InFocus
Sagkeeng First Nation beader Mish Daniels saw “her babies” make a TV appearance in front of millions who watch the U.S. morning talk show The View.
Host and actor Whoopi Goldberg was wearing a red beaded jingle dress medallion on Monday’s show. She’d been gifted it during a chance run-in with MMIW advocate Connie Greyeyes.
“Connie and her group were at a downtown Vancouver hotel, Whoopi was in the same hotel, Whoopi smelled the smudge.,” Daniels explained. “Whoopi wants to raise awareness of missing and murdered people on the American side. Connie does it for the Canadian side.”
Goldberg reportedly kept staring at Greyeyes’ medallion, which she bought from Daniels. Greyeyes felt compelled to give it to the star, who soon after, wore it on TV.
Goldberg explained the medallion and talked about missing and murdered women for more than a minute on her show, which averages more than three million viewers an episode.
“I couldn’t believe it, I lost my voice, I was jumping up and down,” Daniels said.
Similarly excited but for a different reason, Alisia Perreault-Werner and her “Metis Wolfpack” family from St. Albert, Alta., are taking their sashes to the set of Canada’s Family Feud in Toronto in the new year, where they plan to jig their way into fans’ hearts while vying for cold hard cash.
“It started with a Facebook post that Family Feud Canada posted, we saw the call for auditions in July,” Perreault-Werner said. “As soon as I saw it on Facebook I knew who my Metis wolfpack were and who I wanted to be on my team. Two days later everybody gathered at my house and we put an audition tape together and submitted it right away.”
“The (Family Feud) producer said we were super exciting, I think the diverisity we bring to the show, the Metis angle is definitely caught their eye. But we’re really wild and crazy when you get us together. The screams, the laughing, the jigging stood out.”
Also on the show, we heard about a Christmas miracle long in the making – the Lac la Croix ponies – also known as Ojibwe ponies – are back from the brink of extinction thanks to a dedicated crew of caretakers who are working to expand the population of these ponies, which are native to the Boreal Forest
In the 1970s due to governments on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, there were only four of these animals left. There are now between 170 and 180 with breeding plans in motion.
Read more: A miracle in the making: birth of Ojibwe pony in Manitoba first in decades
