For the All My Relations team, the All Native tournament is bigger than basketball

This is the first story in a three-part series about the All My Relations basketball team and their journey to the 2024 All Native tournament in “Prince Rupert”

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With her baby in her lap, Shaniece Angus sits on the floor of a “Prince Rupert” hotel room as she gets her hair braided in preparation for the 64th annual All Native Basketball Tournament. 

As she cradles her 11-month old daughter in her arms, her teammate Camellia Brown, from Nisga’a Nation, is carefully weaving plaits in her bangs so they stay out of her eyes on the court.

“You don’t know how good it feels to be taken care of,” Angus says as a few teammates in the room, waiting to get their own hair done, share a quiet laugh.

The group is part of the All My Relations (AMR) women’s basketball team, which travelled from East “Vancouver” to compete in the week-long tournament in Tsimshian territories.

Happening from Feb. 11 to 18, the All Native Basketball Tournament is a massive event that packs the local recreation centre as Indigenous teams from all ages and skill levels compete while also sharing culture, socializing and more.

What makes AMR unique is how they bring players with different ages, cultures and backgrounds together on the same team. Players live in East Van, but when they come to the All Native tournament, many of them are reunited with family and friends from their home communities in an event that is as much about culture as it is basketball.

The team’s strategy for success is embodied in their name, All My Relations, where everyone has a role to play.

As the team gets ready for their first game against Massett, they chat about what’s to come in the tournament — shaking out the pre-game nerves as players come in and out of the room.

At 40 years old, Joleen Mitton, who is Plains Cree and Dane-zaa, has played on the AMR team for 20 years, or half of her life. Mitton’s success and influence goes beyond the court, as a well-known community member and the founder of Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week.  

“It feels nostalgic to me because we’ve been here so many times and I’m with the crew that I’ve been with for, like, the last 10 years, so I feel confident,” she said.

This long road to the All Native tournament and the effort it takes to get there ebbs and flows. The team competes, practices, fundraises, and continually comes together in regular season play in the Strathcona Women’s Basketball League, amid busy schedules and life’s challenges.

Every year, these efforts culminate at the All Native tournament, where the team tries to physically and mentally peak. 

In the weeks leading up to the All Native tournament, nearly every practice began and ended with a circle. During the team’s last practice, AMR coach, past player, and three-time ANBT women’s division MVP, Adelia Paul from Haisla Nation, checked in to hear how the team was feeling. 

One of the younger players on the team opened up, sharing: “I have a voice in my head saying I’m not good enough and I shouldn’t be here.” Her teammates responded by re-affirming that everyone has a role to play, and uplifting her as an important member of the team.

Many of the players, including Angus, flew into Terrace on Feb. 11  in order to make the drive along Highway 16 — which mimics the twists and turns of the Skeena River towards “Prince Rupert.”

Angus, who is from Nisga’a and Tsimshian Nations, brought her partner Matthew Jefferson as they travelled with their two young daughters, Skyanna and Elile, for the first time. 

Accompanied by Angus’s mom and AMR player Laura Lewis — from Nisga’a, Tsimshian, Tahltan, and Tlingit Nations — for the drive, other players split up into groups as they travelled to the coast. 

In Julissa Azak’s truck, players Marnie Scow, Brown, and Shauntelle Dick-Charleson reflected on the five-hour drive about this year’s tournament and how they couldn’t believe it was finally here — with conversations switching from deep topics around culture and family to rap singalongs.

Like with any good road trip, the Azak car didn’t leave without stopping at a fast food restaurant in Terrace for breakfast sandwiches, followed immediately by a haul from the supplement store.

“You know Shauntelle is still a niece and not an auntie yet because she ordered apple juice instead of coffee with her breakfast,” Scow, one of the older players on AMR, joked to her younger teammate. 

Meanwhile, AMR’s youngest player, Amber Wells, a 20-year-old from the Kitwanga, Gitxsan, Tsimshian, Haisla, and Tahltan Nations, was picked up at Northwest Terrace Regional Airport by her parents. 2024 is the first year Wells will play for AMR as a rookie instead of playing for her nation’s team like she has in the past, the Gitxsan Mystics. 

The AMR team is classified as a club team at the All Native tournament, because they are one of the few teams with players coming together from different nations.

With AMR players and their families arriving on different flights, drives, and ferries to get to “Prince Rupert” all players settled into their hotel on February 10th in time for their first game. Then, on February 11th, they gathered with thousands of others to witness this year’s opening ceremonies, hosted by the Gitxsan Nation.

After the opening performance by the Gitxsan Thunder Dance Group, teams competing in the tournament entered the gym in order of who lives closest to “Prince Rupert.” Teams walked around the gym, each holding their banner, while the host nation continued to welcome all teams and fans with drumming and dancing. 

With thousands of people coming into the biggest sporting event in northern “B.C.,” the packed gym of the opening ceremonies was a reflection of the importance of the tournament to Indigenous Peoples and cultures around the coast and beyond.

“You can hear the drumming from outside,” said Shenice Siggsworth, an AMR player who is Cree-Métis from Alexander First Nation on her mother’s side and Jamaican on her father’s side, and the 2022 women’s division MVP.

“Everyone is so excited and it’s just such a celebration of culture.”

AMR’s first game will be against Massett, for their first match up three years in a row. The rest of their schedule will be determined game by game on whether they win or lose. 

At 9:30 PM the night before the game, coach Paul’s message to the team was clear: “we have a bit of talent here and there but really what is going to take us game to game is playing together.”

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Reporting for this story was made possible in part through funding from the Real Estate Foundation of BC, a philanthropic organization working to advance sustainable, equitable, and socially just land use across the province.