Sheila Orr, who grew up in Chisasibi, Que., about 1,700 kilometres north of Montreal, designed a collector gold coin for the Royal Canadian Mint.
I was very honoured to be asked to do this,” said Orr, who left Quebec in the 1980s to study art and then teach fine arts at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College in Regina.
29, 1668, when the Hudson Bay Company ship called the Nonsuch anchored off the mouth of the Rupert River, near present day Waskaganish, another Cree community along James Bay.
On the land the fish are drying, the geese are flying and beaver skulls are hung in the trees, in thanks for a harvest.
“In my mind I imagined what we dressed like and what we wore,” said Orr, who also drew on stories of her mom and her grandmother.
Orr describes herself as a multi-media artist, who paints, beads, draws and carves.