Episode 3: Cassandra Woolever - Cultural Reclamation Through Métis Art | Our Voices, Our Work | A series on reconciliation
Transcript of Episode 3: Cassandra Woolever
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Our Voices, Our Work
Conversations on Community, Care, and Connection
Casandra Woolever, Founder of Métis Branded
Todd Lyons: Atamiskātōwin! Greetings, everyone. I'm Todd Lyons, and welcome to Our Voices, Our Work— conversations on community care and connection. In each episode, I chat with folks across the country to learn about what they do and how it contributes to the larger story of Indigenous reconciliation in Canada. My team and I are in Ottawa, and we wish to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people and my guest today is Casandra Woolever, cultural teacher and maker of capotes, sashes, ribbon skirts, and more. And she joins us from Winnipeg. Welcome, Casandra.
Casandra Woolever: Thank you for having me.
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Todd Lyons
Indigenous Services Canada
Casandra Woolever
Founder of Métis Branded, Manitoba
Todd Lyons:
Maybe to start out, can you share a bit about your—your reconnection journey? What led you to founding Métis Branded and to reclaiming cultural practices through material and craft?
Casandra Woolever:
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm in my 40s, and I did not find out I was Métis until I was in university when I was 24. In fact, I didn't even know what a residential school was, really. What we were taught in school was that it was a school made for children who could not access schooling. And so when I was in grade three, I thought, "Hey, that's a really cool thing that the Canadian government would be funding all this." It was a huge shock and surprise as I went back into university as a mature student to find out, first off, that kind of truth, and then, secondly, my older brother, he was the one that did our genealogy and he, he's like, "Hey, we're Métis." And then it kind of occurred to me throughout growing up, that I was really interested in the Métis culture, like the Festival du Voyageur. I never understood why I was so drawn to certain things and being so creative in certain ways. So when I found out, I kind of dabbled in learning a little bit. I really didn't know where to start.
But then in 2015, I had my son, and I named him Hudson, and it was when I had him that I realized I need to raise him in this environment. I need him to not—not know that he's Métis. And so, it was him that really kickstarted my whole journey. And I made him his very first capote. I always wanted a capote, but no one ever sold them, so I didn't know where I could buy one. I didn't know what the meaning was, but I went to the thrift store, and I took apart a toddler jacket that he fit, that he could fit. And I bought it, and I looked at patterns, and then I bought wool blankets, and then I made him his very first one.
And then from there, I just kind of spent more time reading and checking out my history. And then I got more involved with the community in certain ways, and I found out where my local was, and I found that I could vote. That was interesting. My very first local meeting, sitting in there, like kind of going like this with my hand, like just kind of lifting it up a little bit, like, can I, am I allowed to, or is there supposed to be some kind of hierarchy? So that was kind of a revelation. And then my daughter came, and then I made her first capote, and then people went absolutely bonkers because a lot of people were going, "You can't find where people make capotes." And then they'd ask me, and when they saw my little babies wearing them, and they loved that. And so it kind of just started as like a, like, "I can make you a custom capote. No problem."
And then I wanted to learn more about sashes. And so I spent a lot of time kind of researching those. And then I wanted to make one for my kids and for my family. And then, you know, I just started reading more. I took a small class, I figured it out, and then I, it just kind of—kind of walks up the step of like, well, it goes from one thing to the next to the next. And so, because I was making capotes at such an alarming rate when HBC was still around, I wanted to match sashes to that, or to make family sashes, because another business in this city, who is very popular and very well known, and I love him, his sashes, he mass produces them. Whereas if you wanted to order just, like, one or two for your family, it was quite hard for a place for you to find that unless you knew someone who did it. And you know, unless you're really into Facebook groups and all that kind of stuff, it's really hard.
And so, I invested in my floor loom, which was fun enough as it was, because I pretty much let it sit for a year, and no one even knew I had it. And then I started making sashes from there. And, you know, from one day from there, I started trying to be able to be comfortable in teaching the culture because I was teaching it to my kids. But then there was a community surrounding me that wanted to be taught things, too, and I had to see myself in a teacher role, whereas I don't feel like I'm always a teacher. I feel a lot of the times I'm just a demonstrator.
Yeah, getting to that area of the confidence to teach and—and the sureness in yourself took a very long time for me to get to. But once I did, I started at Pineridge Hollow with my friend Shauna Cody. I brought that loom there, and I started making the orange sash for Truth and Reconciliation Day. And then teachers just kept coming. They thought it was an incredible thing, and that's where we are today. So, dabbling in our culture, researching more, doing a lot of reading, making kind of my own community around it have kind of strengthened me in my pursuit for my own kind of journey. But then I look at my kids, and they're fully encapsulated in the Métis culture. So, it's really a pleasure to see them because I'm the one breaking the barrier, but they're the ones living in the garden afterwards, so I like that a lot.
Todd Lyons:
It is a great gift to be able to give them, from a very early age, what it's taken you a long time to—to reclaim all by yourself. And you mentioned confidence and some other stuff. Thinking about that whole journey, when you look back at what you first knew about yourself as a young person and what you knew about Métis culture at that time, versus you in the present, in the now, what's—what's really changed for you?
Casandra Woolever:
So growing the confidence was a heavy load at first, when I started getting more into it and creating the community around just being able to be some type of... I guess, marker for people to come ask questions to, in a safe space, for that to happen.
It was kind of around the time of COVID, and on TikTok back then—woo—I'm still not on TikTok anymore.
I got off of it, but it was a heavy place. People were very judgmental, like, I'm too white, right? So I can't be Indigenous, and you better prove your indigeneity. And, oh, so it's your fifth-great-grandfather. So you're like that person who says you're the Cherokee, you know, Cherokee Princess, and all this kind of stuff was very harmful. And it made me, like, scared. It made me very scared for a very long time, and questioned myself and I questioned my identity, and, you know, not feel proud of where I came from because of the way people treated me, and others like me, and the people who would come to ask for support. And I'm like, I'm in the same boat as you. I don't even know what to do anymore. I guess we're just going to have to brush it off.
And then I guess one day I just woke up and I thought, who are you to tell me who I am? You don't know what I've been through, and you don't know the travels I've been through.
And not too long ago, back in, like, 2020, I suffered from really... And I still do to this day, serious social anxiety. But then when I get in front of kids, they're just so forgiving. They're loving. They ask questions. Like, I can engage any child at that loom, whether it's, like, the kids like the mechanics, or they want to understand, like, the science behind the loom, or they like the weaving aspect. Like a lot of Indian families, their grandmas use looms back at home. And so they come up and talk.
And so I've learned to be confident in front of kids, not so much with adults, because I find that they're very judgmental, and they can be very rude. But kids—a kid could call me fat, and I can be like, you're right. And, you know, I'll get on with it because they're just a kid, right? They probably pick their nose later that day. I'm okay with it.
But they're really—they're really just so absorbent. And if you get them when they're really interested, you can get an entire class, no matter if they're, like, a disruptive kid or they're the funny kid, they'll be the kind of kid who is surrounding my loom and super interested in it for, like, my full 45-minute presentation.
And I love that. And so they're the ones that actually helped me build my confidence, aside from anything else.
I did have confidence once, and I did speak up about some things, and the backlash for that was pretty bad. And so now I'm just going to stick to where I feel the most safe, and the most comfortable, happens to be with kids, and I like it.
Todd Lyons:
So I've heard about your sash projects in schools and in community spaces. What do you think the children and youth learn when they participate in weaving or choosing colours for their own pieces that they make?
Casandra Woolever:
That's a great question. So some schools just go with their school colours, which, not that it's bad. They have different meanings for their school colours, obviously, but some of them really get into allowing the kids to have some type of, I don't know, a project around a colour. Right. So one of the last schools I went to, it was purple because the slide outside was purple, and all of them grew up on it.
And another one, their—their school motto was "avec coeur", so, which is "with heart." And then so they took the anagram of the word coeur, and they changed it. So, like, yellow meant joy, and, like, that was, like, their school motto.
And I thought that was so beautiful in its own aspect, because sashes themselves are such amazing storytellers. There are so many different types of sashes, and learning to read sashes is really complex too, because you don't know specifically if that blue represents the water or if it represents your kokum's favourite colour on her apron, like, you don't know.
But if someone teaches you that story, they kind of—they kind of really respect their own colours.
But yeah, no, the kids take, take away a lot. They learn about the fur trade. They learn about my family and my ties to Manitoba. They learn that I've never... my whole family has always lived in Winnipeg. We've been born here. We died here, like, we've been... I guess we really like winter. Like, I don't know what to say about that, but we've always been here.
And then, you know, when the last class comes in and I get to cut that sash off and they see it, they're just, they're touching it, and they love it. And I think it really excites them that they, they built their own story and they get to display that in their school.
And, you know, 20 years from now, there's going to be new kids in that school, and they're not going to know the story. But then those parents will come in. Those kids who were once kids will come in with their kids, maybe, and they'll say, I helped with that. And these colours meant this.
And that's the type of storytelling Métis people do, right? Generation after generation. And so I think it's just, it's such an incredible project that I just kind of fell into making. And it has now touched thousands of children's lives, and teachers, people who didn't understand a lot of Métis culture, sashes. You know, they ran around Festival du Voyageur wearing a sash. They don't even know what it represents, you know, and so having that ability to kind of teach them that at an early age and have the schools allow me in there is really, it's a special thing. It's a really special thing.
Todd Lyons:
It sounds like a legacy in the making, something you should be very proud of working on. Have people come to you and shared back how wearing something or making a piece of regalia changed how they see themselves or their identity?
Casandra Woolever:
Yeah, I've had a couple of teachers who talked about being Métis and how they've also dealt with the same kind of identity crisis, how they are excited to create their own patterns and their own colours for their own family sash. Right. And realizing they can do that, too.
When I first started making ribbon skirts, I actually went to an Elder in our community, and I said, "Are we, are we allowed to sell these?" And she said, "I've never even seen a Métis or a ribbon skirt growing up." And she's Métis. She's like, "My kokum always wore aprons." And so I thought it was really cute. So I made an apron for her. And then later down the line, she came to me and said, "Can you make me a ribbon skirt?"
I'm like, okay, so I feel okay then, because I'm not mass-producing ribbon skirts, and I'm not mass-producing sashes or anything like that. It's more so like I'm going into schools and doing the programming, and then if someone comes to me to have a special piece like that, then we really discuss it. We talk about the importance of colour. We talk about, you know, their storyline.
I once had a family who came to me with their kokum's favourite sweater. She had passed, and we took colours from that sweater, and we built a sash for her, for her family. And I thought that was such a sweet thing. So I smudged, like, the sweater and the sash, and the whole loom and everything, and it was kind of cathartic for the family to have that.
And I think it's really important that we document that. Right. Because the next generation, their parents are going to say, "This was, you know, this person." And when you look at your family line, that person is right there, and you get to connect with that. So I think it's really important that—that people allow themselves to connect.
Todd Lyons:
So Indigenous reconciliation, it's going to require the work of many, many people over many, many lifetimes. How do you see the act of cultural expression through sash weaving, capotes, ribbon skirts as part of reconciliation for Métis people and for—for Canada?
Casandra Woolever:
Wow. So, you know, we're part—we're part European, we're part First Nations—and knowing our First Nations, right?
So, having ribbon skirts and talking even about things like kokum scarves, right? That comes from the Ukrainian side. Those were, like, gifts from Ukraine, from the women there. Our bannock, too, is a shared thing.
So, acknowledging where things start is always a really interesting thing for me, because a lot of people just want to put a title on what is ours. Obviously, times have changed. It's not the same old Turtle Island it used to be. It's not, you know, Sixties Scoop times. We're allowed to be proud of where we come from.
But our culture has also kind of modeled its way around that, with, like, the really heavy push in 2020, I feel. People were desperate to reconnect, and I was one of those people. But at that time, my son was five, and I was already on a journey at that moment. But I didn't become public with that journey until I had a little bit of a steady foot.
It's very important that people know where they come from. It's very important that people understand that sometimes, at a Festival, when you're wearing a sash and you're not Métis, and you're putting on a capote and you're pretending to be a voyageur, that is not a costume. And we need to be respectful of that. And the earlier that we get to children at that moment and say, "Look, it's not a costume. You can wear it. You can be respectful of the story it tells, but know the story."
When the idea of truth and reconciliation is that we're trying to have an open environment to grow, we're trying to have an open environment to be safe. We're trying not to deal with lateral violence, and we're also trying to educate at the same time. And when you're learning and educating at the same time, you can make mistakes. And those around you need to be forgiving of those mistakes as well.
And so, I think it's really important that we have more conversations around the growth of truth and reconciliation, because it's not all on the government to do, right? It's all on us, too. Like, if I—if someone else I knew found out they were Métis, it's on them to find their journey. No one's going to come in, open a book, and tell them all about it. Like, you have to do your research, too. You have to, like, dig. And unfortunately, you shouldn't have to. But you do. And then you'll feel more comfortable in the space that you're in.
It's a—it's—you're—you're naked. You're bare to the world when you are trying to figure out things, and you just got to kind of get a thick skin to it and keep moving forward.
So, yeah, my—my—my—my piece of advice is just to never give up and to forgive yourself, because no one's perfect. No one will ever be perfect.
Todd Lyons:
Kinanaskomitin. Casandra, thank you for sharing your experiences and for being here with me today, and for everyone else who's listening in and enjoying this conversation with us, kikīcinanāskomitināwāw. Thank you. I am grateful for you. Until next time.
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Our Voices, Our Work
Conversations on Community, Care, and Connection