Master Haida weaver Delores Churchill is one of two keynote speakers at this year’s Alaska Federation of Natives conference in Anchorage. Churchill was born in Masset, Canada, and now lives in Ketchikan.
In 2014, Churchill shared her introduction to weaving with an audience at KTOO. She’d been wary as a child, but as a young adult, took a class from her mother, master weaver Selina Peratrovich.
“So I walk into the classroom where my mother’s teaching. And she looked at me and said, ‘What you do here?’ She spoke broken English. ‘I weave. I weave.’ ‘You no look! Go on. Go home.’ I stood there and then thank goodness the head of the art department Ron Inoue walked in and he put his arms around my mother. He said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And mother said, ‘I’m telling her to go home.’ He said, ‘No, we need her registration. We don’t have enough people.’”
Churchill is internationally known for her baskets, robes, hats and other regalia, which use materials such as wool, spruce root and cedar bark. Churchill is also known for her teaching and likes to share a tradition she learned from her mother.
“When she harvested bark, she’d say to the tree, ‘I hope to make a beautiful basket and I hope not to hurt you in any way and I really wish that you send out seeds, so trees would continue to grow, so our children and great grandchildren would be able to enjoy and do the things that I enjoy.’”
The documentary “Tracing Roots” features Churchill and premieres at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. Churchill’s AFN keynote speech begins at 10 a.m. Thursday. Both will be on 360North and 360North.org.
