Kaitlyn Hunter finds healing and happiness through beading.
Hunter, 24, is a Weenusk First Nation member (Peawanuck) living in Timmins. She’s a full-time mother of a one-year-old daughter and a part-time beader.
She makes a variety of handcrafted items including earrings, keychains and wristlets. Her work can be found under Kailtyn’s Creeations' on Instagram and Facebook.
“I find it calming. It brings me happiness in a way,” she says. “I bead when I feel down. It feels like healing.”
This past year, Hunter is proud to have shipped her beadwork across Canada including to British Columbia, Nunavut and Nova Scotia.
Last week, Hunter participated in the vendor expo held at the Timmins Native Friendship Centre. It was her first experience selling her craft at a public event.
“I was nervous at first but I did pretty well. I sold most of my things,” she says. Her next sale will be held at the Holiday Pop-up Shop today (Dec. 18).
Hunter is a self-taught beader who started beading about over two years ago. She has a lot of family members who also bead and support each other.
“We buy each other’s work and all that,” she says. In the new year, Hunter plans to start making mitts and moccasins.
Her motto in life is, "patience is key."
“Take your time if things don’t go the way you planned. Take a step back,” she says. That applies to beading, too. “You don’t want to rush any bead because you’re going to make mistakes or you’re going to miss something and not notice it until after.”
She studied business at Canadore College in North Bay but didn’t finish school due to the pandemic and having her daughter. One of Hunter’s goals is to return to school once her daughter is old enough to go to daycare.
While Hunter may be on the quiet side, she doesn’t let her shyness get in the way of pursuing new opportunities.
“I always jump to new opportunities … to be able to grow more as a person,” she says. “When I’m not too sure about something, I always do it anyway.”
Her creativity has also been expressed in knitting and writing short poetry.
In the future, she wants to return to Peawanuck and give back to the community for all the opportunities she’s had throughout the years. Her future goal is also to work with the youth again.
“I want to go back home once I’m finished school and focus on the youth, bringing in opportunities and helping them the way I was helped,” she says.
In Peawanuck, she’s worked as a Right to Play community mentor, a prevention services worker, a flood co-ordination assistant and as a teacher assistant.
Hunter has always enjoyed working with children. As a prevention services worker, she provided extra help at the Matahamao School, helped set up events and occasionally had a one-on-one with students if they needed space outside the classroom.
As a community mentor, she did after-school programming and planned outings to promote healthy living.
When she worked as a flood co-ordination assistant, she monitored the river, provided daily updates and came up with the evacuation plan and a list of people who would be evacuated first.
“It was a pretty good experience, just organizing and daily updates. And getting a chance to check the level by plane, that was a nice experience,” she says.
What she mostly remembers from her childhood is visiting her grandparents in Peawanuck.
“I didn’t really understand them because they spoke Cree but I really enjoyed myself when I was over there,” she recalls.
Although Hunter doesn’t speak Cree, she’d like to learn the language in the future. She says it’s also important for her to pass down the traditions to her daughter.
Back in Peawanuck, she enjoyed being outside as much as possible to snowshoe, have a cookout and drive around in a snowmobile. She has hunted a few times and she knows how to fish. She also makes traditional dishes out of moose and caribou, and she can make bannock.
With her late father, she used to go out on the boat, ice fish and get wood. They also made a blind for hunting in Peawanuck.
“I enjoy going to it whenever I’m home. Brings me happiness even when I’m not there hunting,” she says. “It’s a blind just by a small lake in Peawanuck.”
