First Nations: Weaver of Spruce Root

October-November 2000

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

by Rajé Harwood

Isabel at work on a spruce root hat

Skilled weavers of the Northwest Coast played an important role in the traditional 'canoe culture', providing paddlers with cedar and spruceroot garments to protect them from the rain, and woven baskets for foods and items of commerce.

Today, only a few traditional weavers make spruceroot hats and baskets for chiefs, dancers, museums and collectors. One of the best is Isabel Rorick of Hornby Island who is continuing an unbroken line of weavers.

Isabel Rorick's mother, Primrose Adams, weaves cedar and spruceroot hats and baskets, as she was taught by her husband's mother, Selina Peratrovich. Isabel's great-grandparents are acclaimed artists Isabel and Charles Edenshaw.

At age thirteen Isabel made her first baskets from cedar bark, quietly working without telling anyone until she had some samples to show. As a young woman she studied carving from Tony Hunt. She was making her own carving tools in Robert Davidson's workshop when her paternal grandmother, Selina Peratrovich, found her and asked her to come with her to collect, prepare and weave spruce root.

"That was an important turn in my life. She had me decide whether I was going to carve or weave. If you're going to weave then come with me. And that was it for carving. I'm glad she did that.

"I feel fortunate that I was chosen by her to continue the family tradition. I cherish my memories of the time I spent learning how to make baskets from her, the times I had her all to myself on the quiet winter days in the kitchen of her home and the times I gathered roots with her."

Isabel and her husband Steve live on Hornby Island. Each year they return to Isabel's family home in Masset, Haida Gwaii, and together do the hard work of gathering and processing spruce roots; enough to supply Isabel for a year of weaving. Their sons Julien and Robin will sometimes help. Their eldest son, Raven, has made his home in Skidegate.

"I love to dig in the soft moss", says Isabel. "I love the smells of the forest, of the earth and of the roots as I unearth them. I love the sound of the waves from the ocean, of the wind in the tall trees, the call of the ravens as they investigate what I am doing. I assure them that I will try to put everything back as well as I can when I am done. I leave the woods and the beach with a wonderful feeling, knowing that I have not harmed the trees and that I can return to harvest under the same trees in five years. This is the way of my grandmothers and their grandmothers before them."

One of Isabel's finished works

Isabel, with her skilled fingers, resurrects patterns she has been taught, and ones she has taught herself from studying the pieces of her people housed in museums. But each hat or basket she makes is distinctly hers.

"I love the challenge of transforming these trees into objects of beauty: a hat for feasts, ceremonies or dancing, a basket for gathering food or storing personal treasures."

On November 2nd, 2000, Isabel's own show opens at Stonington Gallery in Pioneer Square, Seattle. This will be a unique opportunity to meet the artist and see her work. The phone number of the Gallery is 206-405-4040.

Rajé Harwood is a frequent contributor to WaveLength and a distributor-representative for the the magazine. She lives on Hornby Island.