Family in business of promoting culture
- Andréa Ledding | April 16, 2015
Corinne Stevens-Belanger and her husband John Belanger hope that their business, Creestar Gifts, can help sustain their family cultural tradition of making birch bark baskets as well as build a business that supports the family financially. The birch bark baskets are a traditional art carried on from Corinne’s grandmother.
“It was because we moved home to Swan River and we decided one afternoon to visit my aunt and those baskets were on the table,” said Corinne who is from the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation. “I started making them again. I had learned as a child and it came back to me.”
She says one of the perks is getting in the forest with their three kids and teaching them what she learned as a kid. Her husband John gets the bark, anywhere from five to ten trees. They can only harvest birch for the baskets in a two to three month window, the spring and summer season when bark is soft enough to peel. Remaining wood is donated to people with wood stoves, usually on the reserve.
“My husband has learned how to make the traditional kind with the spruce roots but it can only be done in the spring - we pull out the roots with an awl to make the holes and we pull the spruce roots through, that’s traditionally how it’s done - those and the thread,” she explains. “The star is on everything we make so that’s what gave us the business name.”
The baskets with their distinct star pattern on top have been shipped across Canada and the US, but mainly to First Nation communities in Saskatchewan and Manitoba or museums and gift shops. Ideal as gifts for Elders or for special events, the baskets are finished with cloth inside and a gift of bagged cedar.
“Sometimes conferences use our bags. Some people are just looking for Aboriginal artisan work too.” Via their website, orders can be placed for a variety of gifts from the birch baskets, to quilts, beautiful conference bags, muskeg tea, or tipi poles. “If we can’t keep up we also order from other Aboriginal artists from our community - starblanket makers and bag makers - so we try and support other Aboriginal artists as well,” explains Corinne. “We created our newsletter that we send out every month. We haven’t done a lot of advertising we’re just slowly getting known - it’s just been word-of-mouth.”
Their children are aged 11, 7, and 5 and Corinne is open to teaching other family members - nieces and nephews and cousins - as well as contributing to culture camps when time permits; she beads as well. She and John met at the University of Saskatchewan when she did a teaching degree through ITEP, and he was in Arts & Science. They now spend all summer in the forest harvesting muskeg tea, tipi poles and birch supplies.
“Our season is short so we take advantage of it, make as many baskets as we can and try and get all we need now over the spring and summer and we make what we make - after the snow comes we have to go with what we’ve got,” explains Corinne. Luckily they can sew year-round to provide blankets and bags, and are now also offering Pendleton blankets sourced from the US. From a modest beginning the business has slowly expanded.
“It’s nice to do a family business and hopefully the kids may show an interest when they get older,” Corinne says. John, who is from White Bear explains that his mom’s side was Nakota-Dakota so he grew up around tipis, and then worked for the Brandon Friendship Centre harvesting tipi poles and working with a lot of tipi makers in the area who encouraged him to eventually assist in harvesting poles to spec. They are usually cut green, stored and peeled and treated as preferred - they can be sealed or just peeled and limbed smooth.
“It’s something we love doing,” explained John of the artistic process and the harvesting, guessing that the average basket takes about three hours to make but it’s hard to say because so much time and care goes into the process as a whole, and much depends on the thickness of the bark.
After five years in business, they are hoping to expand their business even further with networking and advertising: check them out at www.creestargifts.com where you can not only check out their many products but also sign up for their monthly newsletter.
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