Sonja Leverkus '97 | Alumni Profile
Sometimes to understand where someone is going you have to take a look back at her past. In order to trace her passion for the outdoors and the environment, you need to go back to Sonja Leverkus '97's (Groves') childhood, growing up on cattle ranches.
"The first ranch I lived on was in Southern Alberta, where the porcupine hills meet the prairies, and the prairies meet the Rocky Mountains," she explains. "Then we moved to the Windermere Valley, which is a t the height of the Rockies in the East Kootenays. So to say that my love of the environment is in my blood is an understatement, to say the least!"
A School Prefect and Head of Groves' House during her time at Shawnigan, Sonja earned a degree in Environmental Biology from McGill University in Montreal. She then moved back to Vancouver Island to pursue her dream of making the Canadian National Rowing Team, earning a degree in French from the University of Victoria in the process. It was soon after her second convocation that Sonja faced a difficult decision: whether to continue in the pursuit of a dream or to heed the call of her lifelong passion and return to the natural resource management field.
In the end, her true passion won out, and Sonja became a Range Agrologist and Tenures Forester in the Fort Nelson Forest District in Northern BC. Her work takes her across a large swath of rugged terrain and sees her partner with land managers from the Yukon, Alaska, Alberta and the Northwest Territories who share her determination for keeping the area's fragile ecosystem in balance. While she loves her job and the people she works with, however, Sonja has seen the toll governmental cutbacks have taken on a wide variety of northern-based programs over recent years. It was this realization that led her to the decision to return to school and continue learning about the delicate balance between man and nature. In 2009, Sonja was accepted as a graduate student into the Natural Resource Ecology and Management Department at Oklahoma State University. She intends to complete her Masters and PhD designations at the school before returning home to BC to continue plying her trade.
"I hope that when I'm finished my schooling I'll be able to work not only in British Columbia but also nationally doing research on the effects of fire as a natural part of forestry disturbance," she says.
"Forest fires are not necessarily always a bad thing. In fact, it is a critical component of ecosystems and rangelands globally and it is important that we learn to strike a balance between science and socio-political movements."
No matter where her professional career takes her, Sonja is committed to being an advocate for and positive influence on all of the world around her, including "all the four leggeds, two leggeds, finned, winged and rooted." Despite her busy schedule, Sonja says she often finds herself thinking fondly of her time at Shawnigan and credits her years here as critical in her intellectual development.
"There is not a day that goes by where I don't thank my lucky stars for my experiences at Shawnigan. It was instrumental in pushing me academically, but also in supporting and nurturing my beliefs and development into a "global citizen." Shawnigan always allowed me to explore and pursue my passions, but it also provided me with a second family that I can always rely on for support and love. For that, I will forever be grateful."
PAST ALUMNI PROFILES CAN BE FOUND HERE:
Molly Duignan '98