New generation learns traditional African-Nova Scotia basket weaving style

Weaving baskets is something Clara Clayton-Gough has been doing since she was a little girl.

She learned from her mother and grandmother, who used to sell baskets at the Halifax market

“She gave it to me to weave, which I didn't know anything about weaving, but she said you work at it, and she showed me what to do,” says Clayton-Gough.

The style of weaving is unique to African-Nova Scotian families. The women brought the skill with them when they arrived in Canada after the war of 1812.

“African women had taken their African basket-making skills, and on American plantations, had adapted them to English-style basket making. It's very distinctive, they're called ribbed baskets,” says Dan Conlin, curator of the Canadian Museum of Immigration.

Over the generations, different families have developed their own artistic flair.

“After my grandmother got older, my mother was making different shapes and different styles,” says Clayton-Gough.

Clayton-Gough mother, Edith Clayton, was a fixture at the Halifax market for many years and passed her basket weaving skill on to her children.

“All of our family, even some of the boys, she just had them sitting, weaving, but you know, the girls got into it more than the boys,” says Clayton-Gough.

Now, Clayton-Gough is teaching her own daughter and her grandchildren the family tradition.

“I used to always hear my mom say, ‘I just want to keep the baskets in the family,’ and ‘it's a family tradition,’” says Clayton-Gough.

Her quick, skilled hands can pull strips of raw red maple into the form of a basket in just a couple of hours.

The maple can be dyed and woven into lampshades, cornucopias, and even human figures.

“We did fishing baskets and baby cradles and all like that,” says Clayton-Gough.

It's an art form, but in the past, it was also a survival skill. African-Nova Scotians came to Canada to find freedom, but they faced inequality.

“They faced a lot of racism, they were given really poor quality, forested, rocky land outside of Halifax,” says Conlin.

Making and selling baskets and produce was a way of supporting African-Nova Scotian families.

“It's one of those living traditions that immigrants bring to Canada that make us such an interesting, diverse society,” says Conlin.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Sarah Ritchie