Neepin Auger | Top 40 Under 40 2025

Age: 37

Occupation: Artist; Vice-Principal, Manyhorses High School

Despite never attending high school (because she was homeschooled), Neepin Auger is the vice-principal at Manyhorses High School on the Tsuut’ina Nation.

The artist and educator, originally from the Bigstone Cree Nation in Treaty 8, comes from a family that instilled in her the importance of higher education. Her mother, Grace Auger, is a provincial court judge, and her late father, Dale Auger, had a PhD in education.

They also encouraged her to keep her Indigenous culture close to her through art. Her father was an accomplished painter who showed his paintings in the Calgary Stampede‘s Western Showcase Art Show and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2009.

When Auger had her own daughter at age 19, it inspired her to go back to school, and she eventually graduated as part of Mount Royal University’s (MRU) first Bachelor of Education class in 2015.

She then completed her master’s degree at the University of Calgary. Through it all, painting remained her anchor.

“It’s energy,” Auger says. “It’s a movement. These paintings say who I am.”

Rich with Indigenous motifs and vibrant colours, her work is a form of cultural storytelling and often focuses on her Indigenous cultural background as a Cree woman.

This past June, Auger’s daughter graduated from the same school where Auger is vice-principal, and started at MRU in September. Meanwhile, Auger continues to balance her many hats: educator, artist and mother. She sells more than 25 paintings each year, and, since 2020, her paintings have been exhibited at the Stampede’s Art Show, just like her father’s were.

She was recently commissioned by Calgary’s new BMO Centre, where her painting highlights her work as an Indigenous artist. Auger is also an accomplished author, illustrating four children’s books about Indigenous culture and publishing them in English, Cree and French.

“I think connecting people is a part of that story I tell in my work,” says Auger. “They are a part of that spirit that’s in the painting and the story and energy that’s there.”

Thank yous
“I would like to thank my family, my husband Gil for always supporting me when times get tough, my daughter Gracie for being the driving force of my life and my mom and dad for showing me what was possible.”