Lana Gal is one of those numbers - she is one of the 85 per cent of Portage College graduates working in a training-related job. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story – Lana’s story.

Gal is a 2024 graduate of Portage College’s Indigenous Arts Diploma program. She is also a descendant of a 60s Scoop survivor, as well as a survivor of her own battle with a debilitating genetic disorder. She is a wife and a mom who has learned many lessons from her autistic child, and a woman who until recently had no idea of her full heritage … or her full potential.

Lessons take flight

“When I came to Portage, I came as a blank slate,” said the proud Métis woman who now facilitates a variety of Indigenous workshops and education sessions across the province. The latest projects include a recent pop-up beadwork class and cultural workshop that she and fellow Portage College alumni Tralynn Ganter hosted for travelers at the Edmonton International Airport. She also hosts a recurring Indigenous art workshop for local school students.

Gal was born in Winnipeg and grew up in Calgary and Ontario. She returned to Alberta in 1996. She was drawn to the Portage College Indigenous Arts Diploma program as she was discovering more about her Indigenous background. She had found ancestry links and was slowly putting the pieces together, finding shadows of her Indigenous family that were scattered due to intergenerational trauma, as well as societal and relationship upheavals. In the years leading up to her Portage College schooling, Gal had connected with members of her father's family and says they are involved with the Red River Metis community.

“I was finding my Indigenous spirit,” she said.

She was soon to realize she had been carrying that spirit all along.

 Enrolling in the Indigenous Arts Diploma program in 2022, her heritage and creativity merged as she not only learned many forms of Indigenous art, but also learned their significance in continuing that heritage, and sharing it with others.

“I hadn’t had any other education in Indigenous art, but it came to me quickly, and it filled me with such happiness. I made everything for the first time, but it was really quick work for me … I’ve been told it’s a grandmother’s gift,” Gal said. “I found my place at Portage College that first year. I had found my spirit – it just took me a different route.”

Gal’s second year in the program continued that journey.

“I received the education and pretty much my purpose, and now I feel I could never turn back,” she said. “It took me five years to get to Portage and two years of learning to grow into who I am, and now I’m on the path to do the things I’m supposed to do, which is working with communities and educating people about Indigenous skills and culture.”

Gal, who was a Dean’s List student for her top marks, was recently facilitating a workshop with Grade 7 students from Lac La Biche's Light of Christ Catholic School in a Portage College classroom just a few feet from the art rooms where she found her purpose. Letting the students express their creative ideas, offering structure … but not too much to stifle, and providing explanations about the wholistic significance of the beadwork project they were creating, Gal offers an inclusive and informative creative space based on her own education and experiences.

Admitting that some of those experiences before Portage College were challenging ones - including a genetic illness that left her virtually immobilized and pushed her almost to the brink before she found proper treatment - Gal uses them as inspiration.

“I really was in such an opposite space,” she says, explaining that many of the lessons she learned to climb out of that space came from her daughter, diagnosed with autism. “I was learning skills with her, and it taught me how to work with people who have barriers. I have grown with my child, and I’m able to overcome a lot of things.”

That perseverance combined with an education in what she calls a “gem of a school” has carried her to where she is now – and more importantly – given her the opportunity to lead others in the same way.

“When you teach students who are going to lead or be involved in their community, you are setting them up to benefit the next generation.”

As that teaching continues, whether in busy airports where she offers beadwork lessons and explains Indigenous culture to travelers who will take her lessons and knowledge around the world, in school classrooms where inclusivity, creativity and individualism are encouraged, through her own business, or with her artwork displayed in galleries and museums, the Portage College alum knows it’s never about being just a number.

“At Portage, they saw me. They saw each of us. They were able to identify each student and see their talents, putting us in a place to succeed,” she said. “That is very rare because usually in large colleges and universities you are a number, and you can get lost. They found me at Portage.”

She credits the program’s staff and faculty for that welcoming, inclusive and creative environment, including Indigenous Arts and Culture Coordinator Ruby Sweetman and Fine Arts Instructor Pierre Oberg. She said their experiences and connections are invaluable.

Gal is currently waiting to see if the airport education project will continue in 2025. She is also providing workshops at area treatment centres and continues to offer week-long art and knowledge classes to area students. On her social media page, showing some of her latest creations including beadwork, leather products and furniture crafted from red willow, Gal says: “I am a Red River Métis Artist. I am reclaiming lost cultural arts, and through my art, I am healing.”

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Inquiries
Rob McKinley, Engagement Specialist
Portage College Corporate Communications
rob.mckinley@portagecollege.ca / 780-404-1539