‘A part of history’: Local Cree singer Tia Wood takes stage with Shawn Mendes

Cree singer Tia Wood, from Saddle Lake Cree Nation east of Edmonton, performed with Shawn Mendes at his show in Vancouver over the weekend.

A local Cree singer shared the spotlight with Canadian artist Shawn Mendes over the weekend in Vancouver.

Tia Wood is a Cree singer/songwriter from Saddle Lake Cree Nation, just east of Edmonton.

On Sunday, she joined Mendes at Rogers Arena in Vancouver for his On the Road Again tour to perform his song, “Youth.”

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She added her own verse to the song to shed light on the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women throughout the country.

Her older sister, Fawn, told CTV News Edmonton the transition from watching her perform in their living room to a crowd of more than 19,000 was “surreal.”

“As an artist, she uses all her momentum and all these opportunities she has, she does it with reason and she does it with a really good heart,” she said in an interview Tuesday.

“It felt like magic. It felt like something coming full circle and like witnessing a part of history.”

Tia Wood is the first-ever Indigenous woman to be signed with Sony Canada.

She’s previously performed at Rogers Arena once before for the 2025 Juno Awards, where she was nominated for Contemporary Indigenous Artist of the Year for her EP, Pretty Red Bird.

She’s currently on tour across the country, but her sister said she’s “grinding on getting some new music.”

Her newest single, Sage my Soul, is set to drop on Friday.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Sasha Pietramala