A Battleford woman has had success spreading an environmental message on the pageant circuit.
Brittney St. Amant has competed recently for Saskatchewan at the Miss Earth Canada pageant in Montreal.
In the pageant held Aug. 23, St. Amant was fourth-runner up, earning the national title of Miss Fire Canada as a result.
The pageant winner was Cynthia Loewen of Ontario, who will now represent Canada at the international competition.
While some major pageants, notably Miss America, do have a component where contestants are able to promote a cause of one sort or another, all the candidates in the Miss Earth competition shared a similar common purpose.
"Miss Earth is all about raising environmental awareness," said St. Amant.
"All of the girls who get to compete in it, they have to do a provincial and then a national, and from the national you get to go on to the worldwide competition, but basically it's to pick the most environmentally-friendly and knowledgeable girl on all sustainable issues. It's actually really good because it's not so much about the beauty pageant but more so the environmental aspect."
She had competed earlier in the provincial competition in Saskatoon in July where she placed as the first-runner up, earning the provincial title of Miss Air Saskatchewan 2014.
That allowed her to compete in the national competition, she said.
As part of her entry she submitted a 1,000-word essay on the topic of what she thought "beauty for a cause" is.
"I went personal with mine," said St. Amant. "I described why I believe I'm a 'beauty for a cause' and I talked about the environment and what I'm doing in school and what my plans for the future are."
She placed in the top five in Canada with that essay, which allowed her to present it to everyone in the audience.
The experience in Montreal was a bit nerve-wracking because this was her first time competing in pageants, she said.
"All the other girls there have been in a lot of different pageants throughout their lives so I was the newbie," she said.
"Once I got there it was unbelievable, the support of the girls. I wasn't expecting the girls to have the attitude, the positive attitude that they had."
They all became friends, she said, and "I think they'll become lifelong friends of mine."
Her motivation to compete stemmed from her long-standing interest in the environment.
At a young age, growing up in Battleford, she expressed a desire to want to work for National Geographic one day.
"Ever since I was really little I've always had a huge passion for environmental sciences."
She will be returning to the University of Saskatchewan this fall to study her final year of environmental sciences with a specialization in geomatics.
This summer, St. Amant returned to the Battlefords to live with her mother and work with the Battlefords Family Health Centre's community garden.
"I've gotten an opportunity to educate people in the community on sustainability and different gardening and growing ideas," St. Amant said.
Brittney also has a passion for learning new languages. She is fluent in English and French and also has been learning Spanish and the Filipino language of Tugalog.
In the future St. Amant has plans to pursue field work with her degree.
"I would like to do some assistant field work and research because I'm focused on the protection of habitats and species with my degree. So I don't want to be doing the lab specialization but rather out in the field collecting data."
She is hoping to get some experience within the Kananaskis research centre or get some experience in the Arctic. Beyond that, she still wants to pursue her dream of working for National Geographic.
"Hopefully by the age of 25 I'll be doing the young explorers program with National Geographic, doing field work and research."
