As an energy auditor and Faithful Footprints lead for Newo, Nicole Welykochy brings expertise and enthusiasm for helping people improve their buildings, meet emissions goals and make a positive impact on their communities.

life story so far

Born in Edmonton, Nicole grew up camping and spending time in nature with her parents, brother and a beagle named Majik.

“My dad is that kind of guy — a live-off-the-land, survival type — who goes into the forest and he’s like, ‘You know, you could eat this berry if you needed it,’” she said. His influence instilled in her a love of foraging, drawing and cooking wild mushrooms.

As a child, Nicole could either be found with her nose in a giant book or playing sports with the boys. You name it, she did it: diving, baseball, volleyball (but not soccer!). She competed in gymnastics at a national level, attending St. Francis Xavier, a sport academy highschool, where she trained 25 hours a week in addition to academic classes.

Right out of high school, she set out to travel and work in Australia for almost a year, fighting through homesickness.

“We were taking off, and the whole epicness of the future sank in, and I just about lost it,” she recalled. “It really made me realize what a huge part of my life my family is, and made me truly appreciate them in a way that I hadn’t acknowledged yet as a ‘strong, independent teenager.’”

Foraging
Gymnast
With fiancé, Josh

turning points

When Nicole returned to Canada, she went straight into business school and majored in finance, in hindsight a field which she likely would have found unfulfilling. Luckily, a class with an inspiring instructor prompted a switch to political science.

“This woman, just the way that she talked about taking an obscure government mandate and explaining it to those who don’t necessarily have that kind of policy education…I was just like, ‘Wow, I want to do something like this. I want to make a difference.’ And that was hugely empowering.”

After graduating with her undergraduate degree, her education took another turn.

“I was originally going to go to law school: applied, jumped through all the hoops, got into UVic and then was like, ‘I don’t want to be a cog. Do I even believe in the mechanism that I’m trying to be a part of?” she said. “I didn’t want to just be a talking head or a bureaucrat. I wanted to have some kind of direction.”

She explored policy work, hoping to find a way to protect nature and the environment, and eventually enrolled in NAIT’s alternative energy technology program.

“I really like the creativity in the industry. These are my people. There’s no complacency,” she said.

Following the program, she took part in a global outreach initiative to install solar and Starlink internet service for a school in a remote community in Peru, 3,920 metres above sea level in the Andes.

“There’s no air. You walk a block, you walk from the house to the bathroom and you’re out of breath. It was wild,” she said. “These people never had internet or electricity before. And just thinking about how internet changes people is mind boggling to me. Suddenly you just have all the access. It’s kind of scary, but really, really cool.”

She had just returned home from the trip, when tragedy hit; two close friends died, in quick succession. She took a year to recenter and reassess.

“That whole experience really made me go, ‘OK, well, what’s important to me? It’s helping people and it’s being able to give back,’” she said. “So I started applying to not-for-profits and then Newo found me!”

Nicole and her family
Out in nature

core values

Nicole values vulnerability, being open with, and there for, friends and family, and having that reciprocated. She also loves whimsy. She started a chat group with friends just to share “glimmers,” photos and descriptions of small things that make the participants happy.

“I enjoy enjoying things, and living in the moment, and noticing, and meaningful interaction with everything,” she said. An acupuncturist introduced her to mindfulness practice while she was in the throes of grief and accompanying bouts of severe anxiety. “Mindfulness has changed my life. If I just pay attention to now, I’m not spinning in my brain about later, because tomorrow never comes. It’s infinite stress. I can make up all the scenarios I want, but if I’m not living now, I’m not able to have a positive influence.”

Her fiancé, Josh, is also her rock, often noticing she’s anxious before she does and suggesting she invest time in the activities that ground her: working with plants or cooking (the rhythmic chop, chop, chop, of preparing vegetables for soup soothes her soul).

“I’m just open to the goodness. I try not to focus on any of the negatives, and I literally think I’m the luckiest person. It’s beyond luck. I feel like I am consistently on the receiving end of the good stuff in the universe.”

Jamming
Singing with the band

rooted in people or place

For Nicole, the place she feels most connected to is a favourite camping spot called Dry Haven, near Nordegg. She has been going there since high school with a group of friends, who even named their band “Thompson Highway” after the route to the cherished place.

“Up there is just the happy place, you know. You camp at this little campground. And then there’s a path that you walk down through a huge, mossy, treed area, down to this little creek where over the years we’ve slowly built up (in a non-destructive way) rocks into hot tub structures in the glacier-fed stream.”

A keen mycophile, her love for anything to do with wild mushrooms — foraging, drawing, cooking, the science behind the interconnectedness of everything — draws her out into the woods alone, as well.

“It’s just you, immersed in nature, and sometimes you find good stuff to eat. So then it’s a bonus,” she laughed. “It would be good without the snacks, but everything’s better with snacks!”