More than a sewing club
Group connects youth with Inuit culture
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Published Friday, February 13, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Students at Sir John Franklin School have been sewing for a cause through their lunch hour whether its stress relief, learning cultural tradition or lending hand for expectant mothers.
Katia d'Argencourt, 16, and cultural teacher Angela Hovak Johnston sew through the lunchhour at Sir John Franklin High School on Monday. - Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo |
Seventeen-year-old Summer Silke said she goes to Angela Hovac Johnston's sewing group every day because focusing on making kamiik, moccasins and parkas while eating frozen arctic char, caribou and whale blubber helps her forget the stress of studying while at the same time learning Inuit culture.
"If I'm having a bad day, it kind of gets my mind off it," said Silke, while beading a set of uppers for a pair of moccasins.
She said she likes learning cultural skills and especially enjoys being able to make beautiful things.
"I was in Northern studies in Grade 10 and learned about residential schools ... but I came because I could make a pair of moccasins."
Johnston has been teaching girls - and some boys - between her duties teaching Northern Studies classes at the school and said the club has become so popular she began running a similar group at Mildred Hall School in January.
She said she was a little nervous about taking the club to the school on Franklin Avenue because she'd heard the students could be rough, but was pleasantly surprised upon arrival.
"When I got there, it completely changed my mind," she said, adding that a group like a sewing club might be exactly what frustrated students need.
"Those kids are among the best I've ever met."
Johnston said students in her sewing groups will begin making baby apparel, including packing shirts and duffies, for mothers staying at Larga Kitikmeot, a medical home-away-from-home for Nunavut patients staying in Yellowknife.
Linda Charlie, 15, who said she was born at Larga, said she's excited to be making something that will go to a mother much like her own.
"It helps ladies out that came here," she said, while starting work on a pair of kamiik, or boots.
"Not a lot are very rich."
Charlie - who has grown up in Yellowknife - said she gets satisfaction out of the sewing group because she gets to learn about her roots.
Katia d'Argencourt, 16, said she was born in Iqaluit before moving to Whitehorse and then Yellowknife. She said she is thrilled to be learning about the community she comes from, and has taken up throatsinging under the direction of Johnston.
"I wasn't in touch with my culture at all, and I really wanted to make boots," she said.
Johnston said she's even had some boys attending the sewing group but hasn't seen them since the new semester began.
The club is open to boys although, she said, in Inuit tradition the men would hunt and tan hides, leaving the women to sew.
