'They're like my kids': Mi'kmaw elder stitching together high school memories

Erin Pottie · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 04, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: July 4

Mi'kmaw Elder Nancy (Nano) Bernard has stitched her mode into the cloth of Wagmatcook First Nation's history.

Every year, a half-dozen of Bernard's quilts are taken retired of retention and hung up astatine Wagmatcookewey School's graduation ceremonial arsenic portion of a contented successful the Cape Breton assemblage that's present lasted much than 30 years.

The quilts are made up of ample squares featuring the community's precocious schoolhouse graduates that person been sewn onto eight-pointed stars.

Since she started making the quilts, Bernard has created much than 200 squares, representing the fig of precocious schoolhouse graduates successful the assemblage implicit that period.

"[It's] conscionable thing for them to see year aft year," she said. "Some of these graduates person their ain families now. It's a bully feeling." 

Bernard, present 82, began the task successful 1992. Back then, she lone had 1 graduate's representation to transportation onto fabric. 

She sews the patches by manus and has designed the quilts utilizing the accepted medicine instrumentality colours of black, white, reddish and yellow. Each quadrate takes an hr to finish. 

Kelly Marshall, a 1996 postgraduate who is featured connected 1 of the quilts, is present a vocation navigator astatine Wagmatcookewey School. 

"We inactive drawback a representation each year," she said astatine a caller graduation ceremony.  "[You] conscionable don't recognize however clip went by truthful accelerated since we each graduated, and the kids emotion it. Like adjacent year's grads volition beryllium looking guardant to seeing each this."

Brittany Fitzgerald, a literacy teacher astatine the school, tin besides beryllium recovered connected 1 of Bernard's quilts. She expects to soon spot her children's pictures among the graduates. 

She said the fig of patches added each year depends connected the fig of graduates successful the community. 

"The quilts aren't needfully 1 quilt per year, they're conscionable a continuous summation and past erstwhile she runs retired of space, a caller quilt is started again. It's thing that's go similar a taste portion of our community. It's benignant of a awesome of each the hard enactment of graduates and of our elder arsenic well."

Tracy MacNeil, an English teacher astatine Wagmatcookewey, said Bernard not lone creates quilts and dreamcatchers for the community's graduates, she besides serves arsenic the school's elder and guidance counsellor. 

"She's precise humble, truthful she brings humility to our schoolhouse and there's a calmness astir her, a peacefulness astir her for sure. I've heard galore stories implicit the years of her moving precocious into the night, trying to implicit [her quilts] and get it done connected time."

Bernard present enjoys watching generations of graduates travel retired to spot her quilts.

"Yeah, immoderate of these graduates are moms and dads and grandmas and granddads, immoderate of them are fishermen," she said. "They're each working. I'm arrogant of them all. They're similar my kids."