By Juliet O’Neill
On a high shelf overlooking the Adaawewigamig store in the ByWard Market building is a walking, laughing Baby Yoda dressed in a bandana, jean jacket, ribbon skirt, and a colourful bead necklace.
It adds a touch of humour that perfectly suits Brittainy Jones, the 28-year-old woman who was running the store when the Echo visited. She reaches up, pulls Baby Yoda down and gives the store mascot a squeeze, laughing lightly along with the doll.
Adaawewigamig means the place of selling or trading. The store is an Indigenous owned and operated social enterprise that supports the Assembly of Seven Generations. A7G is a decade-old grassroots, youth-led non-profit organization for urban Indigenous youth in Ottawa.
The pleasant space is stocked with crafts, clothing, and artisanal food products from Indigenous creators across Canada. They include Inuit, Métis, and First Nations.
They sell mukluks hand made by Mena Redeagle, Moccasin Joe coffee, and Warrior Blends spices. There are ribbon skirts, wool blankets, and orange t-shirts emblazoned “Every Child Matters.” Plus, beaded earrings, soy candles, elderberry syrup, and Kokom Scrunchies – a top-selling hair tie from a company founded by a nine-year-old girl from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation.
Jones emphasizes that each product is authentic. Artists and small businesses are vetted to ensure they and their products are Indigenous.
Half the shop is a community space for youth gatherings where workshops have been hosted on painting and making jewelry, ribbon skirts, and medicine pouches. Store co-manager, Gabrielle Fayant, founded A7G with friends to create a welcoming community for Indigenous youth who move to the Canadian capital away from family.
“We’ve had to learn on the go and adjust,” Fayant said in an email interview from Winnipeg where she was attending a powwow. Asked what had changed in the two years since the store opened, she revealed some difficulties.
“I think the original intentions of the store have always been the same, but we’ve had to adjust to things like theft, operating in an area with higher crime and houseless population as well as daily microaggressions from the general public,” she said.
On a brighter note, Fayant suggested Adaawewigamig benefits from the fact “we are now in an era of Indigenous renaissance as well as greater public understanding of ethical consumption.”
When they first opened, everything was from friends and family. Many items still are but their circle has grown, and they constantly have individuals and companies asking to sell to them, plus they visit different territories to find new artists with unique items. She expressed pride in their pricing policy.
“For far too long Indigenous artists have had to undersell their artwork,” she said. “Many items like birch bark baskets, quill work, furs, and leathers are all harvested from the land in an ethical way and then made into beautiful art that has been passed down for generations. It’s impossible to put a price on many of these items but we work with the artists, so it is fair for them.”
Fayant invites customers to ask questions about the issue of cultural appropriation, which she defines as the theft of patterns and items from a cultural group for profit or recognition.
“One of the most infamous items that has been highly appropriated is the dream catcher to the point of being mass produced in China,” she said. “We encourage non-Indigenous folks to buy from Indigenous artists, designers, and brands.”
