Photo by Dave Swiewicki

Desiree Dorion was born to play country music. Growing up in rural Manitoba, Dorion’s love of music led her to riding her bike to the Dauphin’s Countryfest, the longest-running country music festival in Canada, as a little girl.

By the time she was five, the Juno nominee and member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation was writing her own music, scribbling lyrics into notebooks. At 12, a performance at a northern Manitoba banquet caught the ear of an investor who funded her first album. While most kids her age were saving their babysitting money, Dorion was recording songs and balancing school assignments with studio sessions. While song writing and creating came naturally to her, Dorion describes the difficulty she faced growing up in the industry.

“The part that was hard, I think, was being a young girl and not being particularly worldly. I was pretty naive. I grew up in the country and having to go to a photo shoot as a teenager, those kinds of things were very intimidating to me. And then putting trust in what is mostly a male-dominated industry,” Dorion said. “Trusting the men that I was working with and trusting them with my physical safety. I was really fortunate that I worked with a lot of really good men, but it was really intimidating as a young person.”

Her commitment paid off. Since 2010, she has recorded six albums, with a new album set to be released in early 2026. Dorion is a four-time Manitoba Country Music Award winner who just received five nominations this year, in addition to being an ambassador for The Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund and former host of the Canadian Country Music Association’s Achimotak Series, which highlights Indigenous voices in music. Yet even as her career flourished, Dorion kept a practical plan in mind.

“Back then, you could get two years out of an album, which is significantly different than it is today, but I knew that the process of producing and recording was expensive,” Dorion explains. “So when I graduated high school, I went to university with the intention of becoming a lawyer so that I could essentially finance my music career.”

If that balance of realism and passion defines her journey, so too does her commitment to lifting others up along the way. A few years ago, Dorion took a hard look at her own career and realized most of her collaborators were non-Indigenous. “Meanwhile, I’m advocating for Indigenous inclusion. It felt really hypocritical of me. I thought that I need to be practicing what I’m preaching,” Dorion says.

She ensures that 67 percent of her band members are Indigenous, including musicians Michel Bruyere on drums and Leroy Constant on bass. In her latest single “Let Them,” she worked primarily with Indigenous artists.

Dorion has stepped up to be an advocate for Indigenous women in music. She argues that women country singers often have an expiration date, with very few women over 40 receiving chart success or winning awards. “The second that a woman doesn’t have mass appeal physically, then they don’t get to stay in that space,” she says.

This reality pushes Dorion to keep evolving—both musically and professionally. Along with mentoring young artists, she and her partner are
launching an artist development company to help emerging talent navigate the industry safely and successfully through putting them in touch with folks in their networks.

Still, at the heart of it all, Dorion’s focus never strays far from home. She’s the mother of two daughters, who watch her carve a life out of melodies, long drives, and late-night rehearsals.

“I mostly just hope that my girls will be inspired to do what they love and to be passionate about what it is that they’re doing, whatever field they choose to work in, and that they have the confidence to move through life to do that for themselves,” Dorion says. “Ultimately, that’s what I hope my legacy is, that it’s inspiring my own daughters.”

From the girl on the bike chasing the sounds of Countryfest to the woman now shaping the stage for the next generation, Desiree Dorion hasn’t just found her own voice. She’s making sure others find theirs, too.