He believes in breaking cycles and making music. Dakota Favel was born in Île-à-la-Crosse, Saskatchewan and his bloodline comes from the Fort Chipewyan area. He didn’t find out he was a treaty member until he was 28 because they thought his grandfather had signed over his rights. Favel has been a professional musician for the past 25 years, with his career having taken off in July of 1999. Day after day, he practiced, entering talent shows and trying to get his name out there before it finally worked.

Off-stage, he’s an Indigenous student mentor for the Saskatchewan Rivers public school division. Favel worked with Eagles Nest Youth Ranch as a youth care leader for six years before that. Originally, he wanted to go into policing, but he made some life choices before he got sober that interfered with that plan. He’s been sober for four years now and has worked hard to take accountability and make changes in that time. “I can't change things in the past, but I can correct them and not allow those mistakes to happen again,” he reflects.

Living the music lifestyle, playing in bars, Favel found himself skyrocketing in the music scene while his own life was sinking due to his drinking and partying. When his brother passed away, he shut down and put his guitar away, not releasing any new music. He was nominated for and received Male Vocalist of the Year for the Saskatchewan Indigenous Music Award Association.

As an artist, Favel hungered to inspire listeners. “All in all, I just want to help one person… There's so much more to life out there. Yes, we might be stuck on the reservation, or we might be stuck in a small town, and we can get ourselves down and we get depressed…Those are temporary things, right here… If you're one of those people that just find yourself stuck, you have to change that process of thinking like, ‘Okay, this is temporary. What do I gotta do to get out?’ You gotta set goals, right?” he encourages, urging breaking cycles by going to university or turning away from substances, walking away from the things that held back the generations before.

“It all starts somewhere. But that somewhere has to start with you, right?” Favel continues, thinking about the rock bottoms that people come back from and all the cycles that can be broken by making the choice to move away from addiction, intergenerational trauma and other challenges. “I'm just so passionate about breaking cycles because I suffered and I saw my mom and my dad and my brothers and my sisters suffer and I still see it to this day working in youth care,” he explains.

Favel’s been invited to do public speaking to share his story of overcoming addictions, trauma and childhood abuse. Raised by a mentally, physically and emotionally abusive father who was a residential school survivor, he has compassion for what his dad went through and understands he didn’t know how to raise a child. His mother was an intergenerational survivor too and the trauma between both of his parents caused a lot of challenges. The experience of being raised that way taught him a lot about healing and the need to love oneself first.

If Favel could give a message to his younger self it would be, “It's gonna be okay. You're gonna struggle, but it's gonna be okay.”  He would show himself the love he didn’t have growing up, because without it, he looked for validation from the outside world instead of looking for it inside. “It's nice getting outside attention, right? But it's just a temporary high,” he confides.

What Favels learned over time is about being himself: raw and relatable. That authenticity is what audiences connect with and what he wants to offer on stage. He’s also learned about karma and giving what he has out into the world, knowing it will come back to him. Favel also has found he has to speak his mind without fear of other people’s opinions, something that has been hard for him as someone who grew up with abuse.

He’s also learned to do what he wants to do in this world and encourages others to do the same. “Do what makes you happy and I guarantee you're gonna live one hell of a life if you do it. If you don't, you're just gonna keep going around and around and around and around,” Favel advises. He recommends writing down future goals to put them out into the universe but he also knows you need to work for them. “Things are not going to change. You have to make it happen for yourself. Stop moping around. Get up. Just do it,” he urges.

To take care of his mental health, Favel talks to a higher power. It’s a practice he’s adopted recently. Playing music is another way he gets his energy out, along with playing video games, and writing poetry.

Breaking cycles and making music, Dakota Favel is inspiring change wherever he goes. As a motivational speaker, he’s sharing his story so others can find their own paths and hope to move forward. His plan to go into policing didn’t work out but he found a life that makes him happy all the same and it sounds like songs people love to hear.

Thank you to Alison Tedford for writing this article!