Mandee McDonald

Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

Hide & Fur Products

Mandee McDonald is a hide tanner, workshop facilitator, and a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta where her work focuses on Indigenous governance and land-based learning. She is a co-founder and the Managing Director for Dene Nahjo, an Indigenous arts and innovation collective that fosters Indigenous leadership skills and values through community-based programming. She is also one of the founding Steering Committee members of Supporting Well-Being, a training program designed to provide culturally relevant mental health response training for land-based programmers in Northern communities. Mandee is Ininéw (Swampy Cree), originally from Mántéwisipihk (Churchill, MB), and has resided in Sòmba K’è (Yellowknife) for the past twenty years.

Melaw Nakehk’o was born and raised in Denendeh as the daughter of Chief Jim Antoine of Łíídlįį Kų́ę́ (Fort Simpson) and Celine Antoine. She was taught traditional art by her granny, Judith Buggins, at a young age. Melaw attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she acquired an Associates Degree in Two Dimensional Arts, with a focus on painting. She remained in the Southwest for 8 years. Melaw returned to the Deh Cho in 2008 to raise her two boys where they can truly understand the interconnectedness and reciprocal relationship Dene share with the land. Melaw is an active member of Łíídlįį Kų́ę́ First Nation, attending annual regional and territorial leadership meetings and treaty conferences. She has been nurturing the arts of sewing, moose hide tanning, and traditional medicine, as well as researching her people’s history to teach the coming generations to maintain the pride and strength found in their Indigenous culture. Melaw is also a graphic recorder.