ATHABASCA — Former Edwin Parr Composite (EPC) graduate and Colinton-area farm kid Emma Kamelchuk has always had big dreams of a life spent caring for animals, and her recent convocation from the University of Alberta has put her one step closer to turning those dreams into reality.
Kamelchuk crossed the convocation stage in Edmonton like every other graduate on June 16, but the proud Athabasca local stood out from the crowd, and for good reason. Not only did she receive her Bachelor of Science in Animal Health, but she was also recognized for her outstanding academic achievements.
“Emma Kamelchuk is this year’s recipient of the Right Honourable CD Howe Memorial Fellowship, our most prestigious convocation undergraduate monetary award,” said U of A President Bill Flanagan in a speech on stage.
The CD Howe scholarship is awarded to the undergraduate student with the highest overall standing in their degree program. For her efforts in her four years in the agricultural life and environmental sciences faculty, Kamelchuk was awarded a $7,500 endowment.
And the extra recognition didn’t stop there; Kamelchuk earned one of three Governor General Silver Medals awarded for achieving the highest standing in her program. She also secured the Dean’s medal for earning the top spot in the faculty during the last two years of the program, and convocated with distinction.
“I found out I’d won these awards almost a month before my convocation,” said Kamelchuk. “But finally the realization of the significance of them and just how prestigious and amazing these awards are really hit in that moment.”
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I did a really big thing and this is really, really exciting.’ It just made it feel all the more fulfilling and all the more exciting to be there,” she added. “It’s so humbling and such a huge honour.”
Kamelchuk’s academic prowess was also on full display during her time in Athabasca. Graduating from EPC in 2021 with an average in the high nineties, she said friendly competition for the top spot among her classmates was strong.
But a love for learning has always been a feature of Kamelchuk’s personality, especially when it comes to the study of and care of animals, which she saw modelled by her father and grandfather, or ‘Gido.’
“Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a vet.”
Born on a beef farm, she recalls fond memories of chores with her dad, scenes of cattle grazing outside the windows, and her own first furry friend in the field, who she named Missy.
“She was a blonde d’Aquitaine, she had a little daughter named Joey and they were just my pride and joy as a seven-year-old,” said Kamelchuk.
“My Gido, he would take me to go to collect eggs from his chickens, or we’d go and see his cows and walk through his cows with the dog. Seeing his love for the animals and seeing my dad’s love for the animals, and just witnessing from such a young age how incredible animals are, it truly just sparked something in me.”
Kamelchuk said her late Gido, better known to the community as Mike Kamelchuk, was a go-to source of knowledge and hands-on expertise in the local farming community, always eager and willing to help neighbours, friends and family.
Now, with her academic awards and scholarships in hand, Kamelchuk will continue her post-secondary education at the University of Calgary this fall as she enters the faculty of veterinary medicine.
“I partially think that my want to be a veterinarian is genetic. My Gido, I’ve heard stories that when calving season would get crazy, the vets would be like, ‘Go call Mike Kamelchuk, and if Mike Kamelchuk can’t get it, then I’m going to come out and help you,’” she said, adding vet medicine was also a passion of her father’s for a time.
In the meantime, Kamelchuk is keeping busy working on the U of A cattle ranch as part of the Climate Action Through Grazing project, studying the impacts of rotational grazing on land and livestock well-being and sustainability, and co-owns a cattle company with her sisters.
Once finished vet school in southern Alberta, Kamelchuk plans to return to the Athabasca area to help fill the gap in rural vet availability, get back to the lifestyle of farming and production she grew up enjoying, and sharing her own knowledge and expertise with neighbours and fellow farmers.
“There’s such an immense shortage of vets in Alberta right now, especially large animal vets,” she said. “Farmers are such an integral and important part of our communities and I guess I want to pay that back in a sense; all that they’ve given me, and all that hard work they put in.”
In addition to giving back to the community that raised her, she’s eager to continue the Kamelchuk family tradition of passionate animal husbandry she learned from her father and grandfather.
“There is a weight to carrying on the legacy in that sense, but just the honour of being able to carry on legacy — I really want to steward it well,” she said. “They sparked that in me… there are very few things that fill me with as much joy.”
“I just really hope that Gido is up in heaven and smiling down on me.”
