In honor of Canada Day, we’d like to consider how tourism might benefit the country’s many diverse populations. Accordingly, CodedHits’s MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences are crafted to ensure that your vacation style, destinations visited, and financial contributions positively impact the communities you visit.
Keep reading if the idea of these environmentally conscious vacations appeals to you.
The Manitobah Mukluks Storyboot School is a stop on various Canadian tours where visitors can learn about the country’s indigenous culture. This charitable endeavor imparts the age-old skill of mukluk and moccasin production to the next generation while ensuring its continued existence.
Learn more about a cultural practice that has made Canada what it is today.
Who exactly is Manitobah Mukluks, and what kind of products do they sell?
The Manitobah Mukluks firm is an indigenous-owned business with its headquarters in Canada. Their goal is to establish a successful, internationally recognized brand that substantially influences the indigenous populations found in Canada.
Manitobah Mukluks produces and sells traditionally beaded leather and fur slippers, shoes, and boots, such as moccasins and mukluks.
In addition to that, the company has begun a charitable initiative known as the Storyboot Project. Through the formation of collaborations with elders and artisans who traditionally make mukluks and moccasins, the project intends to promote the revitalization of the traditional arts.
Who started Manitobah Mukluks?
Manitobah Mukluks founder Sean McCormick says, “This is a community company.”
Sean McCormick, a Winnipeg native who wore mukluks, launched Manitobah Mukluks in 1997. Sean’s parents wanted him to know his heritage because his mother was indigenous.
Sean supported indigenous artists by selling leather and fur in high school. He didn’t realize that his company would become one of Canada’s fastest-growing footwear companies and an Aboriginal business success story.
Kate Moss, Jessica Biel, and Cindy Crawford have worn the company’s mukluks and moccasins globally.
Celebrity culture boosts product awareness, which is my goal. That helps me promote Manitobah and its products. Founder Sean McCormick.
Sean wants mukluk and moccasin making to be passed down and profitable to preserve the custom.
What are Moccasins?
A moccasin is a type of soft leather shoe that is typically embroidered or beaded on the outside. It can be constructed from deerskin or other soft leather. Moccasin shoes are made for outdoor use, yet occasionally worn within. The name “moccasin” is derived from the Powhatan dialect of the Algonquian language and has subsequently come to refer to any type of Native American footwear that is sewn.
How do Mukluk boots work?
Arctic natives, such as the Inuit, Iupiat, and Yupik, wear mukluks, soft footwear originally made of reindeer (caribou) skin or sealskin.
What precisely is the Storyboot School Project?
Manitobah Mukluks Storyboot School teaches young people how to create mukluks from aboriginal artists.
“We are a private company but also a social enterprise.” We’re showing kids, especially indigenous kids, and would-be entrepreneurs, what’s possible.” – Sean McCormick, the company’s founder.
The Storyboot Project strives to revitalize traditional arts by collaborating with elders and artisans who make traditional mukluks and moccasins. These artists pass on the mukluk-making tradition to young indigenous students, who will eventually go on and conserve the ceremony, helping preserve Métis cultural heritage.
It also provides financial opportunities to artists who would not otherwise have a platform to access worldwide markets. The artist receives 100% of the revenues from each Storyboot sold.
Who are the Artisans?
The school uses skilled Indigenous artisans from across Canada and the rest of North America to display a collection of Storyboots that is distinctive and culturally diverse. Rosa Scribe, Cree, Norway House, Manitoba; Greg “Biskakone” Johnson, Lynx Clan, Lac du Flambeau Reservation, Wisconsin & Rosary Spence, Cree, Toronto, Ontario, are a few artists.
How to help the Manitobah Mukluks Storyboot School
The TreadRight Foundation helps to fund the Manitobah Mukluks Storyboot School. Thanks to their joint efforts, the Canadian Museum of History now has a dedicated instructional room where an indigenous artisan teaches local indigenous pupils and visitors the heritage art of mukluk-making through weekly Storyboot School sessions. Additionally, the initiative displays and sells the work of Canadian Storyboot artists in the museum’s gift shop.
As we travel through Eastern Canada, you can donate to the Manitobah Mukluks Storyboot School. On this guided tour, your Indigenous Cultural Ambassador will teach you to make beaded necklaces and bracelets.
The Manitobah Mukluks Storyboot School is described in more detail in viewing the video hosted by Sarain Fox, the ‘people’ ambassador for the TreadRight Foundation:
