Yellowknife (Mar 24/03) - Over three years with the help of 35 nimble seamstresses across the Delta, a piece of Gwich'in history is preserved and well-dressed.

Audrey Snowshoe works on the Aklavik tunic during the Tsiigehtchic workshop in July, 2002. - photo courtesy of Gadi Katz

As part of a traditional caribou skin clothing project, the Gwich'in Social and Cultural Institute (GSCI) -- in partnership with the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife -- recreated five nearly exact replicas of a 19th century Gwich'in ceremonial outfit.

The white hide outfits are trimmed with intricate porcupine quill and beaded patterns, while rare silverberry seeds dangle from hide fringe along the back and knife sheath.

Each outfit, comprised of a hood, bi-pointed tunic, mitts, knife sheath and pants with attached feet, will be displayed in the four Gwich'in communities and in Yellowknife's Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre later this week.

Not only was it a monstrous sewing undertaking -- requiring painstaking detail and patience -- but tracking down rare white tanned caribou hide and silverberries (which sprout up in sparse pockets around the territory) was trying.

Long before the needle and thread pierced the rare white hide, from 1994-1997 GSCI research director Ingrid Kritsch scoped out where Gwich'in artifacts were housed across the continent and Europe. It turns out that the traditional white hide outfit is exhibited at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. as well as in the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Que.

Kritsch and the team chose Hull's outfit to replicate -- it was the fanciest and most dramatic.

Sewers feel connection to past

Women from across the territory responded to a call for seamstresses. The project would be headed by Inuvik-born seamstress and business owner Karen Wright-Fraser, who now lives in Yellowknife.

The sewing team assembled in Yellowknife, Aklavik, Fort McPherson, Inuvik and Tsiigehtchic for workshops, working together to get the outfits finished on time. They sharpened their sewing skills and helped revive interest in a dying craft.

But apart from preserving a skill and a grandiose piece of Gwich'in history, the project had special meaning for head seamstress Karen Wright-Fraser and other Gwich'in women, who felt a connection to their past and people.

It took 32 years before Wright-Fraser stumbled across a photograph of the signature white caribou hide outfit. She wept. Mired with alcoholism and social issues in her community, Wright-Fraser had no positive or reaffirming knowledge about her Gwich'in ancestry until seeing the outfit.

"I had never seen a picture or heard a legend about my people," says Wright-Fraser. "I couldn't believe it -- so it's like a dream come true to work on these outfits. It almost seemed impossible."

Agnes Mitchell, a seamstress from Tsiigehtchic says while she quilled under the light of a weak lamp, she would think of her ancestors perhaps working by the light of a fire in the winter or outside in the sunny spring.

"I felt close to my ancestors ... they really impressed me with how the sewing was so perfect," she says.

The dedicated seamstresses also took pieces home to work on.

"Every waking minute I had at home I was quilling, and I was working and taking care of my father too," says Mitchell.

After so many years and so much hard work, the Yellowknife outfit will be unveiled Friday at the Prince of Wales Heritage Centre at 2 p.m.