bridgit thomas

Bridgit was born on February 28th, 1989. 

Her mom is half Ojibwe, half Icelandic, enrolled with the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Her dad is half Cree, half Afro Guyanese, enrolled with the Lac La Ronge Band (though he moved to the United States). She considers her Ojibwe, Cree, Afro Guyanese, and Icelandic cultures all very important to her.

She is an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, and grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation, specifically in the town of Cass Lake (a town of only 757 people).

She did competitve artistic gymnastics growing up.

She has 10 siblings, all girls, all younger than her. In order of age, from youngest to oldest, they are 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, and 28. The 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, and 24 year olds all still live in Minnesota. The 23 and 25 year olds live in Wisconsin. The 27 and 28 year olds live in New Jersey.

She speaks a little Anishinaabemowin, but not enough to get by if she would ever be put in a situation where she had to speak it solely.

Although she claims to love her family (her parents and her ten younger sisters), she left Cass Lake for Las Vegas the day after she graduated from high school when she was 18 without telling anyone. She gives different answers anytime she is asked why she is left Minnesota, nobody but her knowing the truth.

The truth is that she could not deal with the pressure of being the one that all of her ten younger sisters looked up to anymore, especially as the ages of her siblings at the time were 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, and 16. Most weren’t even teenagers yet, she was idolized in their eyes. This especially became true as she lost her place in the pre-med program at the University of Minnesota due to how badly she did in her senior year of high school. She realized that she would rather die than stay in Minnesota any longer, so she packed up her bags and left.

In Las Vegas, she did her paramedic training while working as a waitress to make ends meet.

She was overwhelmed in the big city, and shortly after finishing her paramedic training, she looked for jobs in a place with a population number that was closer to home. Definitely nothing more than 2,000 people. She saw that there was an opening in Perfection Valley, a place even smaller than home, and applied in a heartbeat. She was overwhelmed in a very different way, this time with happiness when she got the job.

For a while, she lived in the Desert Inn, as she became accustomed to the town and looked for a permanent place to live.

She eventually did find a permanent place to live, of course, and has been in Perfection Valley about ten years now.

She took her first overseas vacation for the first time in her life a year ago, spending two weeks in Iceland and two weeks in Guyana. She did not contact her family to tell them she was going and didn’t see her Icelandic or Guyanese family. She spent it all by herself. 

Frankly, while she tells everyone she still loves them, she cut off contact with them when she was 19, her parents kept trying to get her to return and she felt guilt-tripped with stories of her siblings. So she stopped responding to any methods that they tried to reach out on. She gets sad on birthdays, her own and her family members’, and her parents’ anniversaries. But she never reaches out. Or lets them reach out.

For the record, she is pansexual.

Her mom grew up Lutheran and her dad grew up Pentecostal. As a result, her and her sisters were raised non-denominational Christian, though had influences from Lutheranism and Pentecostalism. She considers herself mainly non-religious now, though.

I’ll eventually get a real, proper biography up but that could take months so have this in the meantime. If there’s anything you want to know about her, just shoot me an IM on here or discord.

ABOUT THE MUN (NATALIE).