[Not] Making a Mark on the Land: Carrie Armstrong’s Journey of Building Respect in Business

On Orange Shirt Day, September 30^th, 2020, four-hundred people from the University of Alberta community tuned in virtually to listen to Carrie Armstrong speak on Indigenous Plants and their properties.

Armstrong is a U of A Education alumna, and an award-winning businesswoman for her self-developed plant-based beauty line and natural teas available at her store Mother Earth Essentials. Armstrong also works as a teacher at amiskwaciy Academy, and has hosted similar workshops on campus during the past four years, sometimes with the Transition Year Program (TYP), as well as a session adapted for department heads. 

“I grew up in a small town in Alberta, very close to my grandmother,” she said. “She had grown up very traditionally knowing the plants, and using them in her life… When we were camping, or berry-picking, she would come alive and tell me these stories about the plants.

“My hopes are that people would appreciate and honour those traditional teachings — to understand it more and reconnect with Mother Earth themselves. We are fast-paced and busy, and it’s really nice just to slow down.”

Armstrong shares her teachings in the name of cultural reclamation by inviting settlers to dig deeper into understandings of relationships to this land and the First Peoples they share it with. Armstrong is inspired to continue her efforts helping reaffirm plant-based practices and knowledge sharing by working with urban Indigenous youth.

“The kids are responding so positively to working with these plants and loving the teachings around the plants and that feeling of reconnecting with their communities, their Elders, their medicine people, and to Mother Earth — maybe more people would like that,” she said.

Armstrong cites Elder Francis Whiskeyjack, of the First Peoples’ House and Faculty of Native Studies, as someone who has been key to helping her develop her own understanding of upholding respect for tradition while seeking success in the settler business sphere.  

“I listened, and I learned, and I found ways,” she explained. “A big thing in my store that I had [was] this beautiful container that had all these cigarettes in it, and I would have to explain that a lot to people. It was still a trade, because before [acquiring sage] was only done as a trade, and [by] offering tobacco.”

Armstrong posits that Canada has come a long way in ten years regarding understanding the relationship settlers have with Indigenous peoples and the history of these Treaty lands. That being said, she still isn’t sure if the particular challenges she faces in the marketplace come from her Métis background, or the paternalism of business culture.

“I remember being at a trade show, and a couple of businessmen walked by the table and saw sweetgrass soap, and started laughing,” she recalled. “I thought ‘I want to have my product in hotel rooms, so when these businessmen are sitting in their hotel rooms, and they go in the bathrooms to use their soap…they can read about it on the label.’”

Since then, Armstrong has developed a hotel line currently in Château Lacombe, as well as 15 other hotels across Canada.

“We were at Sawridge hotel to begin with and I’m like ‘I think we have 600 rooms, so that’s like 600 businessmen a night! This is crazy!’” she exclaimed.

Armstrong is no stranger to confronting adversity in her life, and fear and shame surrounding cultural expression are feelings Armstrong recognizes from her own family’s past, healing from residential school and settler colonial oppression.

“In my teaching, I was able to access these beautiful gardens that had traditional plants,” she said. “What I saw was really encouraging on how the plants can be healing, and how the plants could reconnect kids to their culture. So, I started doing the workshops as part of my business.”

Her forthcoming book, titled Mother Earth Plants for Health & Beauty, which includes recipes based on the plants discussed in the webinar and more, is currently being kickstarted by Eschia Books and is available for pre-order.

To Armstrong, there is no individual pursuit of success that alienates the larger community. Her innovative, creative spirit continues to facilitate participation in cultural reclamation as well as educate settlers with patience and grace.

 “There’s a difference between someone who intentionally appropriates something, and someone who just wants to learn more,” she said. “We’re all respecting Mother Earth and we’re all joining together to protect, preserve and are doing things in a respectful way.”