I began beading in the first winter of the pandemic (January 2021) after speaking to an Elder (virtually). She knew I was struggling with stress and anxiety and suggested I learn to bead, as a way to find something to connect to since all community events were postponed and/or cancelled. I have learned how to bead from the online community, through youtube and Instagram. I also learned from fellow beaders via informal beading circles.

Beading has given me space to connect with myself and my culture on a deeper level. Beading has filled me with a sense of purpose and worth that nothing else in my life has ever been able to do. Now that community events are opening up again, I have a growing sense that I want to become part of the Indigenous arts community.

I am an educator, researcher, public servant, and proud mother of three beautiful children. I grew up in The Pas, a small town in Northern Manitoba. I hold a Bachelor of Physical Education, and a Bachelor of Education with a minor in Native Studies from the University of Manitoba (U of M). During my time in Winnipeg, I also worked with local Indigenous youth at Children of the Earth high school, at a drop-in after-school program and mentorship program via a research grant through the U of M. I completed my Master of Arts in Education (M.A.Ed.) at the University of Ottawa. My thesis was centred on the phenomenon of learning to teach in relation and is informed by a relational, embodied framework centred on the teachings found within the medicine wheel.

I moved out East in 2009 and started having children in the years that followed. In pre-pandemic times, while juggling babies, thesis writing, and work, I did my best to maintain a connection to the local Indigenous community, and to my own Anishinaabe, Nehiyawak, and Métis culture. I worked as a KAIROS blanket exercise facilitator, took in-person Anishinaabemowin classes, participated in sharing circles, and attended pow-wows with my kids, ceremony, and Elder teachings. I attended regular smudges and teachings through the Kumik Lodge and Iskotew Lodge (Government lodges). In addition, now that our school community is opening up again, I am working within my children's elementary school to build up the Indigenous parents group and to create a Reconciliation Circle to advance Truth and Reconciliation at their school.