Mi'kmaw quillwork podcast delves into issues of Indigenous identity
CBC
Kay Sark is out on her back deck on Lennox Island First Nation in Prince Edward Island, sporting one yellow rubber glove.
But the Mi'kmaw woman isn't wearing the glove to clean, she's wearing it to handle what's in the cardboard box next to her: a dead porcupine.
Sark reaches into the box and pulls clumps of quills off the porcupine, dropping them into a plastic container.
"I feel like it's like picking grass," she said, as the quills detach with a soft squelching sound.
This act of dequilling a porcupine is one of the first steps in the long process of creating traditional Mi'kmaw quill art. Sark also harvests materials such as birch bark and sweetgrass. The quills are dyed vibrant colours and threaded through holes in the bark to create intricate patterns, while the sweetgrass is often woven around the edge of a finished piece.
Sark and her friend, Cheryl Simon, co-host the podcast Epekwitk Quill Sisters, which launched in May 2021 and details what it takes to create their art, the same way generations of Mi'kmaq did before them.
WATCH | How two Mi'kmaw women use podcast to explain traditional quillwork: