Custom made

When she was two years old, Suza Tstetso was taught how to hold a sewing needle. Since then, she has been making dolls using techniques passed down from her mother.

“It’s part of our upbringing, a rite of passage. The teaching is passed on from my mother and is used to teach us the traditional roles and also pass down the spiritual knowledge,” says Tstetso, one of 30 doll makers participating in Sewing Our Traditions: Dolls of Canada's North, an exhibit showcasing handmade dolls made by Inuit and First Nations artists.

Starting a very young age, kids are taught to sew traditional clothes for dolls, using material that comes directly from the land, in preparation for making garments once they’re old enough.

The exhibit includes dolls from the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Although each region uses different materials — including sealskin, muskrat, rabbit and gopher — most dolls incorporate caribou at some stage of the design. From hair to hide to tendon to bone, no portion of the animal goes to waste, something Tsetso says she didn’t appreciate until later in life.

“My mother was really good at teaching me different ways of working with the different types of materials,” she says. “I never acknowledged it before because I was living in survival mode, trying to get by. But now that she’s gone, I have a lot more appreciation for what I have learned.”

Although Tstetso has sold her dolls to people in Germany and California, she says they are no longer for sale.

“I’m just using them as a teaching tool now, for display, so that people can look at them and appreciate them. They have stories that are passed down for hundreds of years and are part of the dolls, and the stories can’t be sold.”

When Tstetso isn’t working at her full-time job in psychiatric care, she runs doll-making workshops for youth, as well as for elders who grew up in residential schools and didn’t have an opportunity to learn the craft.

The exhibit, which runs from February 12 to 28 at the Gateway Theatre in Richmond, will not only showcase northern traditions and culture to the rest of Canada, but will also be used to teach Northerners about their own culture.

“A lot of these outfits and activities and traditional styles are no longer part of our daily lives,” says curator Jennifer Bowen, visual arts coordinator at the Yukon Art Centre.

“I think when the dolls come back to the North, they will be available to the young people. This new generation of Inuit and First Nations will have a chance to be exposed to their culture in a way that is really fascinating.”

“Sewing Our Traditions: Dolls of Canada’s North” runs from February 12 to 28 from noon to 8:00 pm at 6500 Gilbert Road, Richmond. Admission is free.

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