[3] Hickes was born to an Inuit family near Ports Point in the Northwest Territories (now Nunavut), and was raised in Churchill, Manitoba.
He caught beluga whales in his youth (a long-standing tradition in Inuit culture), and earned the nickname "coldwater cowboy" for working without the aid of nets.
[4] Hickes worked as a heavy equipment operator at the Tar Sands Project in Fort McMurray, Alberta in the early 1970s, and held a variety of jobs in Churchill during the same period.
[7] He later worked as executive director of the Limestone Training and Employment Agency near Gillam, Manitoba, and assisted in designing an education program for the Yukon.
[10] He played a prominent role in having November 8 designated as a day to recognize Manitoba's aboriginal veterans, and successfully called for legislation requiring that cooking liqueurs sold in the province have no more than 25% alcohol content.
Hickes was challenged for the Point Douglas NDP nomination by fellow legislator Conrad Santos, whose Broadway constituency had been eliminated.
[13] The NDP won a majority government in the 1999 election, and Hickes defeated Santos, Denis Rocan and Marcel Laurendeau in a free vote of the assembly to become its new speaker.