Chief of Saskatchewan. First Nation wins national tourism entrepreneur award

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Chef Tammy Maki finally feels like she belongs.

Maki, a child of the Sixties Scoop and a member of the White Bear First Nation in Saskatchewan, near Yorkton, spent most of her life in Sudbury, Ontario. after being taken from her biological mother and put up for adoption.

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Maki opened Raven Rising, a chocolate shop specializing in indigenous chocolates and pastries from around the world, in the northern Ontario city in March 2018.

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Even though she has received many accolades in the past, Maki is overwhelmed by her latest achievement.

She was selected as an extraordinary female entrepreneur at the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada (ITAC) awards ceremony, held on February 28 in Ottawa. The ceremony was part of the three-day International Indigenous Tourism Conference.

The Extraordinary Female Entrepreneur Award recognizes a strong and empowered Indigenous female entrepreneur within the tourism industry in Canada. It is also awarded to an individual who demonstrates their commitment to supporting other women in their industry, thereby embodying leadership within their company and/or community.

“I’m still absolutely blown away that I won,” Maki said a few days after her victory. “It’s something that wasn’t on my radar at all.”

Maki said the ATAC honor is the most significant she has received.

“My business has won several awards since we started,” she said. “I was absolutely blown away by these awards. But winning something through ITAC, for me as a 60s Scoop, it gives me more of, I guess, a sense of community.

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“I’m in Sudbury. I’m far from where my group is and where my blood family and relationships are. I never had that feeling of community.

Maki attended the Ottawa conference knowing she was one of three finalists in her award category. ITAC also presented eight other national awards.

“Until the moment I saw my face appear on the screen, I thought someone else was going to win,” Maki said.

Maki was a graduate of a baking and pastry program (no longer offered) at Cambrian College in Sudbury. She gave up a previous profession to enroll in the program.

‘You only have one life’

“And it wasn’t a step forward,” Maki said. “But you only have one life. And you can only do so much of what people expect of you before you have to find your own passion. Baking and the artistry of baking has always been something I’ve been involved in since I was little, no matter what I did to make money.

After graduating, he was offered a position in 2012 at a restaurant located inside the Rimrock Resort Hotel in Banff, Alberta.

She spent the next few years working various baking jobs throughout Western Canada before returning to Sudbury to open her shop.

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Raven Rising is primarily an e-commerce business and Maki finds herself selling her chocolates to customers across Canada.

However, she only opens her store one day a week for walk-in customers.

Although she has received a lot of praise in recent years, Maki said attending last week’s Ottawa conference was an eye-opener.

“I guess you don’t really realize what you’re doing and who you’re impacting until you go to an event like this,” she said. “And this whole conference was transformative for me on a personal level. I hope I can translate this to a business level as well.

Maki sources indigenous ingredients for its chocolates not only from across Canada, but from around the world.

“So there’s no place for me to find them,” she said. “I will say that it is very difficult to guarantee that the ingredients that you source come from indigenous people. Many companies only offer ingredients. This is all very good, because we need ingredients.

Maki said its ingredient inventory comes from as far away as Australia.

“I source from Australia and they have some of my favorite products,” she said. “I found a company that sources directly from Indigenous communities and supports Indigenous communities with their purchases. So that’s who I order from.

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Maki also said she does quite a bit of background research on who she sources ingredients from. Having contacts all over the world helps him in this work.

“Luckily I know people in many different countries,” she said.

One of her favorite ingredients that she uses in her chocolates is the Australian pepper berry.

“We have black pepper, pink pepper and white pepper,” Maki said. “I kind of expected Pepperberry to be very, very similar. And I was completely wrong. It’s spicy and it has a cinnamon finish and it’s just beautiful.

At this time, Maki only ships its products to customers in Canada. She hopes that will change one day.

“I’m not in the export market yet,” she said. “The candies I make have a very short shelf life. This does not mean that they are unwell during this six week to two month period. It’s just that it’s starting to lose its flavors. I’m looking at export markets, but I have to think in a different way, so it’s a bit in the future.

Maki said she was looking to make additional changes with Raven Rising.

“There are no limits,” she said. “I don’t think like a normal person. I have never. So, I think that’s why I’ve been angry at the machine for so long. I have one idea and from there there are 50 other ideas. Among these, there are 1,000 ideas. And it goes and it goes.

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A Sudbury.com article from 2020 says Maki was adopted by a Finnish-Canadian family in Sudbury. She had a happy childhood, but when her parents passed away, she began researching her roots and learning more about her First Nations heritage. She found a brother in Nova Scotia who had also been adopted into a white family.

“I was part of the Sixties Scoop,” taken from her birth mother and put up for adoption, she said in the article. “I discovered a lot of things that I thought were false. My mother didn’t give me up for adoption.

Saskatchewan had an official Indigenous (Métis) transracial adoption program from the 1950s to the 1980s. Child welfare services took babies from single mothers and placed them in white, middle-class homes.

• The Local Journalism Initiative program is funded by the Government of Canada.

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