Mitt-Making Workshop

The workshop experience changed quite a bit from the original plan, as the pandemic started and everything closed down, just as we were about to begin. We adapted to make it an online experience, but the students found it much harder to do this way.

The class for this workshop was composed of Inuuk students, as well as 1 Cree, and 2 Kanien’kehá:ka students. The initial plan was to create pauluit (sealskin mitts) and the Cree student planned to make leather gauntlets, which were more appropriate to his culture. We’d had a hard time finding a teacher for this workshop, and so had someone who was Indigenous, but not Inuk. The idea of learning Inuit culture from someone who is not Inuit made one of the Inuuk students uncomfortable. Everyone found it difficult to learn the technicalities of mitt-making online: difficult to find the space to work at home, to not be interrupted, to have the right tools to work with, and even to see the stitches used to sew the mitts together. In the end, only the Inuuk completed their mitts. One student had a pair made by his mother from when he was small, which helped him a lot. He would examine how it was made and could copy it. The other student actively called family up North for guidance in the making. Those who completed the mitts were very happy to have done so. Both students gifted the finished mitts to someone in their family.

Had the workshop happened in person and as a collective class activity, I think the outcome would have been different and all the students would have completed their mitts. The Cree student actually couldn’t attend at all due to extremely poor internet service. There was a willingness to help each other out between those who were able to be a part of the video conference, but it was just too difficult to communicate the making through the computer screens.