Our Costume Manager Adele Schatschneider shares a story about a
new staff member in the costume shop...
"Fort Edmonton Park is always looking for ways to develop the
interpretive story to make it more compelling to visitors as well
as the staff and volunteers themselves. One of the ways we do this
is by augmenting the costume collection, ensuring it grows and
changes every year. This year the costume shop has been working on
building up our aboriginal fashions, and we've been really lucky to
have a new staff person to help us do this.
Pat James approached us to volunteer this summer. She comes to
the park with a life-long passion for beading and her experience as
a native cultural arts instructor. She received training at the
Portage College in Lac La Biche and has worked with elders and
at-risk teens in Lethbridge before moving to Edmonton to be closer
to her family. While looking for something to do with her time, a
friend recommended she look into volunteering at Fort Edmonton Park
so she could do her beading socially.
Shortly after taking Pat on as a volunteer, the costume shop
hired her to both instruct the costuming staff and build pieces
that will be worn during summers to come. Currently, the projects
she has led through instruction are: two-needle beading on
medallions; and the construction of a type of Plains moccasins with
soles and wrap-over uppers. Her own current projects for the park
include repairing many of the pieces already in the collection as
well as designing and decorating a deer-hide dress to be worn by
one of the Cree ladies at our native camp outside of the 1846
fort.
Pat has been very excited to work with us as her involvement
with the park is a return to her heritage; her great-great
grandfather, Michel Calihous, worked as a steersman for the
Hudson's Bay Company and was stationed with his family at Fort
Edmonton in the winter of 1858 when he was 34 years old. With Fort
Edmonton Park's push to further expand its already wonderful
indigenous interpretation and costume pieces, we are very excited
to work with such a talented and entertaining artist and instructor
of traditional skills."
