Know Her Stories

“Cycling has helped me accept my vision loss. I’m at peace with it now.” Carla Shibley is pedaling hard. Seated at the back of the tandem bike she shares with teammate Meghan Brown, she pumps her legs relentlessly, trying to catch up to the pair of riders she knows must be just around the bend. It’s the 2019 Canadian National Road Race. She and Meghan have a shot of winning—if they make up some ground. Her legs burn; sweat pours.  But something feels off to Carla. Where is the leading team? Given how fast she and Meghan have been riding, shouldn’t they be caught up by now? Carla doesn’t let this thought distract her too much. She continues pedaling and follows Meghan’s instructions. Harder, let’s go, keep pushing. She recites the team mantra internally. The pain is temporary.  Meanwhile, Meghan is keeping a secret: she and Carla aren’t chasing the leader; they are the leader. The reason Carla doesn’t know this is because she has only two per cent central vision. At ten years old, Carla was diagnosed with juvenile macular degeneration, and ever since then, a large black spot has been growing in her line of sight, eclipsing her vision. “I don’t know when the lights are gonna go out,” she says. But she does know it will happen eventually.  Which means Meghan is much more than an ordinary teammate or tandem pilot. On the road, she is Carla’s eyes. Not only does Meghan steer the bike, but she also instructs Carla on how to prepare and respond to the terrain. Is there a hill coming up? A steep corner to ease up for? Meghan relays this information verbally—sometimes using code words if they’re in competition—or through a sort of leg-language. “I’ll ease off on the pedals a tiny bit and Carla knows right away to ease off. It’s almost like she can read my mind.” And while Carla is usually able to judge her and Meghan’s race position by counting the competitors they have or have not passed (she still has partial peripheral vision) she has miscalculated in this particular race. “We made an attack and got away really early in the race,” Meghan recalls. “We kept pushing to increase that gap. But Carla thought we were chasing.” When they cross the finish line—first—Carla doesn’t know they’ve won. Meghan tries to tell her the good news, but Carla thinks it’s a joke. “I was so dumbfounded. It didn’t sink in.”  Carla’s shock lasts until she’s on top of the podium—top centre. “My hands were shaking. I was like, what? Is this a joke? Am I being pranked?’” As cameras click and fans cheer, Carla and Meghan raise their arms high, trophies in hands, medals shining.  It is definitely not a prank. “I’ll ease off on the pedals a tiny bit and Carla knows right away to ease off. It’s almost like she can read my mind.” Two months later, they’re back on the podium—again, top centre. They’re in Lima, Peru, having just finished their final event at the 2019 Parapan Am Games, an international, multi-sport event that only occurs once every four years, similar to the Olympics or Paralympics. It’s Carla and Meghan’s fourth time on the podium this year in Lima. They’ve won two golds, a silver, and a bronze. They’ll return to Canada with much heavier bags.  No doubt their performance has edged them closer to making Team Canada and heading to Tokyo for the Paralympic Games, now being held in 2021. “But we’re hopefuls, not shoe-ins,” says Meghan. “The selection process is still being finalized and will depend on some races next year.” But they certainly look like Team Canada material. Watching Meghan and Carla ride—legs churning exactly in-sync, heads bowed at identical angles—it’s easy to assume they’ve been riding together since childhood. But it’s only been two years. After meeting at a cycling club in Calgary, they began training together upon the suggestion of a mutual friend. “I was terrified at first,” Meghan admits. “Tandem bikes are very big and very fast. It’s not like riding a road bike by yourself at all.”  Carla had almost no fear at all. At the time, she was willing to ride the bike with pretty much anyone. “I can teach you to ride in two minutes!” she’d say to prospective partners, downplaying the steep learning curve. “I think it really scared a lot of people.” “The more you ask for help, the more you’ll see that people are willing to give it.”  Meghan was able to keep her initial fears in check by taking a slow and steady approach to learning. That easing-in turned out to be crucial for establishing a solid, sustainable partnership. “I’ve had a few different pilots,” Carla says. “But the difference with Meghan was her conservative approach. It allowed us to build a foundation.”  Now, their sense of trust is iron-clad. “I can be on the back of the bike with Meghan and not feel any sense of anxiety,” says Carla.  Sports haven't always been a source of calm or joy for Carla. After her childhood diagnosis, athletics were an outlet for anger but also a huge source of that anger. Her vision loss made participation in sport either difficult or impossible. At 18, she had to give up running because she was constantly near-missing running into things—most notably, small children and deer on the road. She constantly wrestled feelings of why me?, especially since her sisters were both provincial-level athletes. A wrestler and a gymnast, they derived a sense of identity from sport that Carla craved but couldn’t access. She resorted to self-deprecating humor, joking that she was “just the blind girl.” “I used jokes to stuff away my feelings about my vision loss,” she says. Wanting to help, her sister suggested she try goalball, a team sport played exclusively by people who are visually impaired. But playing goalball was a bit like trying on a pair of jeans that was designed to fit but didn’t. “The atmosphere wasn’t for me.”  Then a coach told her about Para cycling—the possibility of zooming down hills and powering up slopes with a sighted guide. “I was like, woah, a tandem exists?”  She felt hopeful. Her family felt...concerned. The fact that Carla wanted to ride a bike—without seeing the road—seemed reckless. “Everyone thought it was crazy!” she laughs. It didn’t stop her. “To this day, my mom says her heart just pounds [when she watches me ride] and I’m like, why? This is so much fun!’” "The para community I’ve been exposed to in Canada—they’re such incredible, hardworking, humble people. It’s quite powerful. I enjoy working with Carla and being a part of something bigger than just myself.” It’s been more than just fun. “Cycling has helped me accept my vision loss. I’m at peace with it now.” If she’s having a bad day, Carla will get on the bike with Meghan or her good friend Janelle and think, “ah, that felt good.” Like Carla, Meghan discovered cycling as a result of physical challenges. A multi-talented athlete and former competitive soccer player, Meghan’s sports career took a turn after a series of knee injuries led to a frank conversation with her orthopedic surgeon. To avoid further injury, the surgeon advised Meghan give up soccer and try cycling. “The week after, I went and bought a road bike. And that was that.”  But it wasn’t quite that. Her true sporting breakthrough didn’t come until she discovered tandem cycling—and specifically, a tandem teamdom with Carla. “I enjoy Para cycling and being a part of that community more than any solo cycling I’ve ever done,” Meghan says. When asked how she feels to be accepted into the Para sport community as an able-bodied person, Meghan pauses to reflect. “It’s hard to put into words, honestly. The para community I’ve been exposed to in Canada—they’re such incredible, hardworking, humble people. It’s quite powerful. I enjoy working with Carla and being a part of something bigger than just myself.” Their friendship outside of cycling carries its own power. They say they’re like sisters—unafraid to communicate their qualms but more unified because of it. They also just have a good time together. Meghan comes over for Middle Eastern dinners at Carla’s house, and they love to have those no one else would get this but us-type conversations. Chats along the lines of “what kind of mascara works best for when you have to sweat on a bike and then potentially appear on camera?” keep things light and fun between strenuous training sessions. “Finding makeup that we can wear while racing on a bike is a challenge we’ve been working on for a long time,” Meghan laughs. As for their ten year age gap? They hardly notice it. “Carla has an old soul! She surprises me with her wisdom.”  They both cite remaining positive as integral to their partnership. This optimism has been especially crucial for Carla personally, as she doesn’t know how long her partial-sightedness will last. “I’m going blind and I’m looking forward to it,” she says. “That might sound bad, but it is what it is.” She says becoming less stubborn and learning to ask for help have been essential to her acceptance. “The more you ask for help, the more you’ll see that people are willing to give it.” Her advice for anyone facing unique challenges, especially physical ones, is to find some sort of outlet, to quit making excuses for yourself, and to let negativity fall away from you like water. “We have to be waterfalls,” she says. “Especially now.”  "It’s about the experience. It’s about enjoying whatever comes at me, with Meghan.” As for competing at the 2021 Paralympic Games, Carla and Meghan say that’s definitely their goal—it would be a huge honour to represent their country at that level—but making Team Canada isn’t some kind of shining end point. “I’ve been asked before, ‘what if you don’t make it?,’” Carla says. “But it’s about the experience. It’s about enjoying whatever comes at me, with Meghan.” Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotos: Provided

To honour Indigenous history and celebrate National Indigenous History Month, we’re spotlighting up-and-coming Indigenous artist and jewellery maker, Adrienne Larocque, and her brand Kihew and Rose.  Adrienne Larocque is a Nehiyaw Iskwew (Plains Cree Woman) from Maskwacis, Alberta, who lives, works, and creates on the traditional and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples (Vancouver). Along with working full-time as a program coordinator for the First Nations Technology Council (a BC-based non-profit that aims to make jobs in the tech sector more accessible to Indigenous people) she’s also the creator of Kihew and Rose, a line of handmade accessories created with traditional Indigenous materials such as home-tanned hides, animal bone, shells, and beads. Following the launch of her latest collection, Hillberg and Berk chatted with Adrienne about her journey to becoming a beader, how she’s using beadwork to reconnect with her culture, and why those cultural ties were lost in the first place.  Interview by Mica Lemiski Hillberg & Berk: How did you land on the name “Kihew and Rose” for your jewellery business?  Adrienne Larocque: So my Cree name—given to me by my late grandfather, my Mosom —is Kihew Iskwew, which means Eagle Woman. When I was thinking about names that aligned with my beadwork, I wanted something that represented a part of me but I didn’t want to use my full name. So I pulled Kihew. As for Rose, growing up, there were a lot of wild roses that grew in the field near where I lived in Alberta. So for me, Kihew and Rose reminds me of who I am as an Indigenous person, and also where I come from.  What is your origin story as a beader? How did you get started? I know a lot of Indigenous women who learned beading techniques from their grandparents or family members, but beading techniques weren’t passed down to me that way. I’ve only been beading for about four years now. I grew up in my community—Maskwacis located in Treaty 6 territory in Alberta—but I was very disconnected from my culture as a result of the Indian residential school system. All of my grandparents and my parents went to residential schools (my parents went to day school and my grandparents went to the boarding schools) and these schools were designed to remove and isolate children from their homes and their families, traditions, and cultures. Unfortunately, it was a really well-designed system. Because of that, myself and my whole family were not exposed to a lot of these cultural traditions, including traditional art practices like beading. I did have one beading lesson from my cousin when I was a teenager, but I was very young and very impatient! I gave up, thinking it wasn’t something I’d ever do. But I’ve always loved sewing. I used to make little patches and pouches on my Kokom’s ’s sewing machine, and all through my formative years I was sewing and learning how to pattern-draft and stuff. And so after high school and one year of general studies in college, I moved to Vancouver and took a fashion design diploma program. I had that background in sewing and thought, if I go into fashion, what could happen for me? But when I graduated from the program, I was discouraged by the competitiveness of industry, the lack of paid internships, and the distance away from my family. I was being called home. I went back to my community, and after working in education for two years, I just felt like I wasn’t really growing as a person. I decided to go back to school, this time focussing on Native Studies at the University of Alberta. That program completely shifted everything for me.  Oh wow—in what way? Native Studies taught me so much about the residential school system, Canadian legislation, and how historical injustices against Indigenous people really created the world that myself and my community lived in. I always knew residential schools existed, but I didn’t know how they were structured in a way that forced Indigenous people to assimilate into the dominant culture. I just didn’t know this. Taking the Native Studies program gave me historical perspective and taught me about the Indian Act and how it still impacts Indigenous people today. It really opened my eyes. I just understood my world better.  It sounds like you had a whole new context put on your life. For sure. Because if you don’t have the language to describe your experience, or the understanding of why you live a certain way, then how are you supposed to know? That program helped me understand why my upbringing and my family was the way it was, and why I didn’t have that connection to my culture. So I finished that program and graduated with my Bachelor of Arts Degree. It took me ten years to get my undergrad degree—that growing and learning process took time—but I did it. From there, I started building a career for myself. I began working with government and non-profit organizations to try and remove barriers for Indigenous people to access post secondary education opportunities. I also started looking for community classes to take in Edmonton, and I found a series of free workshops for First Nations women living in the city. I signed up, went to a beading class, and discovered this amazing group of people, including one woman with whom I had community ties I wasn’t aware of before. She demonstrated to us how to do a two-needle beading technique, and something just clicked. Since then, I’ve been beading non-stop.  I’m wondering if growing up without that understanding of your cultural history affected your relationship to your Indigeneity as a young person? And did you ever feel ostracized or othered as an Indigenous person?  I’ve definitely experienced instances of discrimination and racism and being stereotyped for the way I look, and it was definitely something that I struggled with growing up. Back then I wasn’t proud to be Indigenous because of the way I had been treated. To cope, I would try my best to blend in with the world and not draw too much attention to myself. But education really helped me become stronger in my Indigenous identity. My Native Studies program helped me shape that strong Indigenous identity for myself and better understand who I was and where I came from. I was able to develop stronger values because of it.  It sounds like that program really helped you go from feeling shameful to really feeling proud of your Indigeneity. Yeah. One of the things I think about often is the collection I designed at the end of my fashion diploma program. When I look at that collection—it was beautifully made and I’m really proud of all the hard work I put into it—but you know, the inspiration for it didn’t come from me being an Indigenous person. I didn’t base those designs off my own lived experience or connect them to my Cree culture. I look at the collection and think about how you can’t tell that an Indigenous person made it, which is not to say that it needed to look Indigenous, but more that I just don’t see myself reflected in that work. Now that I’ve really grown to love beading and have built it into my life, I see myself reflected in the work that I do, whereas that wasn’t the case with my graduation collection.  I also have to say, your jewellery is hot right now. Going on your website, a couple hours after your collection dropped last Friday, I kept seeing sold out, sold out, sold out. How does that feel? It’s weird! But it feels really great to see the support of the community—because that’s really what it is. It’s just inspiring, and it encourages me to continue to work. Working on that most recent collection—it took a long time. At the start of the pandemic, I was able to leave Vancouver (where I’m based) and go home to my family in Alberta, which really relaxed me, but still, for about a month I could not bead. I felt all this heightened anxiety, and so I didn’t touch my bead cases. There are so many teachings that go with beading, and one is that it’s not only an artform but a cultural practice, and so you always want to be in a good frame of mind and a good heart space when you bead. It’s an act of love, the way I see it. At the start of quarantine, I wasn’t feeling the right way, and so I couldn’t do it. But eventually, as things got better and I felt more calm, I started thinking, what’s something new that I can do? I began thinking of new designs, chipping away at it, and it grew into this really beautiful collection.  Can you talk a bit about what inspired the colours and shapes in your new collection? There seem to be a lot of references to Alberta’s native plant-life. They’re based on plants that grow in Canada and are known to grow in Alberta, but what really drew me to that style of work was the feeling of going back a season, from spring to winter, which is what happened when I travelled from Vancouver to Alberta at the start of isolation. I got to experience the snow melting, the little signs of spring coming to life, and the regrowth all around me. Growing up in Alberta, the change of seasons has always been a big part of my life.  Yeah, I guess Vancouver has a very different kind of spring. There’s no big thaw like there is in the prairies. Exactly, and traditionally in Indigenous communities, there were specific patterns and styles you recognized as belonging to certain Nations. Like you could tell where someone was from by the patterns and colours of their beadwork, and sometimes you could even tell what family they were from! The idea was, your beading reflected your surroundings. So for me it’s been really interesting because, like I mentioned before, I didn’t grow up with access to that passed-down knowledge. I don’t have any family patterns to reference—at least that I’m aware of—so I’m in this process of creating my own beading identity. Do you know what the future of Kihew and Rose looks like? What’s next for you in a business sense? That’s definitely the big question right now! Kihew and Rose is different than a traditional jewellery company in the sense that it’s all handmade and it’s very much an art—not to say that other jewellery isn’t art—but a lot of time goes into these pieces. I think I’m most well known for my smaller, more wearable, everyday earrings, but I’m also interested in reclaiming traditional practices like making moccasins or shawls. I’ve been thinking about starting to focus on larger pieces and acquiring traditional hides and other workable materials that are sourced in a good way. I would love to see the business grow from here, but I’m not really sure what that looks like yet, which is exciting! I think it could grow beyond what I even imagine, but as a smaller business owner I’m at the point where I’m still currently doing everything. It’s hard to meet the demands right now, to be honest. Do you ever take commissions? So much of your online shop is sold out...  Oh yes for sure. That’s actually how I started—by doing commissions and requests. It got to be too much to manage and so I started being more strategic, like doing a collection at a time, releasing it, and seeing how it went. But I do love taking special occasion requests. I’ve created earrings and jewellery for three or four weddings and a couple of graduation ceremonies, and I find it to be a lot of fun. You know, as long as the project is the right fit and I have the time and capacity, then I will consider it.  How do you feel about non-Indigenous people engaging in beadwork or wearing your designs? I think sometimes people ask themselves, am I being appropriative if I’m wearing something that looks traditionally Indigenous when I’m not Indigenous myself? I think it’s actually really important for non-Indigenous people to support Indigenous artists and business owners. I get that question a lot from people, like, is this cultural appropriation? It’s not. Unless you are a non-Indigenous person making Native-inspired work. If you’re buying from someone who is an authentic Indigenous person, then we’re happy to see you wearing our work. At markets, I had to learn quickly that I’m not just a vendor, but also an educator in the sense that I need to let people know it’s okay to buy my beadwork. It’s like, that’s why I’m here! That’s what I want you to do! We’re reckoning with some big social justice issues right now—I’m speaking particularly of Black Lives Matter and racialized police violence. Given how police brutality disproportionately affects Indigenous people in Canada (just as it does Black people and other people of colour), I’m wondering how you feel about the way people in Canada are reacting to all the current news? There’s a lot of talk right now, but do you feel supported as an Indigenous person?  It’s tough because I wouldn’t necessarily say that I feel supported as a First Nations woman. Every day, something new happens and, as an Indigenous person, it’s a lot to take in because I really feel for the Black Lives Matter movement—there are a lot of similarities in terms of what both our communities experience with police violence. But from what I’ve witnessed and what I’ve seen on social media, it seems that Canadians have been more supportive of this movement because it’s at an arm’s length. Canadians are still reluctant to take ownership and take action against injustices that are happening against Indigenous people in Canada. They can acknowledge that racialized violence is happening somewhere else but not that it’s happening here. You mentioned that more people are starting to talk about all this, but it doesn’t feel like a whole lot has changed. I don’t see much shifting yet. There needs to be more awareness of what’s happening here in our own country.  What do you hope non-Indigenous people—people who consider themselves allies—are doing right now to take action against these injustices? Are there particular things that would be meaningful to you personally? I think it’s really about taking the initiative to educate yourself. There are so many resources already available for people to access, one of them being the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They publish calls to action and they’ve also interviewed survivors of residential schools. One of the things I always used to hear our elders say is, we’ve already shared our stories. The stories are there, so you need to read them now. It’s about taking the time to really learn about Indigenous people who have been here since time immemorial.  Thank you for sharing that. It’s always tricky because, as a white person, I know it’s not great to keep asking Indigenous people, you know, “what can I do to help?” because that’s like saying “help me help you!”. I think for non-Indigenous people like myself, it’s really important to find ways to help that feel good in a personal sense. So for me, that looks like reading up on history, buying Indigenous art, bringing food to my Indigenous friends to show I support them—things like that.  Yeah, I think those are all really great things you mention. It's also important to have tough conversations with your own friends and family members, and to speak up when racist or inappropriate comments are made about Indigenous people. As an Indigenous person, we're not only subjected to stereotypes in the media but in our daily interactions, and to have to explain that again and again to people is just exhausting. At some point, there needs to be a shift. It can’t just be about us retelling these stories when we’ve told them time and time again. There does need to be initiative and uptake from other people from different backgrounds.  I agree, and thank you so much for taking the time to share your own story today. Are there any Indigenous artists who have inspired you or acted like mentors throughout your journey? One person that has been very influential in my beading journey is Heather Dickson, of Dickson Designs. She is an artist from the Yukon and is Tlingit from the Carcross Tagish First Nation and Nuxalk Nation from Bella Coola, BC. She creates beautiful and intricate beadwork and is well renowned for her beaded Granny Hanky Headbands. Her beadwork is serious goals! Since I started my business she has provided so much encouragement and given me so much advice when it comes to her knowledge of running a business.  That’s amazing! Is there anything else you’d like to add or that you want people to know about? Because I didn’t start beading until I was a bit older, I just want to let people know that beadwork is something you can start at any time. Just because you may not have learned something when you were younger or didn’t have access to these cultural understandings—it doesn’t mean you can’t learn. Reciprocity is a big part of what I do. Because I have been gifted with this knowledge, I want to be able to share it with other First Nations people as well. It’s really important for me to be able to pass on the knowledge I have to the next generation. I love that you say this because I feel like so many artists treat their art like this very exclusive, private thing—as in, “this is my idea and I own it”. It’s a super individualistic and status-driven way of thinking about art, and I like that your work doesn’t play into that. Your beading feels deeply engaged in community.  Beading really is a communal activity! It was something that Indigenous women did together so there is a lot of storytelling and sharing that occurs when you’re in these beading circles. To be able to create that experience for other people—it’s such a privilege to do that. Finding a way to learn how to bead was very difficult—I had to take a class instead of learn from family—and I don’t want it to be that hard for other people. Especially if you’re a First Nations person, beading shouldn’t be that inaccessible. I always think back to my Kokom, my late grandma. She was still alive when I first started beading and so she would watch me. She would stand over my shoulder and ask me, you know, “how do you choose the colours?”. She always used to tell me stories about how she wanted to learn to bead as a kid but wasn’t able to. It really breaks my heart that she had to go through what she did. Those moments watching you must have made her really proud. I think it’s important to acknowledge my Kokom’s role in all of this. Even though she didn’t know how to bead, I like to think that we could have beaded together.  Well just looking at the designs, you can tell there’s so much love and care put into them. I really do try. I try to put good energy into it and to make it with good intentions.

When Jordan Guildford was fourteen, she began to see her mother differently. Her child’s eye was giving way to a more judicious, adult perspective, and with that came the understanding that her mom was not just a mom, but a woman. “My dad wasn’t really around at all, and I started understanding what his absence meant, as a woman, to my mom.” Without the support of a partner, Jordan’s mom had gone into life-source mode. “We had nothing” says Jordan, who grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with her mom and two siblings.“We often didn’t have food, heat, or hot water.” A lack of necessities meant her mother’s priority was her children’s wellbeing and survival. Her own wants seemed irrelevant.  Not wanting her mother’s sense of self to dwindle any longer, Jordan suggested to her younger siblings that, instead of using the $20 their grandmother gifted each of them to Christmas-shop for themselves that year, they pool their money and buy their mom some jewellery. Her siblings were in. “We bought mom this little bracelet that looked like leaves woven together. It had what we thought were diamonds but…definitely plastic!” she laughs.  Upon opening the gift on Christmas morning, Jordan’s mother burst into tears and left the room. “I thought we’d hurt her. My brother—who was eight years younger—thought we’d got the wrong one!” But after a few minutes, Jordan’s mother reentered the living room, hair and make-up done, wearing her best clothes.“She sat us down and told us that this piece of jewellery had reconnected her to being a woman and an individual.” The link between jewellery and personal empowerment had been made clear to Jordan. Seeing her mother transform in a matter of minutes, all because of a bracelet and the sentiment behind it, showed how true “look good, feel good” could really be. “It’s as if you feel black and white and then you put on a little piece of jewellery and suddenly you see yourself in colour.” Jordan carried this sentiment with her over the years, but it wasn’t until December 2015 that she saw the opportunity to really put what she’d learned into practice. At a dinner party in her new hometown of Calgary (where she now lives with her husband and two kids, aged six and seven) Jordan and her friends were chatting about charitable initiatives around the holidays. “I noticed there was a focus on initiatives benefiting children, which I think is 100% how it should be, but I’ve seen what it’s like for women, too. If the children don’t have much, the mom has even less.”  Fueled by the memory of her mother and the bracelet, Jordan decided to spearhead a jewellery drive to collect accessories she could give to women in shelters on Christmas. She called this campaign “Gems for Gems,” the intended message being that gems in the community would donate gems to the gems (the women) in shelters. “I had only three weeks to collect, and I had a goal of giving 25 packages,” she recalls. “We collected enough to do 436 packages in three weeks.” Central to the success of the campaign, Jordan says, was not door-to-door soliciting, social media spamming, or other pushy marketing tactics. There was only one drop-off location for the jewellery—the OrangeTheory fitness centre in Calgary—and the staff and members rallied, big-time.“It’s amazing what happens when people come together with a common goal.”  Fast-forward four years and Gems for Gems is a nationally-registered charity whose mission has expanded beyond the realm of crowd-sourcing jewellery and into that of domestic abuse education and prevention. “I wanted to be able to keep the momentum of Gems going year-round,” Jordan says, adding that she didn’t set out on creating a large charity; it just sort of happened. “It wasn’t me trying to make space [for myself of this charity]. I was filling a required space.” Gems still operates their annual jewellery drive (which has reached over 14,000 across Canada) but their outreach now includes a scholarship program and a series of workshops designed to empower survivors. One of the workshops teaches self-defence, and when it first began, Jordan noticed some recurring questions from survivors. Questions like ‘what do I do when I’m being cornered?’ or ‘what do I do when I’m bleeding and I can’t see through blood?’ came up shockingly often, and Jordan understood what this meant: women were planning on returning to their abusers. “I thought, oh my god, I’ve got to be able to do something to make these women feel like leaving and remaining out is an actual option.” She set to researching and discovered that lack of self confidence and lack of financial independence were (and are) two of the leading factors for why women return to abusive situations. Wanting to address these factors, Jordan added more classes to the empowerment series, which now includes workshops in financial literacy, self defence, resilience training, and psychological coping skills. The series is called THRIVE. “Women come into our workshops not being able to make eye contact with you, and then suddenly their heads are up, they’re leaning forward, taking notes, and asking questions. It’s incredible.” Jordan’s personal history as a survivor (she was abused by her priest as a child) has given her the perspective she knows is necessary to facilitate survivor recovery. “I have been grounded in the reality of poverty and abuse, and I want to create change for other people. It’s amazing to live a life focused on that.” Yet the process of operating Gems for Gems is not a healing experience for Jordan herself—nor does she think it should be. “I personally feel that if you’re needing to do something to heal yourself, you probably shouldn’t be working with other people that need help.” That’s not to say that Gems hasn’t had, and isn’t having, a huge personal impact on Jordan; it’s more that her trauma is separate and distant from her charitable work. “The stuff that happened to me was a long time ago. It’s part of what made Gems possible because it’s given me perspective, but I don’t have the pain with it anymore.”  Gems’ team members are expected to have a similar, forward-looking approach. “We don’t talk about backstories at all. That makes us very different in our sector. We are 100% here moving forward.”  Also setting Gems apart from other organizations in their field is the language they employ when discussing abuse. Specifically, they don't use domestic violence as a catch-all for varied types of domestic abuse.  “The reason we say domestic abuse instead of domestic violence is because we see violence as a point on the spectrum under the umbrella of abuse.” In other words, abuse comes in many forms: financial, emotional, sexual—all equally legitimate and all worthy reasons for seeking help. “Calling it domestic violence is problematic to me because, that way, many women who aren’t getting beaten don’t understand that they’re still being abused.” And women who don’t know they are being abused are more likely to stay in unsafe situations, sometimes to the point where things turn fatal. “Our scholarships are named after women who have been murdered by their intimate partners. And in both cases, the situation didn’t turn physical until the first and last time.” Gems is on a mission to educate and empower survivors, which involves showing survivors that resilience comes in many forms, and that there is no “right way” to act resiliently. Maybe resilience means leaving your partner and seeking help at a shelter. Maybe it means getting your nails done in the wake of grief. Maybe it means simply breathing, in and out, over and over. To Jordan, resilience refers to how you come back from difficulties you’ve been given. “I believe we all have the right to wallow and stay angry. But we also have the choice to not. And I feel the responsibility, as a people with breath in us, to take the life we have and make it as beautiful as we can.” Jordan’s daughter, Lily, seems to have tapped into her mother’s philosophy already, possessing a knack for de-escalating tension and making other children feel safe around her. “My kids, Lily and Gabriel, grew up in the centre of this charity and it’s changed how they are. They behave differently, they think differently—the things that come out of their mouths are different.” Jordan recalls an incident in which Lily was only four years old. Walking up to an older, bigger boy whom she’d witnessed bullying a smaller boy, Lily said, “do you see that? Do you see how sad he is right now?” She looked from the small boy to the big boy as if to say, did you really mean to hurt him? Taking his cue, the big boy walked away. “It just blew my mind,” says Jordan. “She didn’t get mad or call him a bully. She just went in and instinctively changed his perspective.”  Changing perspective is central to what Gems for Gems does, and will continue to do, as they help survivors transcend their circumstances. They are showing women that pain can translate to power, and that every single breath can be an act of resilience.  Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotos: Provided

When Jacque Tisher’s first daughter, Acacia, was born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus—birth defects involving the spinal cord and brain—she knew her experience of motherhood was going to be drastically different than what she’d always imagined. As Acacia underwent thirteen surgeries in her first year of life, Jacque lived at the hospital. “Watching her struggle with life and come close to death in infancy was terrifying—it was such a different experience,” says Jacque. “Even so, I had the opportunity and ability to bond with her very strongly.”  Jacque—pronounced like “Jackie,” and named after Jackie Kennedy—knew she had a choice: to be bitter, or to make the world better. She chose the latter. “I’m very solution-based at living. If you see a problem, you come up with a solution.” As a new registered nurse planning to start her career in emergency, Jacque decided to change direction and specialize by becoming a pediatric and neonatal intensive care nurse. “I wanted to be able to help other people’s kids like they’d helped mine.” she says.  Working in a unit where babies with complex medical needs were born, Jacque became increasingly bothered by the fact that many children lived their whole lives in the hospital. (Back then, it was very challenging and in some cases impossible to take children home if they required life support or round-the-clock care.) Jacque often argued with doctors about what quality of life truly meant, advocating for kids to have a life outside the sterile, ten-by-ten rooms they’d been assigned. “These kids would have 65 nurses they thought were their mom. They grew up institutionalized because of their health needs, looking at a TV and never touching the grass, seeing the stars, or feeling the warmth of the sun.” The solution—or at least a partial one—was for Jacque to become a foster parent to children who would otherwise be confined to the hospital, and who lacked families of their own. Inspiring this decision was Jasmine, a little girl who’d been living in the hospital for two years. “I saw her every day when I came to work. I fell in love with her and thought, I want to take her home.”  But about a month after Jasmine joined the family (then made up of Jacque, her husband, and daughters Acacia and Victoria) she passed away. Adding to Jacque’s grief was the subsequent loss of two infant children of her own, both of whom had been born prematurely and hadn’t survived the complications. Despite these losses, Jacque’s desire to be a mother never wavered, in part because she has always conceptualized motherhood as an opportunity to care for a special gift from God—a child. “A child is never really ours. They’re their own person. We get the gift of loving them unconditionally, guiding them, being part of their life, and developing that precious life.” Jacque went on to have a son (Isaac) and fostered several more children with special needs, one of whom was Hope. But bringing Hope into the family meant advocating for in-home medical support so that Jacque could sleep through the night and still go to work twice a week. “All families should have that support. If you have a child on life-support or that has complex medical needs, health care should step in and help.” But 24 hours after Jacque got the support she asked for, Hope passed away. “I thought, this isn’t okay. So, I decided to become the voice for other families who needed care like I did and started Hope’s Home.” Beginning as a small home daycare for children with complex medical needs, Hope’s Home was originally run out of Jacque’s own home. Jacque wanted to change the reality of what it meant to have a child with special needs while trying to pursue a career. “All my decisions come from raising my little girl, Acacia, and understanding what it’s like to be a mom while trying to maintain employment.” With Hope’s Home up and running, it soon became apparent that Jacque had tapped into a huge community need: over the course of 14 years, Hope’s Home grew from a privately-run daycare to a multi-million dollar non-profit with 230 employees spread across caregiving facilities in Regina, Prince Albert, Saskatoon, and Warman, Saskatchewan. Today, Hope’s Home operates a number of early learning & childcare centres to support both children with complex medical needs and typically developing children. Along with medically-safe, Monday-Friday daycares staffed by nurses, early childhood educators, and developmental workers, Hope’s Home also operates several supportive living homes for children in foster care.  These live-in homes weren’t originally part of Jacque’s plan. “At first I wanted Hope’s Home to be a daycare and to offer some respite. I wanted kids to go home with their families at night.” But this goal proved to be slightly idealist—because not all kids have families, or even foster families, to return home to consistently. Take Hope, for example, whose mother’s circumstances and lack of ability rendered her unable to care for a daughter born with complex medical needs. “There are times when parents truly can’t provide care,” says Jacque.   There are also situations in which caregiving can become too big a task for a single set of parents to handle—no matter how dedicated, loving, or capable they may be. The Trudels, for example, are a family of five in which the youngest child, Thomas, has a genetic condition undocumented anywhere else in the world. Parents Shianne and Ivan were thrown quickly into a world of complex medical devices and admittedly scary drugs. Questions like “When should we give him morphine?” and “When should we give him Ativan?” became part of their everyday lives. Recognizing they did not have the capacity to care for Thomas while working and parenting their other two young daughters, Shianne and Ivan sent Thomas to live at Hope’s Home in Prince Albert. “[Shianne and Ivan] are still Mom and Dad and part of his world, but they recognize that we’re here to be an extension of their family,” says Jacque. Helping families like the Trudels is exactly why Jacque is so enthusiastic about her working life. “They’re a beautiful example of why we do what we do, and why our staff shows up to work everyday.” She is also buoyed by the memory of Acacia, who passed away in 2011 at the age of eighteen. “I always say to people: you have to know your why. So, why do you get up in the morning, why you do what you do, and why are you passionate about your job or what you do in life?” Acacia is Jacque’s why. “I think of her as an angel,” she says, adding that, as an organ donor, Acacia saved five lives after she passed. “She’s my hero. I would not be who I am if I wasn’t her mom.” Even with such a powerful why fueling her mission, Jacque’s work with Hope’s Home can be difficult—emotionally, physically, and even from a business standpoint, as Jacque is trained as a nurse and not a business expert. “I didn’t know it was going to be a 14 million dollar business with 230 staff! But yeah, that happened,” she says, as if still in shock over those numbers. “I have taken many leadership courses to mentor, lead and coach my staff.  Recognizing gaps in knowledge, I even took a course called Accounting for Dummies! Because I had to have a better understanding of my financial records.” Jacque is not the only ladder-climber in her family. She describes her mother, Jeanie, as an absolute worker.“Growing up, my family ran a restaurant, a bowling alley, a pizza place, and a youth centre where all the kids hung out,” she says, adding that, since her dad was a preacher, her mom took a lead in running the business—without any formal education. Jeanie later got her GED on a whim (she was forty and aced it) and, after her divorce, worked her way up from cook to Flight Chief at the Minot Air Force Base. “She’s just an amazing woman with a business mind, and I believe I have that same mind. She is my mentor and best friend.”   Jacque’s inherited business savvy continues to drive Hope’s Home toward new opportunities, but her working life has not eclipsed her individual wants and needs. For example, she’s working on a book, The Journey of Hope. “The story needs to be told,” she says, adding that the book is largely about Acacia. “The things she taught me growing up…she really was an incredible daughter.” Jacque is also getting remarried this year. She has been divorced for fourteen years (amicably so) but it’s only recently that she’s been open to partnership again. “I thought, never again, my whole life is work and children, I don’t have time for that. And then I met this guy. I thought, oh my gosh, this is amazing.”  Jacque is taking a no-big-deal approach to wedding planning. “I’ll get a dress and it’ll be fine!” she laughs, adding that the wedding will be held on her family’s acreage in North Dakota. “We’ll all cook the food and we’ll have family and friends to share the day with. I’m sure all the neighbours will show up, too.”  Her kids will also be there—three from her side, and three from fiancé Jason’s. It’s evidence that Jacque’s best talents are building families and being a mother.   Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotography: Taryn Gibson

Kayla Ledohowski-Becker has been fighting expectations for a long time. As the daughter of a prominent hotel family in Winnipeg, Kayla has long been recognized locally for her last name—not always positively. “I was always being poked at for having a silver spoon in my mouth, which is not actually how I grew up,” Kayla says.  It’s a problem faced often by children of wealthy or successful parents: you become known as an extension of your family as opposed to an individual. And specifically for Kayla, the accusation that she was cushioned in privilege wasn’t accurate.  Starting when she was 15, Kayla worked as a server and hostess in her family’s hotel restaurant. Despite her tireless work ethic, she found it difficult to cast off assumptions that she had it easy. “At the time, those accusations would really bother me,” she says. Her frustration gave way to determination. “I knew I had to work a little harder. It made me want to prove myself.” Her frustration gave way to determination. “I knew I had to work a little harder. It made me want to prove myself.” And so at 18, while enrolled as a full-time student in university, Kayla left the family business to work in other restaurants, eventually landing a job as the manager of an Earls when she was only 20. “I love hospitality. I like talking and interacting with people. I think hospitality helps give you life experience through the people you meet.” Earls proved to be a huge turning point for Kayla and her career, but not in the way she expected. A group of regulars—who also happened to work for the Birchwood Automotive Group, the largest network of car dealerships in Winnipeg—suggested she come sell cars with them. “They casually tried to recruit me every time they were in,” Kayla recalls. Much like scouts at a hockey game, these businessmen had noted Kayla’s exceptional work ethic and potential. She had a bright future. They wanted her on their team.  “At that point I didn’t even know how to put air in my tires!” Kayla laughs. As a restaurant manager with a ceilinged income, Kayla worked a ton of unpaid hours to run the restaurant to her high standard. (Once, she even stayed until 4:00 AM to set up for a corporate event, simply because she wanted to make the experience special for her staff.) The new, potential job piqued her interest. “I wanted to work in a business that rewarded me for my discretionary effort.”  Kayla landed the job with Birchwood Automotive. Actually, she landed a few jobs, at several of Birchwood’s dealerships around the city, but she chose to accept a job as a sales specialist at Jaguar Land Rover Volvo Winnipeg—an exceptional place of work for the fact that it had a female sales manager. “That’s probably one of the reasons I ended up starting in the store,” Kayla says. “There were next to no women in forward-facing customer roles at the time.” This was only nine years ago.  Kayla had tapped into a phenomenon well known to women in so-called male-dominated industries: it often takes women to hire women. “People are always so drawn to what is comfortable and familiar,” Kayla says. “When all the managers are men, they’re generally comfortable dealing in a certain way. When you’re bringing in females it changes the dynamic.” This isn’t to say that employers should not be held accountable for outdated recruitment practices—hiring women and other underrepresented groups should not be seen as a risk, but rather an opportunity to explore new ideas and evolve the business. That said, awareness of comfort-zone hiring preferences gives female employers a powerful incentive to improve the gender distribution of their workplaces. Kayla can speak to this personally. After transitioning to the role of sales manager at the Birchwood Ford dealership in 2013—a decision prompted by her desire to gain experience outside the luxury realm—Kayla took an active role in reshaping what was, at the time, a bit of an old boy’s club. “That was my first role where I had a team and was hiring people, and so I was able to bring women on board.” The store went from having zero female salespeople multiple, all hired in part by Kayla. “One of those women is one of  the top salesperson at Ford to this day. She has been for a long time.” Kayla made other changes, too, including the introduction of new protocol to ensure all customers—regardless of whether they were buying a luxury vehicle—received a luxury-type buying experience. “They’re people and they’re buying cars. The treatment shouldn’t be different.” Her dedication to inclusivity in customer service led to a prestigious designation for the dealership. In 2016, Birchwood Ford was given the President’s Diamond Club Award in recognition of their excellent customer service. “It’s one of the biggest accomplishments I’ve been a part of to date in my automotive career.” Kayla is also a proud member of Women of Automotive Leadership, a committee founded by MaryAnne Kempe (Birchwood Automotive’s Chief of Human Resources) that creates support services for women of Birchwood Automotive and hosts networking events to encourage recruitment. “Don’t put too much emphasis on the fact that something is ‘male dominated.’ If you’re the person in the right role, you can change that.” Still, there are daily challenges Kayla faces as a woman in automotive. For one, she’s often mistaken as a receptionist by customers and store vendors. These interactions don’t bother Kayla; she views them as opportunities to educate. “I think these moments are really critical for change,” she says. Instead of taking offense in these moments, Kayla starts a conversation. “I want to wow people. Being the best version of myself allows me to show people that this is a changing world, and women are just as capable, if not moreso, than their male counterparts.”  If it seems like Kayla is well-versed in the language of human interaction and communication—that’s because she is. She has a Master’s Degree in psychology, which she completed in 2012 while working full-time in automotive. Getting her Master’s wasn’t motivated by a desire for a new career or higher earning potential (she loved her job and planned to stay in automotive) but rather a desire to learn and explore. “If I won the lottery I would be a career student. I’d get a medical license just for fun!,” she laughs, explaining that her “nerdy” tendencies developed in high school and never really dissipated. In university, for example, she studied religion purely for the sake of attending lectures with professors who were passionate about their field instead of money. “I’m not religious at all, but since studying religion doesn’t lead to many career options, the professors with Master’s Degrees and Doctorates all truly love the topic. Sitting in those classes was so engaging and inspiring for me!” Perhaps “nerdiness,” as a term, needs a re-branding, because in the context of Kayla’s life, nerdiness reads more like passion to learn and problem-solve. Problem solving is what keeps Kayla feeling most like herself on a day-to-day basis. As the General Sales Manager for Volvo Land Rover Jaguar (she returned to this dealership in 2017) her mission is not so different from when she worked in restaurants as a server: she wants to build relationships and work with a team towards a common goal. “What helps keep me feeling like Kayla, as opposed to someone who simply sells cars, is coaching my team. In those moments we’re not selling cars. We’re engaging on a human level and having real conversations.” Kayla is also helping start conversations outside the automotive industry—or, on top of it, actually. Last summer, a coworker and former beekeeper suggested they cover the roof of the Volvo dealership with beehives. Kayla was all in. “Bees are extraordinary pollinators and they’re so important to the general ecosystem. We wanted to start educating people about bees, and so we took a chance and put the bee hives on the roof.” The project, done in partnership with Beeproject Apiaries, was a huge success: there were over 70,000 bees on top of the Volvo dealership at one point. The hives also proved to be a talking point, generating people’s interest in sustainability and healthy living. The bee project led to further community action, too, such as honey extraction workshops and bee-specific teaching initiatives at inner city schools. “It’s all about making connections in the community,” says Kayla. “We sell cars, but it’s not who we are.” In other words, Kayla and her team are a far-cry from hackneyed stereotypes of car salespeople on TV: those greedy, grimy, anything-for-money men. Kayla loves selling cars, but there’s one term, often applied to her field, that bothers her: male-dominated. Men still outnumber women by a large proportion in the world of car sales, but that discrepancy is not something Kayla wants to foreground in talking about her job. “I have a hard time saying ‘male-dominated’ out loud because to me, if you want to do something, go do it.” As in, calling something ‘male-dominated’ sets up unnecessary barriers. “Don’t put too much emphasis on the fact that something is ‘male dominated.’ If you’re the person in the right role, you can change that.” Take it from someone who knows.   Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotos: Provided

Wearing a long black shift dress accented with a statement necklace, Rachel Mielke mingles at the Grand Opening of the newest Hillberg & Berk retail location in Calgary. A customer—one who has braved the 100-person line of people wanting to check out the new store—pulls her aside, clearly with something to say.   Rachel is no stranger to admiration-filled exchanges with customers. As the founder and CEO of Hillberg & Berk, her level of visibility is such that brand-followers often recognize her in public. “Social media has really become the main source of people’s content consumption,” she says. Appearing regularly on Hillberg & Berk’s Instagram and Facebook accounts, Rachel is part of the CEO-turned-celebrity phenomenon unique to the digital age. This particular customer has more to say than most. “I’ve followed the brand for 10 years,” she says, sporting a mix of new and vintage Hillberg & Berk pieces. “I love your brand and your story so much that I went with my husband for a special trip to Regina—just so I could go to the first Hillberg & Berk store.”  This is a first for Rachel. Her Regina-based jewellery company has seen her through some pretty fantastic milestones (a showcase at the Oscars, designing a brooch for Her Majesty the Queen, a partnership with Tessa Virtue—you get it, she’s made it) but to have someone visit the flagship store as if it were a museum is another level of wow. “It blew me away that there are people passionate enough about the brand that they would plan a trip around it.” The thought of Regina as a fashion or jewellery destination would have been unthinkable to an 18-year-old Rachel Mielke. Lack of a “scene” in Saskatchewan was in part why she opted for a business degree instead of something more artistic. “I loved fashion but I was aware of the reality that there was very little fashion in Saskatchewan when I graduated in 1998, and so my main focus was to make a business for myself.” Even if she didn’t think she would build a career in fashion, she maintained a desire to create, and to express herself through design, from a young age. She recalls spending hours in her parents’ basement, meticulously placing coloured pegs into her Lite-Brite board. “My mom would come downstairs and say, ‘why are you sitting in the dark?’ Turn the light on!’ And I’d say ‘noooo, it’s cooler with the lights off!’”  She was equally enamored with Rainbow Brite. “My whole room was Rainbow Brite. That character definitely influenced my brand and my fashion today,” she says, referencing the bold colours and gems now signature to Hillberg & Berk. The character was more than just an aesthetic inspiration for Rachel. Rachel’s goal to help women “sparkle”—through not only the jewellery she makes but also a variety of charitable initiatives—is a modern twist on Rainbow Brite’s mission to bring colour to the world. “I remember buying $300 worth of supplies and thinking it was a fortune!” she recalls. From those materials she made herself a statement necklace. “I put it on and thought, wow, this is really special. I want to do more of this.” Growing up in a financially-tight household, Rachel had to employ creativity, as opposed to a credit card, to realize her fashion goals early on. After digging out her mom’s 1970s sewing machine and teaching herself how to sew, she developed a knack for making second-hand look chic. “I started deconstructing my clothes and re-sewing them together. I was making fashion that I couldn’t afford to buy otherwise.” She also began making simple jewellery, but it wasn’t until after business school that she made her first luxury item. With money she’d saved from working multiple jobs, Rachel travelled to a specialty gem shop in Edmonton and bought a selection of Bali sterling silver, Swarovski crystals, and freshwater pearls. “I remember buying $300 worth of supplies and thinking it was a fortune!” she recalls. From those materials she made herself a statement necklace. “I put it on and thought, wow, this is really special. I want to do more of this.”  The requests for her designs began to pile up and, fueled by encouragement from friends, Rachel decided to put her business degree to use in a notoriously tough realm: the jewellery industry. The first hurdle to overcome was a lack of market knowledge, which she overcame through travel. “I went to every single place I’d read was an incredible source of craftsmanship until I built my knowledge of the industry globally,” she says. But the male-dominated industry did not initially recognize Rachel as a force. “People didn’t want to work with me. I was a start-up, so that was an issue too, but they certainly didn’t look at me, a 25-year old woman, and take me seriously enough to say, ‘hey I’m gonna take a chance on you.’” “I want everyone to feel what I felt when I put on that first piece of special jewellery.” Rachel learned to market her ideas with confidence and strength. “The key was finding people who believed in me. It was also learning how to sell myself, my story, and convince people that I was going to make it.” Over 15 years later and she has, most definitely, made it. Hillberg & Berk is a nationally-recognized brand with global ambitions. Their 31,000 square-foot office in Regina’s warehouse district features gorgeous chandeliers, plush furniture, and the bustling energy of a newsroom about to break an important story. Yet Rachel’s in-office presence is a far cry from boss-woman caricatures seen and mythologized in Hollywood. She’s no Miranda Priestly, in other words, and if you run into her in public, she’s more likely to gift you a piece of jewellery than demand a favour. “I want everyone to feel what I felt when I put on that first piece of special jewellery. But sometimes I only have what’s on my body, and so I give it away!”  Giving away jewellery is but one way Rachel is disrupting the pithy maxim that luxury is exclusive. “On a global stage, H&B is one of very few brands that is truly changing the narrative on how brands impact the community, but also how brands change what women think of themselves.” Rachel is redefining what it means to be a brand leader through her personal style as well. Sometimes she shows up to the Hillberg & Berk headquarters in ripped jeans, sneakers, and a cool t-shirt. Other times, she elevates her style by pairing a simple dress with pops of Sparkle. “I have learned to dress my body type and just stick to what works. I found a great dress this season and I bought it in five colours.” Her clothes and accessories reflect her mission to feel confident, not necessarily cutting-edge, and she hopes this model will inspire women to view fashion as a source of self-expression as opposed to a set of stifling ideals. “I don’t think society should be so prescriptive in terms of telling us how to dress, especially in the work environment. I love that we’re coming into a time where, as women, we’re feeling more comfortable defining our own personal style.” Rachel may be forward-thinking, but she still gleans wisdom from the past—specifically, from the kaleidoscope she had as a child. A large red tube with a textured baroque pattern, Rachel’s kaleidoscope was a source of wonder for her younger self but has since acquired a  philosophical weight. In her keynotes, panels, and workshops (most of which focus on female empowerment and its links to social change) Rachel often references the kaleidoscope as a metaphor for our lives, hoping to inspire a deeper sense of gratitude within her audience. “So often we focus on the small, insignificant parts of our lives. We all have challenges, but the majority of life is amazing—if we just choose to focus on it.” Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotos: Provided At Hillberg & Berk, our dream is to empower women to see their own unique strengths, beauty and potential — what we call ‘sparkle’ — and inspire them to help other women see theirs, too.

Upon hearing her diagnosis, Deanna Ratzlaff began to argue with the radiologist. The idea that she had cancer was too far-fetched—it couldn’t be true. “I had a mammogram before and it was fine,” she said to the doctor, referring to the tests she’d undergone five years prior. Deanna had gone to the clinic that day for a routine appointment. She was 44. The mammogram was done out of responsibility as opposed to concern. “Yes, well…” said the doctor, showing her a set of pictures. “This is that mammogram, and this is this mammogram.” The images were completely different. One showed a healthy set of breasts. The other showed multiple lumps—breast cancer. They diagnosed her on the spot. “I always call that moment my hijacking,” says Deanna, now 48. “Because, at that point, life as you know it is totally changed.” Amplifying Deanna’s shock that day was the fact that she did not feel sick at all. “I was feeling amazing. I had been going to the gym five days a week, I had a trainer, and I was eating well.” Six weeks later she underwent a double mastectomy. “It seems like once you’re diagnosed with breast cancer, everything goes on high speed.” She adds that information overload and a barrage of unfamiliar medical terminology made it easy to slip into “yes mode”—agreeing to procedures and treatments without questioning them because you don’t know what other options exist. As a medical lab technician, Deanna was equipped to absorb and understand more information than the average patient, but she still found herself making life-changing decisions at a very fast pace. One such decision was to have her breasts reconstructed immediately after her mastectomy, an option she chose over prosthetics, “going flat,” or reconstruction at a later date. Her choice to have her breasts reconstructed wasn’t some profound gesture to reclaim an important part of herself. “I actually didn’t love my breasts,” she says, explaining that she chose immediate reconstruction for practical reasons: it would save her from the hassle of prosthetics as well as a potential future surgery. “And I never would have been comfortable with going flat,” she says. “I know lots of women are, but I always say I’m too vain.” In this case, “vanity” could just as easily be called self-awareness. Deanna didn’t want to live her life without breasts. She wanted to be able to fit into women’s clothes, the way she always had. She wanted to feel pretty. Vanity, under certain circumstances, can actually be empowering. As Deanna continued her post-surgery treatment—undergoing chemotherapy and navigating a circus of medical appointments—she began to look for a peer support group with whom she could discuss her experiences, exchange information, and share coping strategies. There was no such thing—at least not in Saskatoon. And so along with three women she’d met at a Skills For Healing cancer seminar, Deanna founded (and continues to facilitate) Breast Cancer Support Saskatoon, a peer led support group that provides people diagnosed with breast cancer an opportunity to meet and discuss what they’re going through. “It’s worked amazingly well to bring support and information to other women,” Deanna says. “It’s been a source of healing for me as well. Being able to share with people who get it.” That’s the thing about breast cancer: not everyone “gets it.” We may understand cancer as a horrible, life-altering disease, but only personal experience can bring a true understanding of how the illness uniquely terrorizes the mind and body. That’s in part why peer groups like BCSS are so important: they allow members to access community through shared experience, helping to relieve the sense of isolation brought on traumatic experiences—feeling like a foreigner in your own body, for example. “You look at pictures of yourself before you were diagnosed and you don’t even recognize that person anymore. But you also don’t recognize the person you are in the current moment. You wonder, who am I?” Losing pieces of yourself, both literally and figuratively, is an experience common to all breast cancer patients. “When you go through surgery, you lose your breasts and then you heal from that, and then you go through chemo and you lose even more.” Your hair. Your energy. Your ability to go to work. It can make a person feel utterly powerless, so much so that owning labels like “brave” or “strong” becomes difficult. “Everybody tells you have brave you are, saying things like, ‘oh you’re such a warrior.’ But you have no choice but to be brave. And you don’t really realize how strong you have to be until you’re thrown into that situation.” But what does strength actually look like when you’re sick? For Deanna, strength meant getting up everyday and applying her make-up. To look beautiful when she felt like crap was to take her power back, one brush stroke at a time. “I made myself look pretty just so I could actually feel pretty again,” she says. Tattooing her breasts was another way Deanna took back control amidst uncontrollable circumstances. “I just knew I didn’t want to look at my scars all the time,” she says. She began to browse different artists and their tattoos. She fell in love with florals. “I thought, wow, if I could have these tattoos and not see my scars anymore, it would be amazing.” And so now, instead of scars, Deanna sees beautiful flowers. “I always said I would never get breast implants and I never would get tattoos…and now I have both!” she laughs. Another thing she likely didn’t predict doing? Modelling topless. In 2016, Deanna helped bring an initiative of the Canadian Cancer Society called BRA Day (Breast Reconstruction Awareness Day) to Saskatoon. The event occurs every October in cities across Canada—now including Saskatoon, thanks to Deanna and her team—and provides breast cancer survivors and previvors with space and time to discuss reconstructive options with leading surgeons and plastic surgeons. One of the highlights of the event is the Show and Tell Lounge, where live volunteers display the results of their breast reconstructions. Deanna was one such model in 2016. The experience was a milestone. “I finally felt pretty again. It was like, this is me.” She adds that many BRA Day participants initially deemed her tattoos “pretty, but not for me.” But after these participants completed their walk through the showroom, they’d often come back and ask Deanna,“who did your tattoos?” In showcasing herself that day, Deanna was showcasing options, providing knowledge. Giving power back. Standing shirtless, she exemplified that beauty was still possible amidst illness. Although Deanna presently has what doctors call “no evidence of disease,” it turns out that “cancer free” is a bit of a fallacy. “Once you have gone through breast cancer, you’re looking over your shoulder every single day wondering when it’s going to come back. I’m essentially cancer free but how do you really know?” This sense of not-knowing has given Deanna a new appreciation for her everyday life. “I don’t ever wish that I’d had cancer, but I am a better person now that I have gone through it,” she says, adding that she’s a more compassionate person since becoming sick. “I feel a lot more love than I used to, especially for others who are struggling. It’s not up to me to judge anybody. It’s up to me to love and accept them exactly as they are.” But sometimes the toughest person to accept is yourself. “It’s a struggle. You fight to get back to [your level of fitness] but trying to accept yourself is a process.” She adds that having the motivation to do things she once loved—going to the gym, say—is especially tricky. “It’s so difficult because you still remember what your body was like before cancer, and what you were able to do before cancer, and so you kind of beat yourself up because you’re not at that spot.” Yoga and meditation have helped Deanna avoid a self-criticism spiral. “These practices have really helped centre me.” They’ve also led to an increased sense of gratitude: “I try to remember that when I’m having a bad day now, it’s just a bad day. I get to go home and start over tomorrow. I always say: a bad day of work is still better than a good day of chemo.” Perhaps the best advice of all? Talk to yourself like a friend. “I always say to people—give yourself the same advice you’d give to a best friend going through the same thing. Once you start talking to yourself in the same way, your perspective shifts. You’re kinder to yourself.” Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotos: Nancy Newby Photography and Tonya Wanner Photography

Karen Sherbut was sixteen when she ran away from home. It was January, 1975, and the day had begun somewhat typically: she’d had a fight with her stepmom, one that would need to be “discussed” with her father when he arrived home. The problem? “Discussion” was often a physical event. Violent. “He would come home in his drunken stupors and I could tell from the way the door closed whether it was going to be a good night or a bad night,” she remembers. “I had my hiding spots, but he always found me.” Later that afternoon, pencil poised over a math test, Karen began to shake. She couldn’t take it anymore. “I realized I needed to do something if I wanted to start living instead of just existing,” she says. And so when she came home from school that evening to find her father standing in the doorway waiting for her, she turned and ran. “I knew that every step I took away from that house was one step closer to safety,” she recalls. “It sounds bizarre, but it’s a common feeling for so many homeless and runaway kids—that the streets and its unknowns are safer than what you’re running from.” Also propelling Karen to run was the knowledge that no one else was going to fight for her safety. Although neighbours had previously made calls the police due to violence they’d overheard, no action had ever been taken against the abuse in her home. “Times were different back then,” she says. “It was taboo to talk about domestic violence and child abuse. Everyone turned a blind eye because, if they had to look at it, they had to do something about it.” “I realized I needed to do something if I wanted to start living instead of just existing.” Doing something about it was exactly what Karen did on the day she ran. It’s also what she continues to do now as the Co-founder and President of the Safe Haven Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to keep homeless and at-risk girls safe, in a stable home, and at school. One way they accomplish this mission is through housing at Haven’s Way™, the core project of the Safe Haven Foundation. A long term home that provides live-in support “parents” in the hopes of re-creating a loving home environment, Haven’s Way™ is about building a family out of strangers for Calgary girls aged 14-24. “It’s everything you can think of in terms of a healthy, functioning family. There are family dinners, homework, chores, recreational outings—all with a focus on goal setting and healing. We’re still pretty unique in the world in terms of what we do,” she says. That uniqueness hasn’t gone unnoticed: in 2002, Karen was awarded Global News’ Calgary Woman of Vision Award for her work with Safe Haven; and in 2019, Canadian Business Chicks nominated her for the Women of Inspiration Award. Yet she stresses that, at Haven’s Way™, the girls have the toughest job of all. “Once they’re here, they have to work hard to rise above their hardships. They have to build their own dreams instead of the nightmares they have lived.” Karen knowns a thing or two about nightmares. “But I don’t ever want to play the role of a victim,” she says. “I’ve had some bad things happen, but show me anyone who hasn’t had a tough life. I wouldn’t wish my childhood upon anyone, but I wouldn’t change it either. It has made me who I am. And I like me.” It’s a sticky summer day and I am video-chatting with Karen from what can only be called a dungeonesque setting. Although Karen’s side of the conversation began in a sun-filled, brick-accented, third-floor home office (a setting much more symbolic of the success she has cultivated over the years) the speed of the basement wifi is the best in the house, and so Karen has relocated to a seat beneath a labyrinth of vents and pipes downstairs. The fact that she has sacrificed good lighting for clarity of conversation strikes me as savvy, unpretentious. As she speaks, a trio of labradoodles vie for her attention. This is a make-it-work woman. Resourcefulness may just be what kept Karen alive as a sixteen-year-old with no home. After spending the first night alone in a bus shelter in downtown Winnipeg, she awoke to the chilly January daylight with an inner resolve to transcend her circumstances. “I knew by morning that I needed to figure things out on my own. I also knew I was going to be okay.” When I ask where that personal clarity came from, she shakes her head. “I wish I could pinpoint it. It was a strength I had within that I never knew I had until that night.” Voice cracking, she stops to take a breath. “I had grown up being invisible. To be very small was the safest way to be. You walk on eggshells constantly, worrying about what the next mistake is going to bring. I knew that morning that I didn’t ever have to do that again.” She was right. After that night, Karen neither returned home nor to the streets, opting to crash on the couches of supportive friends and family members—mainly her older brother, Mike, and a still-close friend named Linda. A particular dinner at Linda’s helped firm-up her resolve to stay away from her abusive childhood home: “There were seven of us, five kids and two adults, sitting around the table and laughing and talking and joking and loving,” she says, adding that, until that moment, love had been a pretty fraught concept, intrinsically linked with violence. “That dinner was one of the moments where I realized there was something out there other than what I knew.” “I wouldn’t wish my childhood upon anyone, but I wouldn’t change it either. It has made me who I am. And I like me.” Still, even with these new, positive examples of love, Karen was still part of a highly marginalized sect: the “invisible youth,” as in, young people who couch surf as a means to stay off the streets, who are homeless but do not typically present as destitute. Having a roof over your head does not necessarily mean solace, or even safety. “With couch surfers—the invisible youth—we don’t want to overstay our welcome. We don’t want to be an intrusion,” Karen says. And so come daily, nagging thoughts: where will I sleep tonight? Will I end up on the streets again? Is my situation my fault? Karen was able to keep these thoughts at bay through a combination of perseverance, tenacity, and self-belief. “I had this uncanny faith inside me that I knew I was better than what I had been told I was.” She also never allowed herself to coast. While in highschool, Karen held down multiple jobs in fast food and retail before transitioning to full-time government work—which she accepted with permission from her principal, since it required leaving school two weeks early. “I could only type twenty words a minute in a job demanded eighty,” she says. “But my bosses saw something in me.” That something was potential, promise. Also: heart. Karen earned four promotions in just six years while working for the government, often feeling in-over-her-head but undeterred. “I say I graduated with a Master’s from the School of Hard Knocks because that’s how I learned,” she laughs. “There’s that saying: life is our toughest teacher because she gives you the test before the lesson.” Ever-ambitious, Karen left the security of government work to explore the modelling industry, both behind-the-scenes and in front of the camera. Her interest in modelling lead her to discover a talent for marketing and retail, and she eventually became the National Director of Marketing for a shopping centre development company in 1988. Although Karen has largely stepped back from her career in marketing, she still provides advisory support within her husband’s company, Britgary Properties, where she is the Vice President. But a more apt title for Karen might be Full-Time Philanthropist, as she is constantly working to improve the Safe Haven Foundation and its initiatives, which, in addition to the Haven’s Way™ home, include a scholarship fund program, an alumni program for former residents, and a therapeutic recreation fund program. Karen’s work with Safe Haven has no personal monetary benefit—her role is completely volunteer—but when you’re talking about a charity that has provided a home to over eighty girls since its inception in 1996, assigning a dollar sign to the “benefits,” for Karen, doesn’t quite seem right. To Karen, “benefits” look more like last year’s Christmas: a group of 56 people—a combination of Haven’s Way™ residents, staff, and alumni—all gathered together at their community hall to celebrate the holidays. “A programming team member’s husband came up to me, put his arm around and said, ‘look at what you’ve created.’ And I said, ‘no, look at what we’ve created.’” Speaking of we. That’s precisely how Safe Haven got started: with we. During a lunch date with her now-husband—John, a man she calls her “everything”—a question came up: what did Karen wish she’d had, support-wise, growing up? A lightbulb went off. What followed was a period of frantic napkin-scribbling in which Karen and John laid the initial plans for Haven’s Way™. Afterwards, they took the napkins—tear-stained, wine-stained—to their lawyer’s office to get the process underway. “So really, all we need to do is raise three-quarters of a million dollars, buy some land, build a house, find a couple houseparents, and we’re done!,” John had said with naive, no-big-deal confidence. “I want to share my story. I want to give hope to others like me, because there are so many. The world doesn’t owe us—but we owe the world. I truly believe that.” Less than a year later, that seemingly-impossible to-do list had become a reality. The doors opened. The first girl walked in, ready to change her life. Along with her husband and the Haven’s Way™ community, Karen draws constant inspiration from her four children, three of whom are technically step-children, though Karen doesn’t distinguish them as such. “I feel it’s an honor to have four kids,” she says. “And because of how I grew up, that connotation of a step-mother just doesn’t sit well with me.” When I ask about her plans for the future, Karen says she’d like to write a book. “I want to share my story. I want to give hope to others like me, because there are so many. The world doesn’t owe us—but we owe the world. I truly believe that.” As for her immediate plans? A visit to her youngest son—Michael, 22, who is on Safe Haven’s Board of Directors—is on the horizon. Karen is giddy over the prospect of seeing her son. “The longest I’ve gone without seeing him is forty-two days!” she says with a laugh. “He’s been my greatest teacher in life, and my brightest light. I am so blessed.” Writing: Mica Lemiski

Over her twenty-year career as a professional ballet dancer, Tara Birtwhistle has seen many high-points. And while “high points” may be quite common in ballet—an art form marked by its fair share of tip-toes—Birtwhistle’s own peaks have placed her among royals. Literally. She has danced in front of Her Majesty the Queen, who awarded her with a Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 and a Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. She has performed alongside Julie Andrews (also royalty, if you ask me), Christopher Plummer, and opera powerhouse Andrea Bocelli. She has even won a Gemini Award—Canada’s version of an Emmy—for her stand-out performance in the film adaptation of The Magic Flute (2005). “Dance was a calling to me, but I had kind of a love-hate relationship with it because I loved rehearsing but it was hard to go onstage.” Watching her dance, those accolades aren’t hard to believe. In the CBC film Dracula: Pages From A Virgin’s Diary, Birtwhistle sails across the set on pointed toe, cutting through fog, seemingly unaffected by gravity. She is strong, feminine, a goddess in chiffon. It’s no wonder Maclean’s once named her “One of 100 Young Canadians to Watch in the New Millennium.” Birtwhistle has since retired from the stage, but as the Associate Artistic Director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet—a company she’s been with for over 30 years—her passion for dance and the RWB remains unwavering. “In the international ballet world, we’re considered one of the top-tier companies.” She adds that the RWB, which will celebrate its 80th anniversary next year, is the oldest continually running company in North America. “We’re compact, and we’ve built [our ballets] so that we can bring them on tour. We’re ambassadors of Canada.” The RWB is also a leader in women’s empowerment. “We have many women directors within our organization. Everyone communicates. Because of the atmosphere we create here, everyone moves together, in the same direction.” In other words, smooth choreography is a must. They’re dancers, after all. “In the dance world, you get to work with so many great people! Choreographers, musicians, costume designers—all of these people are part of the tapestry of who I am.” In terms of her origin story, Birtwhistle says she was “born and bred” in the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. “I moved here when I was 14 years old to train with the Professional School. Then I went right into the company when I was 19.” She was promoted to soloist in 1995 and became a principal dancer in 2000. “I’ve had a huge career. I’ve travelled all over the world. [Professional dancing] is a very fulfilling career, but it’s very challenging. It’s competitive. You tackle a lot.” Helping her tackle those high barres—literal and figurative—was prima ballerina Evelyn Hart. Birtwhistle went from looking up to Hart as a student, to working directly with her as a dancer. “She really mentored me throughout my career. I was very lucky.” Birtwhistle is also very grateful to André Lewis, Artistic Director and CEO of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. “I’ve been working with him for 30 years. He has really supported me in all of my endeavors.” Birtwhistle acknowledges the difference it made, having people around who lifted her up. “I never felt like I was ‘destined’ to do things; the pathways just opened.” She adds that her daily “lifts”—those boosts of confidence from her surrounding community—enabled her to take those pathways. “In the dance world, you get to work with so many great people! Choreographers, musicians, costume designers—all of these people are part of the tapestry of who I am.” Birtwhistle’s career didn’t come without significant challenges, including a struggle with stage fright. “Dance was a calling to me, but I had kind of a love-hate relationship with it because I loved rehearsing but it was hard to go onstage.” Her simultaneous love and fear of performance led to a cognitive spiral: knowing the audience had come specifically to see her only ramped up her fear of failure, making it harder and harder to take those first, featherlike steps in front of the crowd. She became depressed. “It was a few years of not feeling good about myself.” Ever proactive, she gathered a support system of people close to her and worked with a sports psychologist. “We did a lot of meditation, and mantra meditation,” she says, and although Birtwhistle never outright conquered her stage fright (like most afflictions, stage fright is managed, not mastered) she was able to make peace with it. “Almost like once I saw the stage fright as not the enemy any more, I was able to handle it better.” “If you’re trying to be someone you’re not, that is disempowering. I feel most empowered when I am myself.” Motherhood brought challenges, too. After having her first child, Birtwhistle realized she could no longer dance at a level she found satisfying. “By this time, I was closer to 40. My body wasn’t repairing as fast.” There were mental hurdles, too. Parenting drained her energy to the point where life on stage just wasn’t an option. She decided to retire. “The saying goes that ‘a dancer dies twice’ because when you step off the stage, you lose your identity. Oftentimes, people grieve about it.” But Birtwhistle found a new way to incorporate dance into her identity: “I told my director that I was going to retire, and that I wanted to take on more artistic coaching.” Her proactive approach allowed her to plan her final performances, something that few professional dancers get to do. “Because of my choice, I felt really good about stepping off the stage. I was ready, and I felt very fulfilled.” “I want [my children] to know that they can pursue what they love to do, and you don’t have to give up everything to do that.” Birtwhistle chose the ballet The Ecstasy of Rita Joe for her farewell performance. From Alison Mayes, of the Winnipeg Free Press: “By choosing to bow out with Rita Joe, Birtwhistle is paying tribute to RWB’s long history of cultural significance. She has also chosen not to pirouette through a fairy tale, but to play a human being whose tragedy is universal. In that sense, she is leaving the stage by reminding us of ballet’s potential.” Ballet’s potential, of course, is not limited to its artistic value. As a pursuit, dancing demands tremendous work ethic, and Birtwhistle draws parallels between training as a dancer and becoming a leader. “For our Professional School, a lot of students leave home to start training. They have to be in charge of whatever they’re doing, so they can perform at their best,” she says. This early independence means that, even if dancers don’t make it professionally, they will still develop skills that other kids may not, such as self-care and ownership of their education and career. “If you can hire a ballet dancer, you should! Their work ethic is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone. Even if you’re at the top of your game, you’re constantly working at your craft.” As for Birtwhistle, her stand-out qualities aren’t limited to a fierce work ethic. She is wonderfully self-assured, curating her life according to what she likes as opposed to what’s popular. “I was always an individual. I always had short hair. I had tattoos before tattoos were a thing,” she says. Birtwhistle also hasn’t let the competitive nature of ballet mold her into an aggressive or conflict-driven person. “I don’t like competition at all! I hate it!” she says, adding that “you be you” is a mantra she’d like young dancers to internalize. “Be generous in your spirit, your physicality, your character, but remember that it’s you onstage. Every single dancer in this company has something special to add to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet,” she says, emphasizing that good things can happen when dancers choose to focus on developing their artistry as opposed to blindly chasing lead roles. “In Cinderella, for instance, I played the Wicked Stepmother. It was a 50’s theme and we kept my short hair!” Her trademark cropped ‘do set a new trend: when the Royal Winnipeg Ballet performs Cinderella these days, a short, pixie-cut wig is standard for the role—proof that individuality inspires. “I was always an individual. I always had short hair. I had tattoos before tattoos were a thing.” Since retiring from the stage, Birtwhistle has discovered a love of running. Marathons, even. Along with the community benefits and meditative aspects of the sport, Birtwhistle also loves that, unlike ballet, completing a marathon is an accomplishment that belongs solely to her and not the public. “As a dancer you always leave a bit of yourself on the stage for the audience. With running, it’s just me and the pavement.” In terms of how she “does it all”—as in, how she allocates time between work, family, and running literally hundreds of kilometres—Birtwhistle doesn’t exactly believe in “balance,” and she’s wary of falling into the mom-guilt trap. “My husband is a principal dancer with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, so we travel away from our children. For me, I don’t call it balance. I can’t give equal time to my children, and to work. It’s never quite balanced. What works for me is being ok with the imbalance.” She recognizes a give and take: sometimes she can spend more time with her children and less at work, and vice versa. “I want [my children] to know that they can pursue what they love to do, and you don’t have to give up everything to do that.” “Be generous in your spirit, your physicality, your character, but remember that it’s you onstage.” Through her life and career, Birtwhistle has gleaned empowerment through kindness, good listenership, and resistance to conformity. “If you’re trying to be someone you’re not, that is disempowering. I feel most empowered when I am myself.” Writing: Stacy McIntosh Editing: Mica Lemiski Images: Supplied