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

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

Every year, a half-dozen of Bernard's quilts are taken out of storage and hung up at Wagmatcookewey School's graduation ceremony as part of a tradition in the Cape Breton community that's now lasted more than 30 years.

The quilts are made up of large squares featuring the community's high school graduates that have been sewn onto eight-pointed stars.

Since she started making the quilts, Bernard has created more than 200 squares, representing the number of high school graduates in the community over that period.

"[It's] just something for them to see year after year," she said. "Some of these graduates have their own families now. It's a good feeling." 

Bernard, now 82, began the project in 1992. Back then, she only had one graduate's picture to transfer onto fabric. 

She sews the patches by hand and has designed the quilts using the traditional medicine wheel colours of black, white, red and yellow. Each square takes an hour to finish. 

Kelly Marshall, a 1996 graduate who is featured on one of the quilts, is now a career navigator at Wagmatcookewey School. 

"We still snap a picture every year," she said at a recent graduation ceremony.  "[You] just don't realize how time went by so fast since we all graduated, and the kids love it. Like next year's grads will be looking forward to seeing all this."

Brittany Fitzgerald, a literacy teacher at the school, can also be found on one of Bernard's quilts. She expects to soon see her children's pictures among the graduates. 

She said the number of patches added each year depends on the number of graduates in the community. 

"The quilts aren't necessarily one quilt per year, they're just a continuous addition and then when she runs out of space, a new quilt is started again. It's something that's become like a cultural part of our community. It's sort of a symbol of all the hard work of graduates and of our elder as well."

Tracy MacNeil, an English teacher at Wagmatcookewey, said Bernard not only creates quilts and dreamcatchers for the community's graduates, she also serves as the school's elder and guidance counsellor. 

"She's very humble, so she brings humility to our school and there's a calmness about her, a peacefulness about her for sure. I've heard many stories over the years of her working late into the night, trying to complete [her quilts] and get it done on time."

Bernard now enjoys watching generations of graduates come out to see her quilts.

"Yeah, some of these graduates are moms and dads and grandmas and granddads, some of them are fishermen," she said. "They're all working. I'm proud of them all. They're like my kids."