Assiniboia welcomes Weyburn Red Wings with open arms during ammonia shutdown
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Billets were found for all Red Wings players in just four hours.
A radio quietly played in the corner, the sound punctuated by the whirring of sewing machines run by students in the sewing lab at F.W. Johnson Collegiate.
During the lunch hour on Wednesday in the sewing lab, Emily Desjarlais, 18, was finishing up her ribbon skirt, preparing it to wear the next day at the graduation powwow at the First Nations University of Canada.
The skirt is part of Desjarlais’ culture — women need to wear floor-length skirts for Indigenous ceremonies — but she didn’t learn how to make it at home. She learned it at school.
“I just thought it was a perfect time to make one and not have to have someone make it for me,” said Desjarlais.
Deanna Pelletier is the Indigenous Advocate at the school. She said in the fall they did sage picking, but many of the girls didn’t have the long skirts needed. That gave Pelletier the idea for the ribbon skirts — she brought in a resource person in April.
“She came and did about a six-week course with us, doing the teachings with us, and then it kind of just blossomed from there,” Pelletier said.
The resource person explained the significance of colours and the shape of the skirt; it’s shaped similar to a teepee. Pelletier said the skirts are worn so that Mother Earth would feel your presence when you’re walking.
Now that some of the students have made their skirts, they’ve started wearing them. Pelletier said some were worn at a flag-raising ceremony in mid-May.
“It fills my heart, because I’d like to see the girls be proud of who they are, and walk in a good way,” said Pelletier.
Desjarlais called it “pretty awesome” that there are Indigenous clubs and teachings at school. She said when her siblings were at the same school 15 years ago, there was nothing like that.
“But now that I’m in Grade 12, it’s pretty nice to be able to jump into it with other people and learn along the way as I do it myself as well,” she said.
When Pelletier was in school about 20 years ago, she said there wasn’t a lot for Indigenous kids.
“I didn’t really know who I was in high school. It was kind of a journey that I have been on along with the students. As soon as I graduated I went to SUNTEP, the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program, and that’s really where I found who I was and started to become proud of who I was, and so if I can help individuals find that earlier in life … I’m really passionate about it,” said Pelletier.
The skirt Desjarlais made for herself has blue and white ribbon, colours she chose for a reason.
“For me, (it’s) just because I’m also Métis, and royal blue and white is on the Métis flag. So for me, that really commemorated who I am,” explained Desjarlais.
She made another ribbon skirt as a gift for the school’s outgoing superintendent. Pelletier said the woman had tears in her eyes when she was presented with the gift.
Desjarlais said things like the ribbon skirts are really important for the younger girls. She said it’s good that they’re starting younger and digging back into who they are.
Pelletier said the girls are excited about the projects. She said she mainly has Grade 9 students making them right now, and sometimes, on days when she wasn’t planning on opening up the sewing lab, they’ll come and ask her to because they want to work.