This woman is trying to build 7 teepees in Medicine Hat by June
CBC
What started out for Brenda Mercer as a dream to build a teepee to connect with her Indigenous heritage has now ballooned into an effort she hopes will knit together the wider community.
Mercer first built a teepee with help from more than a dozen people in Medicine Hat, Alta., last year.
“The experience doing the teepee — just one teepee with my husband sewing the majority of it but working with the community still — really showed me that there was such an interest in it,” she said.
“I wanted to do more.”
She got her wish after she received a $10,000 grant from Indigenous Youth Roots to build seven of the structures by June, in a city known for its landmark teepee visible from the Trans-Canada Highway.
Medicine Hat is located on the traditional lands of the Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, Stoney Nakoda and Tsuut’ina, as well as the Cree, Sioux and the Saulteaux bands of the Ojibwa peoples.
At just a day old, Mercer was taken from her mother and removed from the Standing Buffalo Dakota Nation in Saskatchewan.
She was placed in foster care and raised by another family, part of the Sixties Scoop that saw Indigenous children placed with non-Indigenous families.
As one of the only Indigenous children in her hometown, Mercer experienced feelings of isolation and wanted to learn more about her culture.
Mercer started reconnecting with her heritage through beading and drum-making in her twenties, developing a platform and business to educate and inform. Her crafts company, White Horse Rider Co., is named as a tribute to her maternal grandfather.
"The reason why I do all of this is for kind of selfish reasons," Mercer said.
"It's to help me heal along my healing journey. It's to be the best role model I can be for my two daughters, my seven grandchildren and my great-grandbaby."
She added: "I feel like if anybody else gets something out of what I do in a community or who I engage with, that's just icing on top of the cake."
Elder Charlie Fox, a leader of the Kainai Nations Sacred Horn Society and member of the Blood Tribe, has been a mentor, adviser and friend to Mercer through her healing process.
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