Brenda Mercer on the Good Relations Mentorship Program and using art to tell her story.
By Noah Korver
Brenda Mercer, a lifelong beadworker, has turned her passion into a successful business, creating functional art, rawhide drums, rattles, and keepsake pouches while giving back to her community by telling her story and inviting others to do the same.
Brenda, a survivor of the “Sixties Scoop,” a period in Canadian history where Indigenous children were apprehended and resettled with predominantly white families. Brenda however prefers to refer to herself as a “thriver” rather than a survivor. Choosing to use her story to uplift her community and inspire others to action.
In 2025, Brenda was selected to participate in the ‘Good Relations’ Tourism Mentorship Program, a collaborative initiative between Indigenous Tourism Alberta (ITA) and Catalyste+ aimed at enhancing the business sustainability of tourism operators and ITA members, strengthening industry connections, and developing business competencies to achieve visitor, market, and export readiness.
Catalyste+ is an economic development organization dedicated to strengthening emerging and local economies in Canada and throughout the world. As a participant of this program, Brenda was partnered with a Catalyste+ Advisor, who worked with her to identify strengths and weaknesses in her business and develop practical solutions that could be implemented on a long term basis.
Prior to Brenda’s participation in the ‘Good Relations’ Tourism Mentorship program, she was actively involved in various business ventures, including creating artwork, running educational programs, public speaking, and implementing indigenous cultural workshops.
This large diversity of work however meant Brenda and White Horse Rider Co. were sometimes lacking in organization and direction. This was something Brenda and her mentor identified that they could work on together.
“Before she came I was going off in all these directions and she just gave me more purpose.” says Brenda talking about her experience with her mentor. “She said to me, I think what you’re doing is you’re crafting but you’re also telling your story.”
Following the guidance of her mentor, Brenda has refined her storytelling and is actively incorporating her story into the products that she sells. For example, soon all orders from White Horse Rider Co. will ship with a small folding card featuring a short biography describing Brenda’s experiences as a Sixties Scoop survivor giving her products a more personal touch and allowing customers to connect to Brenda through her stories.
She also formalized marketing strategies with her mentor, creating a media release for community programming and online promotion at events.
“She set me up with the paperwork because I hadn’t even thought of that, sometimes you just go ahead and do something off the cuff. So that was really helpful.” Says Brenda.
Brenda’s mentor helped her connect with suppliers, enabling her to source materials for her crafts from local and semi-local vendors, saving time and money while offering a more personalized product, such as drum frame production.
“She set me up with suppliers across Canada. Particularly someone who makes drum frames, Drum kits are really expensive but if I can get the frames then I can make my own kits. So that was really big for me.”
Finally Brenda says one of the biggest takeaways from her experience was the boost in confidence it gave her. Confirming that she was on the right track and that her work holds value to those outside of her immediate community.
“She assured me that as an indigenous woman I was doing good and that gave me a huge boost in my self confidence which was really needed and I really appreciated that.”