During Opaskwayak Indigenous Days (OID), a display was set up in the Otineka Mall with all 50 beaded crowns from OID’s 50th Anniversary. Mother and son duo, Tracy Desjarlais and Cory Constant, beaded the crowns for the anniversary celebration. Desjarlais’ beading talent was recognized locally, after she had designed and beaded a crown for a contestant in one of the pageants.

“I was asked by a friend from Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) to make her little girl a crown because she was in the Angel Princess pageant,” said Desjarlais. “She knew I did bead work and she wanted a crown and moccasins for her daughter who was running as Little Miss Big Eddy. I beaded a crown and moccasins for her, and it wound up being the very first crown I had ever made. I had to figure out a design and how I was going to actually make it.

“From her wearing it around the community that weekend and her mom running the Angel Princess and Little Miss Sweetheart pageants for a while, I was asked to make the crowns for those categories and it went on from there. I believe I started in 2012 when I made my first crown for the Angel Princess, the next year was for the Little Sweetheart Princess, and then I wound up making them for all the pageant categories.”

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