Indigenous Bead Workshop - An MKO Sponsored Event

Robyn Shlachetka, a mother of three and medivac pilot in the Arctic, is half Cree and half Sioux. She remembers learning beadcraft as an early teenager from her aunt. She showed talent even then, but she had to move away after high school and lost touch with it.  The tradition came back into her life after her second child was born. Robyn realized that the baby definitely needed an authentic pair of baby mukluks with her name beaded into them. Robyn could afford the gift but, to her disappointment, couldn’t find anyone to buy it from. So she resolved to make it herself. “I had a pair that my great grandmother had given me so I used that as the pattern for my daughter’s.”  She’s also started teaching others how to carry on the craft of her ancestors. She hopes that her work contributes to a fourth epoch of indigenous…