Secwépemc Elder reflects on teaching herself — and others — her crafts: ‘I just went and did it on my own’

In her house on the Williams Lake First Nation (WLFN) reserve, Secwépemc Elder Sally Wynja sits at her desk surrounded by intricate and colourful homemade baskets. 

For about three decades, the largely self-taught artist has used beads and natural elements — such as pine needles and birchbark — to create jewelry and baskets which she often sells at powwows and other community events. Wynja spends much of her time making art and medicines — which she has jarred in her cupboards — and she regularly leads cultural workshops in her community.

Wynja points to her computer and mentions how she finds designs and video tutorials online that have helped her to learn about basketry, preserving medicines and more.

“Nobody wanted to teach me, and I had to go and find a way to teach myself,” she says.

“And then after years and years, I guess [I’m] getting pretty good at it.”

But, while the Internet has been a valuable tool for her learning — she adds the endless information online can be overwhelming.

“Sometimes I have a hard time to get my crafting done that I’m supposed to do,” she adds with a laugh.

Learning to make baskets

Wynja says she’s always been eager to learn, but has found that some people are very private with their patterns for regalia, crafts, and moccasins, or about their medicine recipes. Instead of letting that deter her, she found tutorials to guide her through the basic processes, often searching YouTube and Pinterest. 

“I don’t let it bother me anymore,” she says.

“I just went online and I got my own recipe.”

Wynja has learned the basics from various teachers and tutorials over time — however much of what she does is already in her DNA. Wynja explains that fellow WLFN Elder Jean William showed her how to make the birchbark baskets, a skill that William herself learned from Wynja’s aunt.

Wynja points out two painted birchbark baskets that she made, which are on display in her home. She admits that she “cheated” by using stencils for the painting to add something extra to the beautifully crafted baskets.

Her techniques have changed over the years through trial and error. For example, she went from dying pine needles to using colourful sinew to make her baskets vibrant.

She notes how she wanted someone to make her a regalia to dance after she saw a powwow for the first time in “Kamloops” but found that instead of paying someone else, she could learn online how to make it by herself.

“My first regalia, I just went and did it on my own,” she says. 

“I didn’t know how to make a cape, so I just kind of made it up.”

‘We never got to do our cultural thing’

As a child, Wynja recalls her mother creating intricate buckskin and beadwork designs including gloves and even a dress for Wynja’s sister, who was the Williams Lake Stampede Queen.

However, Wynja didn’t have the chance to learn from her mom. She recalls attending St. Joseph’s Mission, a residential “school” on her home reserve from an early age until she was 15. 

“My mom did beautiful work, but we never got to see it. We were all at the Mission and taken away from our parents,” she says.

“We never got to do our cultural thing — like my mom did beautiful buckskin and did beautiful beadwork.”

While at the “school,” she recalls the children wanting to talk to their family members so a fence separating the boys and girls classes was pushed over by the students so family members could interact. 

“We’d have to talk over the fence and everything and finally, one day, we got mad and we knocked the fence down,” she says.

While the “school” took away family time during the 10 months of the year that children attended, Wynja explains how it took away even more time while at home.

“They took that loving nature thing away from the younger generation, because they didn’t know how to show affection. They weren’t allowed to hug, they weren’t allowed to kiss or anything like that, they weren’t allowed to touch each other.”

Wynja’s case regarding her residential “school” experience went to a hearing at one point, she says, and she recalls becoming angry when thinking about the unfair events her along with many other children had to experience over the years both at home and “school.”

“I was talking to these lawyers from the government, and I got angry, and I started hollering at them, and he said, ‘Why are you angry?’ And I said, because the government took us, took our language away, took our culture away, took this, our families away from us, and we never learned, nothing,” she says.

“We never got loving from our parents, you know. And you’re trying to tell me not to get angry.”

After all her experiences at only 15, Wynja was ready to leave her home to go and find work and begin providing for herself. Since then she has worked countless jobs including a housekeeper, babysitter, and even a cook at the St. Joseph’s Mission before turning to her artwork.

Keeping community strong

Now, Wynja is a fixture in WLFN and beyond with her workshops, often teaching and helping classes full of eager students learn to create baskets, jewelry, medicine and more.

“I try to teach as many people that want to learn as I can,” she says.

“I’ve got lots of patience for people that want to learn.”

Wynja even taught her sister how to bead, and notes how she can now create beautiful earrings to sell in her community. She hopes to continue teaching her family and that someday they can take the reins with her teachings.

“I want one of my grandkids to take over what I do,” she says.

Recently she helped teach how to can salmon, moose and more at the WLFN Elders’ centre. At another workshop farther away, in “Quesnel,” she taught a week-long birchbark basket course where students made up to three baskets each. While she did bring her own supplies, the workshop included teaching the students how to gather birchbark themselves. 

“When I went to teach up there [in Quesnel], they gave me a whole bunch to take home,” she says.

Part of her usual process includes gathering her own materials which range from her own backyard to spots multiple hours away. Recently, she went and gathered Devil’s Club and cedar for medicine and also got birchbark, Saskatoon branches and spruce roots for her baskets. 

Her family helps her with the gathering and they, along with other artists, often gift Wynja with the supplies she may need.

Wynja is grateful for others who think of her and have given her supplies such as feathers, birchbark and pine needles and even to her family who go hunting for Devil’s Club and other medicines.

When it comes to making medicines, she has her own recipes — “I like it really strong,” she explains — but she doesn’t sell what she makes.

“I just give it to Elders to help their pain,” she says.

Having been involved with the WLFN community for years, helping with fundraisers, events and workshops, Wynja is hoping to have the younger Elders take over and become more involved.

Wynja comments on how she’s often felt connected to the younger generations in her community. After meeting Arthur Paul, a local Indigenous designer, she notes they became close, often helping and supporting each other. She has provided him with eagle feathers and last year she attended Paul’s fashion show in “Kamloops.”

While showing pictures at the powwow dancing in her regalia, Wynja smiled as she pointed at WLFN Kúkwpi7 Willie Sellars in the background.

“He’s my friend too,” she says.

She comments that she showed Sellars how to smoke and can salmon and he later brought her porcupine quills.

“Sometimes there’s a bond with certain people with me, the younger people. I don’t why that is, but it is,” she says.

Staying close to home

While she used to travel far and wide on the powwow circuit to sell her wares, she now sticks closer to home and has a vendor table at WLFN’s powwows and annual Christmas fair. 

After her years of hard work, Wynja notes she has slowed down and only guides a few workshops each year. She also still travels the powwow circuit but keeps it local, dancing in her traditional regalia and running her vendor booth selling the products she has made.

“So now I’m just sitting here relaxing and doing what I want to do.”

As one of the oldest Elders on the reserve, Wynja now wants to concentrate her efforts on Elders’ meetings — where she doesn’t hesitate to share her opinions and concerns.

“This is about us, this is about our health, this is about our education, it’s about our culture,” she says.

Wynja still has projects that she hasn’t ventured into yet, such as cedar weaving that she is hoping to learn about, either in person or online. On her phone and computer, she has endless pictures of inspiration to try from baskets and jewelry designs to dresses to make with her new sewing machine. 

She hopes that others can go out and find ways for themselves to learn, and is hopeful for communities to bring in teachers but notes that you don’t need to wait to begin a project, there is always someone with a lesson online. While it does take practice she wants to encourage others to keep up the effort.

“Keep trying, that’s what I did,” she says.

“Just don’t give up.”