“It's been a long journey and experience and a reconnecting community that I'm a part of, and I'm really happy to be where I'm at today, because I definitely wasn't where I am now 10 years ago,” Cassandra Woolever beams. She is the owner and operator of Métis Branded, Red River Métis Woman, and she has been in Winnipeg her whole life, other than when she briefly lived in San Diego when she was 30.

Woolever started her business when her son was a toddler, just before her daughter was born, after losing her home daycare job during the pandemic. While she had always been drawn to her Métis culture, she was raised in her mom’s Ukrainian culture. She never knew her Métis father but felt a strong connection to elements of the culture and it all made sense when her brother discovered their ancestry.she beams.

She always wanted a capote but there was only one class teaching how to make them in the city and she could not afford to attend. Instead, Woolever went to a thrift store, found a coat that would fit her son, took it apart and figured out how it went together. As a psychology and science student and never a seamstress, she hadn’t built clothing before and she had never even used a sewing machine that much. People started approaching her to ask where she bought it. She made matching ones for herself and her daughter and people were asking her all the time. She had business cards made and she started selling them and investing profits into blankets to make more.

Soon, Woolever bought 80 blankets because she had saved enough to invest in supplies. Her evening hobby was starting to capture a lot of attention and people started to question her Indigeneity on TikTok. The emphasis on buying Indigenous and learning from Indigenous communities helped her business grow and she’s been able to support other small businesses. “I still go day to day by it, but it's probably the best job I've ever had, because it's not really a job, it's just my journey.”

As a white-passing woman, Woolever has struggled with a lot of questions around her identity and her activities. Questioned about why she is wearing a ribbon skirt or doing other things, she’s often felt pushed to the side due to her appearance and not welcomed in during cultural activities. She welcomes the opportunity to show proof of her ancestry when customers ask but has had a hard time sometimes with not feeling accepted.

Over the years, she has learned a lot but Woolever remembers going to university not knowing about residential schools, Métis identity and the story of turtle island. Not having been raised in the community, she has undertaken so much research to learn about where her family came from. “I am rebirthing myself into my own culture, whereas I've birthed my children, and I've raised them in what I've learned, and so they get to teach me, and I get to teach them, and we get to work together. Now, when they have children and they move on, those children will grow up knowing that culture,” she smiles. Times have changed, too, with schools now educating about the history of residential schools.

When it comes to inspiration, Woolever looks to her kids. Her daughter loves weaving sashes and beading and her son loves fishing and hunting. They love looking at berries and medicines together. She’s also inspired by her Métis Branded community and the experience of bringing together products from Indigenous artisans to highlight them. She enjoys helping people with their genealogy, teaching classes, and all the people she gets to connect with. She loves sharing what she’s learned because she knows how helpful it would have been to her in her journey. The support she’s received constantly validates she’s on the right path and she loves to reciprocate.

Some people have questioned the wisdom of Woolever teaching people to make what she sells but for her, she likes to teach people to engage with their culture through her capote workshops. “I want to see a million artisans making capotes. I want to see everyone's work, because then it becomes a part about the artist and …. if we're all sharing it, then everyone can be an artist and I don't have to do it. It's not about me, it's about them learning, and that's absolutely what they should be doing,” she exclaims.  “It's not about [losing] a customer to me, it's about someone who's excited about their culture, someone who can't and doesn't have the skills to do it themselves that I can help them with, and those who want to learn more about the culture and do it themselves. Why not? Why wouldn't you want everyone to know?” she continues, refusing to see it as a competition.

“I didn't invent a capote. I didn't invent beading. I'm just here to help you figure out how to do it, too.”

As a single mom, Woolever struggles with self-care because she has her kids full-time and has no support within her family. Trying to be mindful and present for them when she doesn’t have much time for herself can be a challenge. When she is alone, she finds herself overwhelmed with all that she has to do.
“Seeing myself not as a machine, but as a human being, is hard.”  

“When you become a mom for the first time, your identity changes, and then your identity continues to change as your children rely on you less and less and less and then you kind of find a new you, because you were a totally different you before you had kids. I think it's a lot of the same with our indigeneity, we're trying to figure out our identity through that, and then that changes the more we know, and the more we grow,” Woolever observes.  

She’s been on a long journey of reconnecting and she’s happy with where she is today. It started with just one capote and grew into a community, knowledge sharing and mutual support. As the owner and operator of Métis Branded, Red River Métis Woman, Cassandra Woolever’s learned so much along the way, a hard-working single mom who is finding and creating her place. Inspired by her kids and the life she wants for them, she’s looking back and looking forward and doing what she can each day.

Thank you to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article!