch them grow, learning how they learn, and learning what it takes to do well. Many of our learners have no idea of their potential and what they can achieve. We just provided an opportunity, really, or a platform for her to thrive.”
Mason also mentions her social studies instructor Tony Rideout, who recently retired from the polytechnic, as being instrumental in her personal growth at the time. Having dropped out of school partway through Grade 8, she says she hadn’t learned much about Canada’s history until she took Rideout’s class.
“There were some pretty big aha moments,” she says. “Such intense epiphanies around … the level of advantage and privilege that I have, and the number of people who are suffering … that epiphany that some people probably don’t ever have in their lives. It was a big one for me.”
It was so big, in fact, that Mason says her best friend, whom she considers a sister, references it often. “She’s like, ‘I remember the exact day, you coming home from class in tears, like, oh my god, this is the world and we have so much freedom and autonomy,’” says Mason. “She was a witness to that.”
The epiphany only helped propel her forward. After nearly two years of upgrading at the polytechnic, Mason was ready to move on. She enrolled in a general major degree program at the University of Lethbridge, signed up for a cognition perception course and quickly caught the attention of the professor, Dr. Matthew Tata.
“One of the first questions he asked the class, was ‘what would this sound like in space’ or something to that effect,” she says. “I’m like, you can’t hear in space. There’s no air. You need air to hear.”
Her ability to think critically (which Mason, in that moment, attributed more to her vast Star Trek knowledge than anything else) earned her an invitation to volunteer in Tata’s electroencephalogram (EEG) lab. She spent six years as a research assistant studying cognition while she completed her bachelor of science in neuroscience. She followed that up with a career researching spinal cord injuries and, later, researching immunological and neurochemical dynamics of malaria at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
Over the years, Mason also earned a minor degree in philosophy from the University of Victoria and a diploma in northern sciences from Yukon University. She also has an unfinished master of arts in interdisciplinary studies from the University of Saskatchewan.
“She’s just a big picture thinker,” says Dahl, who met Mason in the mid-2000s while attending university. “You can talk about the biggest ideas with Aja, and she’s right at home. You can go into the depths of neuroscience, into astronomy, politics, settler colonialism in Canada – anything is on the table.”
Dahl says the two bonded as “counter-cultural types” and spent a summer tree planting in northern Alberta with only a handful of other people. “We got helicoptered in to very remote areas and if it rained for four days, you just put on your wet clothes and went to work,” he says. “That was my introduction to her world … just living out in the bush. She’s a strong woman – mentally and physically.”
Mason attributes her time in Lethbridge to “growing [her] up,” and despite a teenage vow to never return, she moved back home to the Yukon after 17 years away.
Since then, she has worked as an outreach contractor for the Centre for Human-Wildlife Conflict Solutions, with the Yukon Women’s Transition Home Society and with the Yukon Status of Women Council – first as Yukon Advocate Case Review project lead and later as executive director.
Then, in August 2024, Mason founded Boreal Logic – a consultancy focused on bridging the data and policy gaps that often leave northern, rural and remote communities underrepresented. She specializes in policy analysis, community-based research and AI integration to turn complex challenges into actionable strategies that reflect local realities.
It’s a seed that was planted, she says, during her time in the not-for-profit sector.
“We’re not using evidence to make the most simple decisions, like funding,” Mason says. “For example, if you’re a local government and you’ve got an organization that you’re giving $50,000 to for operational funding and in turn, that organization is bringing into the economy an extra $850,000, that’s a really obvious return on investment … but when there is so much siloing and not enough cross-talk, it’s hard to connect the dots.”
In response, Mason is using her home-grown perspective and vast experience to build AI apps and develop risk assessment frameworks in multiple domains for the Yukon territory, which pull from a huge swath of biological and socioeconomic data.
While the technology may be new, the concept isn’t. Mason jokes that she first tried to build an ethics framework for one of her upgrading classes at the polytechnic, but she couldn’t fully convey its complexity using the tools she had at the time. “It’s a good idea, I know it is,” she says, “and I’m still trying to do it!”
For Dahl, it’s a perfect example of the impact Lethbridge Polytechnic can have, as students learn and grow and eventually leverage their opportunities and knowledge to make positive change in their communities.
“She’s very deeply embedded in the Yukon,” says Dahl of Mason. “She’s seen a lot, and she knows what’s going on. It’s really inspiring how Aja went on an odyssey and returned home. Now she’s using all the knowledge and insights she’s gained along the way to benefit her people, the people of the Yukon.”
As if her resume wasn’t stacked enough, Mason is also a skilled homebuilder.
“I bought 10 acres [north of Whitehorse] with my mom, and I built this house over COVID,” she says. “I spent four years building and I’m almost done.”
Mason’s home boasts a bright kitchen with plants and open shelving, high ceilings, a wood-burning stove and a ladder leading up to an office in the loft. Her mom’s cabin – a tiny home they built together – is a stone’s throw away.
“The first two seasons were just clearing logs that weren’t even usable for firewood,” she says. “And then I learned how to drive heavy equipment – taught myself how to do that. It was a blessing because it was lock-down, so I just pounded it out over the summer.”
Mason says she was lucky in that she purchased building materials, and stored them in a shipping container, before the COVID supply chain issues really took hold. She also found treasures, including her stylish bathroom sink, at the free store at the dump. “Up here, this DIY (do it yourself) mentality is so alive and well,” she says with a laugh.
Mason notes that traditional gender roles also aren’t as defined in the Yukon as they may be in other parts of the country, adding her mom and dad took turns parenting while the other would be out surveying and living in camps. “My mom is just as good of a carpenter as my dad, so my brother and I, we grew up around that and it normalizes it. You’re like, I probably can’t do it well, but I can probably do it right – that works.”
While Mason still has plans for a greenhouse on the back deck, a lower deck and a sauna, she says she is “so done with building” and is looking forward to simply enjoying her new space.
It’s an impressive feat, and according to Dahl, it’s well deserved and entirely on brand.
“If there’s anything in her life that captures who she is, it might be the fact that she built her own house,” he says. “Considering where she came from, everything she did, everything she went through … and after all that, she built her own beautiful home in the Yukon?! That, for me, is the essence of Aja.”
Looking to upgrade your education and open doors? Lethbridge Polytechnic’s Academic Upgrading program offers a direct path to post-secondary studies and career opportunities. With 17 courses available, including biology, chemistry, physics, math and English, students like Aja Mason gain the skills they need to transition into certificate, diploma, degree or apprenticeship programs. Ready to take the next step? Learn more at lethpolytech.ca/upgrading.
Award-Winning Activism
Mason’s work toward gender justice and equality was recognized in March when she was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal.
The medal is given to individuals who have made notable contributions to Canada, a specific province, territory, region or community, or who have achieved international distinction that brings recognition to Canada.
Mason was nominated by the Canadian Women’s Foundation for her efforts to promote evidence-informed decision-making and for her work to develop innovative research and tools on gender-based violence, socioeconomic disparities, and experiences of Indigenous women in mining to address critical rural and northern data gaps.
She was one of 40 Canadian Women’s Foundation recipients honoured during a virtual ceremony March 21.
“This recognition means a lot – not just on a personal level, but because it reflects the kind of work that often happens in under-resourced, remote and politically complex spaces,” Mason says.
She also notes the medal isn’t just about work that’s been done but work that’s yet to come.
“We’re entering a moment of global transformation,” she says. “AI, climate crisis, institutional volatility – these are shaping the world faster than policy frameworks can keep up. And we, as gender justice advocates, need to be at the centre of how intelligence, infrastructure and governance are being reimagined.”
