I feel really connected to the culture as I'm beading I'm doing something that my late great grandma you know and my grandma, they've all done this tradition and so when I am beading, I feel really close to them and so it's like a spiritual connection.

I learned how to bead when I was a kid and then I kind of like took a break because I got busy with life, going to college, starting my career and then raising two young girls.

As my daughters were older, I had more free time to really get back into beading.

The way I got restarted is just making a pair of slippers for my daughters.

I just really realized how much I love beading.

Making the slippers has really connected me to the Athabascan culture.

The feeling that when I give a pair of slippers to somebody, they are just filled up with their culture I learned to bead with my mom, she's always been a beader, and my auntie, cousins, grandma I have an old pattern book from my late great aunt and she has a whole bunch of patterns from the family that have been passed on.

There's flowers, birds, certain ways of doing leaves.

And the wonderful thing about like passing patterns down is that I've found it's kind of like a recipe.

Pretty much all the clothing, regalia, gear for hunting and gathering, were created by grandma's aunties.

They're always created with love and, like, good intention.

It's really kind of a reflection of the environment around them.

The land the way of life The land has a strong spirit The same amount of respect that we have for land and our environment also transfers to beading and sewing.

Some of the designs that come from the environment, like, birds, flowers, leaves, just the love that you see on a design..

When you're looking at Athabascan beading, it's just like you can feel the spirit by the colors of the design.

You also see the love that's put into each of those items that you might get from family members When you look at someone's beadwork, like from the Koyukuk River or Yukon or further north or around the surrounding areas, you can kind of tell who made it, whose family they're a part of, who they learn from.

So it's kind of like a signature to see the certain patterns and certain ways that people bead I think I've made like almost 130 pairs of slippers in the past, like, six years, it's like an addiction.

That feeling of love that people are recipient of slippers, that really fills me up.

It's really giving them a part of their culture.

Once you learn to bead, you have this connection to your culture.

You gain so much strength and it helps you throughout life and you also feel the love from your ancestors.

And and just maybe the teacher who taught you.

I have a strong gift from my ancestors and my aunties and family, I want to share that too