Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 17/00) - Three elder Gwich'in women from the North recently returned from a fact-finding mission to Hull, Que., and Washington, D.C., in search of clues to revive a lost piece of Gwich'in culture.

The trio were part of a group that visited the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington to study century-old clothing. And with the help of a seamstress, they will re-create a part of Gwich'in culture that has since faded.

The elders or "three Rs" -- as they became known to the rest of the group -- were Renie Martin of Inuvik, Rosie Stuart and Rosie Firth of Fort McPherson.

Firth has been invited twice to the Canadian Museum of Civilization, but this was her first time to the Smithsonian.

"It was really great and I couldn't believe what I was seeing," said Firth, 70. "It was something really wonderful."

She's been working needle and thread since the age of 12, doing embroidery, beading, mitts and moccasins, "the whole works."

"I've been at it every day except Sunday -- that's my day of rest," she said laughing. "All my girls do it too. I'm passing my work on."

Although she's been sewing Gwich'in clothing for nearly 60 years, Firth has never seen the work which is displayed at some museums.

"I never, ever learned how to sew quill work, but I think if I try, I could do it," she said. "I had seen it, but my parents never let me do it, my dad was really against it."

The trip has left a lasting impression on the elder, who is very excited to carry on to the next phase of the project. "I just can't seem to stop talking about it," she said. "It was something really beautiful -- it was beyond my imagination. I'll do whatever they say. Whatever I can give, I'll do it."

Stuart, 70, is a Fort McPherson elder who has been sewing since age 10. Stuart was amazed by the quality and style of the clothing they saw on the trip.

"The beading was very nice and the beads were really tiny and the quill work was nice too," Stuart said. "It's really a lot of big work -- especially with those small beads."

Stuart said the Smithsonian gave the women gloves to wear, but she couldn't figure out why.

"They were so old and they were sort of kind of dirty. They gave us white gloves so that the clothing wouldn't get dirty, but our gloves were all dirty by the time we got finished," said the elder laughing.

In her 60 years of sewing, Stuart has never seen porcupine quills used to adorn clothing, so the experience was very special.

"Years ago, they used to do that with quills, but not for a long time now," she said.

She had never been in a city as large as Washington, but the group did not have much time to see the sights.

"We didn't get to see the whole city, because we were so busy," she said. "We went straight from the hotel into a car and they drove us around."

Inuvik's Martin was also quite impressed with the big city.

"I have never been to a city before," she said. "When I went to the big city of Washington, it made me feel so small. The buildings there are so tall and so big, it makes the ones back home look like toys."

Martin remembers the porcupine quillwork her mother used to do, but said the work they saw in the south was quite different.

"My mother used to do quite a bit of that kind of work. She made quillwork jackets similar to what I saw, but not really the same.

"What we saw down there made me think of my ancestors and what they wore and we don't see that anymore. Everything was done by hand and the stitching was very small and neat, you could hardly see the stitching.

"I started when I was a little girl -- when I was a tiny tot, you might say," she said. "I used to sit around the table with my mother and she'd cut out something for me and I'd try to do the beadwork like her.

"It made me feel like these things belonged to our ancestors and I felt honoured to be around all those things I'd never seen before," said Martin.