Debra Sparrow's dream is to blanket the entire city of Vancouver. As part of that journey, on October 14, 2023, District staff and many students watching from their schools, gathered to witness Debra and Chris Sparrow unveil the Reconciliation Blanket.
The ceremony was opened by Musqueam community member Alec Dan who explains the cultural significance of blanketing, "When we show acknowledgement and honor to individuals, we cover them with the blanket." The weaving and accompanying carving is Debra Sparrow's dream realized, "I didn't want to stop until I saw a blanket in every school in the city of Vancouver, so that when you walked into the hallway, you saw a blanket hanging there."
Debra Sparrow began weaving 35 years ago and it brought a shift to her life and perspective. "When I decided to go out into the world, I didn't have a formal education, so I took jobs that were meaningful to me and I went through life," she tells. "I started to question myself, and asking around the community when I came back home after being away for a while." What struck her while looking around Vancouver, was not seeing work from her Musqueam people or other Indigenous peoples of the area visible in the community.
"We found that there was this beautiful work that was done, pre-contact, that had gone to sleep for 85 years." She asked, "How can we bring that back? Who is Vancouver? How do they define themselves? They've only been here 100 some odd years and look what's happened. So where are we in this?"
During this exploration she consulted her grandfather about what was there pre-contact, and he shared that they were weavers. "Blankets were collected from here for 50 years at contact period and got rolled up and put in museums in Europe, in the Smithsonian, in England. So, they've been sleeping, waiting for us for these last 150 years." Waking that part of the ancestry brought challenges, her and the first group of ten women were students without instructions. "Much like you did when you were in Grade 1, when you were in Grade 2, when you were in Grade 7, and when you graduated you accumulated all of your knowledge."
The women studied old weavings and gradually began to accumulate more and more knowledge of techniques, designs and patterns. Sparrow shares that the designs come from the world around all of us. "We look out into the water, and we find a pattern. We look into the forest, and we find a pattern. And these patterns, as we begin to understand them, are not just pretty. They're geometric mathematical equations." The beautiful hanging is more than an art lesson. It can be in a math room for its equations, science with its natural dyes from mushrooms, and of course social studies for its history. "It has responsibilities for telling those stories properly about our families, about being rooted here, our roots planted deeply in the soil that our ancestors are buried all throughout Vancouver."
Anchoring the weaving from above is a carving created by Musqueam carver Chris Sparrow. Chris is Debra's younger cousin, who she watched grow up and learn carving from his father and other family members, "I'm sure our ancestors are proud of him and his family because of the continuation he's had and the vision that he has, and the vision is reflected in his work." She emphasizes the importance of that vision, "There's a beautiful saying: without a vision, people perish."
"And so, they took our vision away and wanted to replace it with a different vision, a colonial one. And we followed suit for a while. For many years, many years we went. But the changes happened, the shift is happening, and our ancestors have been calling on us now to be responsible for how we're going to bring this back out into the world."
Sparrow shares with all those gather in person and online that, "These are not just pretty things hanging on a wall." Reflecting on the intricate and colourful weaving behind her, Debra Sparrow explains, "It has life. I thought about you the whole time that I was weaving this blanket. I thought about history. I thought about weaving your history, my history. Every different culture in this room's history is woven into this blanket because we're all weavers, every one of your cultures."
As a surprise for all that gathered, Debra Sparrow announced every school in the District will also receive their own blanket. She worked with a company to print them and while the colours may not match exactly, she promises, "It does represent its mother, its father, its history. And now we are going to hang one in every school in the city of Vancouver."
As VSB continues to take steps forward on its path of truth and reconciliation, days and moments like these stand out. "I think about the work that will happen in this room today and into the future," says superintendent Helen McGregor. "I think of the adults, and the students who will look upon the messages that are here and the reminders about the lands that we're on, the deep history and the connections."
"We're doing this, what we call work today, we're not doing it because we're just an artist," shares Debra Sparrow. "We have a responsibility and that is taken very seriously. So, we're not creating art, we're creating our life. We're creating a way back to who we've always really been.
