Crafts have helped Edda centre her life
Derek Neary
Northern News Services
Fort Simpson (May 04/01) - Craft making is more than a pastime for Sandra Edda.
It's a means of preserving cultural traditions and fending off alcohol. Crafts have helped to change her life, she said.
"It's really good for me," she said. "I've always got a lot of things to do ahead of me. It keeps me busy."
Edda tends not to work on any one project for a long period. Instead, she prefers to switch from one to another, be it beadwork, birch-bark baskets, moccasins or working a moose hide. She is also teaching herself how to do moose-hair tufting.
She began learning about crafts from her mother, Sarah. Her father, Alfred, taught her other skills, such as how to survive in the bush.
Edda, who does beadwork for Nats'enelu, left home at 13 and returned to the Deh Cho several years later with a renewed interest in crafts. She observed other craft-makers whenever she had the chance.
"I asked them questions. That's how I learned to do it myself," she said.
There were things her mother taught her that she hadn't forgotten, such as how to use porcupine quills to decorate birch-bark baskets. It was also her mother who showed her how to properly scrape a moose hide. Her first hide took her a year to finish. Now she can complete one in two to four weeks, she said.
Another important lesson her mom imparted was that if she made a mistake it was important to go back and do it right, no matter how much extra time it involved.
Edda has combined those words of wisdom with other tips she has learned along the way, like using liquid fabric softener to make a hide more supple.
"And then your finger doesn't get really sore," she smiled.
She plans to pass all of this information on to her daughter, Cindy, and anyone else willing to learn.
"I'm trying to learn everything I can so I can teach the younger kids," she said. "We don't want to lose our traditions and our culture."
