 Hi, my name is Brenda Crabtree. I'm a member of the Spuzzle First Nations Band in the Fraser Canyon, British Columbia, Canada. We're in Mission DC right now and we're within traditional stallow territory. And we're going to do a demonstration on harvesting cedar bark, which is the most important basketry material for aboriginal peoples in British Columbia. We found a perfect cedar tree or at least what we hope is a perfect cedar tree for harvesting the inner cedar bark. We are in a clearing and what we're looking for is a fairly straight grain tree and we always look for what we call the belly of the tree. And that's usually one side of the cedar tree that has fewer branches on it and that's where we're going to cut into and try and get the bark from the tree. Well, see how it goes. And then you'll get your hand that goes. We've just harvested a piece of bark from the tree and we like to leave an offering after we've live harvested from the tree. And that is most often in the form of tobacco. So I'm just going to leave a small amount of tobacco at the base of the tree as a thank you. But what we mostly prefer to do now is rather than live harvest from the trees that are available is we try and utilize forestry waste products. So we approach logging companies and they allow us into their booming grounds and peel the cedar logs that they've already cut down for building or for export. So now that we have the strip of cedar bark off of the tree, what we need to do is we need to look at the grain and it's got beautiful straight grain, which is perfect for weaving baskets. And we know that it's nice and moist, the inner bark. But what we have to do is we have to separate the rough outer bark from the inner bark. Once we've harvested the cedar bark, we need to store it in a dry area until we decide what we want to weave with it. Then it has to be re-soaked and processed down to smaller pieces depending on the project that we're working on. I have some red inner cedar bark processed down into narrower strips that are ready for weaving a basket. And I've got a sample of a basket in process here and you can see that there's an inner wall. It's a double wall basket and it's got finer strips on the outside. And the twining, the finer strips of cedar that's used to hold the basket together is actually processed down to a very small size like this. My grandmother was my weaving teacher and this is one of her baskets that she made. It's actually made from the cedar tree but not the inner bark, it's made from the cedar roots. The technique that's used for weaving this basket is a coiled method. So the roots are actually harvested, peeled and split and they're hand sewn. This basket would be soaked in water for about 20 minutes and the roots would swell. So in fact it was used as a water carrying container. It was also used for cooking in that you could put hot rocks heated up in a fire into the basket which would in turn steam the water and would steam the food. The design on this basket usually belongs to a specific family. The embellishment you see the red is actually wild cherry bark that's harvested within this territory. The white design is canary grass that's been dried and preserved and used as an overlay. And the black is actually the red cherry bark that's been buried in mud until it turns black. Maidenhair fern is actually used to embellish basketry to apply design and it's a technique called vaults embroidery and it gives just a beautiful blackish reddish color to the basket design. Well cedar bark was used for many things such as clothing. It was pounded and softened and woven into capes and skirts. Stullo people also made cedar hats. And I'm currently in the process of weaving a hat and hats are usually woven on a wooden mold. And you can see that I've got the red inner cedar bark warp very finely split and the finer yellow cedar twining. It's the inner cedar bark from the yellow cedar tree. And some of the other decorative elements that we make to utilize the smaller leftover pieces from the bark are earrings. Aboriginal art in British Columbia has never been static. It has evolved according to the materials and technology available including the thousands of years before colonization. Contemporary Aboriginal art forms provide a reinterpretation and re-representation of techniques, materials, form and function. The perpetuation of traditional knowledge through both learning and teaching creates an emotional and intellectual engagement of the spirit, mind and body which in turn provides a creative foundation for Indigenous art. Revitalization of Indigenous art forms is a global education initiative and the collection and exchange of information nurtures the creative spirit of all Indigenous peoples.