How 3 Indigenous families in Manitoba are reclaiming, preserving culture for their kids

When Métis and Cree couple Jordan Skipper and Diandre Thomas-Hart became parents, they decided to celebrate their cultures and bring traditions to their everyday life.

The Winnipeg couple knew they wanted to raise their child traditionally — an experience neither of them had.

Their journey began when they got pregnant. They found a doula, who helped them incorporate traditional practices into the pregnancy and birth.

Thomas-Hart had a traditional cedar bath — a ceremony that involves bathing in cedar water that has been prayed over by a doula — and they took the placenta home to bury it on Skipper's grandparents' land. 

"They have a little acre of land … so [our daughter] can always be connected with her great-grandparents," Thomas-Hart said this week.

She is one of the Winnipeg parents who talked with CBC during National Indigenous History Month about how they're preserving Indigenous culture and traditions for their children.

For Thomas-Hart and Skipper, learning about their cultures and bringing traditions into their home with their 19-month-old daughter, whom they named Binesi Kîsik Hartskipper — an Ojibway/Cree name which means "thunderbird" — is an ongoing process.

Both Thomas-Hart and Skipper work in Indigenous-serving organizations, so their culture is always around them. Thomas-Hart also notes that her daughter has both parents in her life — something she didn't get to experience herself. 

"She's definitely a daddy's girl. That's [a] big thing, having a two-parent partnership," she said. 

Sarah Brazauskas says she and her three-year-old daughter, Albina, connect with their First Nations roots by spending as much time outdoors as they can.

"Something that I'm hugely appreciative of is the fact that I grew up so close to the land and in nature," Brazauskas said. "I was not connected to my Indigenous roots growing up."

Her father, a Sixties Scoop survivor from Pinaymootang First Nation in Manitoba's Interlake, didn't play a role in her upbringing. She was raised by her mother, who is of Lithuanian, Irish and Scottish descent.

It wasn't until her adulthood that Brazauskas began to connect with her First Nations culture through art, taking inspiration from First Nations artists such as Norval Morrisseau and Alex Janvier. 

Brazauskas now beads and makes mukluks and moccasins, and has started going to powwows. Through the Manitobah Mukluks Storyboot School, where she works, she also visited different First Nations to teach people how to make their own art.