Athabascan Artist Maggie Roach Sews to Heal

**Athabascan artist Maggie Roach’s beadwork.** Photo courtesy of Maggie Roach

Michelle McAfee - CRR Staff

Many would say losing a child is one of the deepest pains one can experience in life. In 2019, Maggie Roach received that call. The grief was crushing. She put down her sewing and beadwork art for three years and couldn’t touch it.

This summer, she fell ill with severe Covid and was flown to a hospital in Fairbanks, where she faced the choice of surviving to reunite with her husband and children or leaving this world behind. She chose to stay. After she got home from the hospital, Roach started sewing and beading again.

Maggie Northway Roach, Tsoo gaaiy (Little Grandma), is an Athabascan from the Upper Tanana, originally from Northway, now living in Tok. She is the daughter of Teddy Walter Northway, Sr. and Darlene D Northway, who raised six daughters and a son. Her paternal grandpa is Chief Walter Northway, and her grandma is Lily Northway. Her mother named her after maternal Grandmother Maggie Albert who was married to Ben J. Albert, Sr.

When she was 11 years old, Roach received a sewing kit from her mother.

“Mine was a slipper top. She taught me how to sew it together. It’s a tradition when we become young ladies to sew,” said Roach. Her mother would teach Roach and her sisters how to create the pattern, stitch it together, and make it into a slipper or mukluk.

**Beaded slippers by Maggie Roach.** Photo courtesy of Maggie Roach

Darlene Northway didn’t have a high school diploma and left school in the 5th grade to help Roach’s grandmother take care of all the kids. After Darlene married Teddy, they had six daughters and a son. Darlene sewed to help support the family, and Roach credits her mother for being the inspiration for her and her siblings’ sewing, cooking, and baking skills.

“My mom and dad made us strong and independent. We have our own voices and stand with each other. We didn’t have a grocery store down in Northway. It was all subsistence food we ate and gathered, and they took us out of school for hunting. One year mom made mukluks that went right up to the knees, all beaver and beaded, for her girls, my brother, and my dad for Christmas,” recalls Roach.

They were each given a beaver hat that year, made by Darlene, who worked for the Tetlin Wildlife Refuge at the Visitor Center. Darlene Northway and her friend Ada Gallen sewed caribou coats and pants and have artwork in the gift shop there. Roach’s mother also made birch bark baskets, and her sister Charlotte is now carrying that craft forward.

Sewing and beadwork is a common art among her people, and most of her family sews.

“We sew all these things and put them aside for gifting. Some people sell what they sew. Others sew for a hobby,” said Roach.

Before Darlene Northway passed, she asked her daughter to put beaded slippers and mittens together for her kids and husband, “just in case,” Roach said. “That’s how we bury our loved ones. We dress them up in beadwork.”

“My dad always said, have ten guns, ten slippers, and ten gloves for your pallbearers for a funeral potlatch. Sometimes it happens so fast, and people are not prepared. That’s when families help each other”

When Roach lost her eldest son Kaleb in 2019, she had her son’s beadwork already finished because her mother, Darlene, had previously instructed her to do that. She was prepared, not knowing she would lose her son.

“I lost Kaleb when he was 28. When I gave birth to him, he was already gone, stayed in the birth canal too long, and came out not breathing, but God gave me 28 more years with Kaleb.”

Potlatches happen immediately after a loved one dies, for a funeral, and sometimes for a memorial if someone was left out in a previous potlatch. Roach said it helps them heal from losing a loved one - it’s how they take care of them.

“My dad always said, have ten guns, ten slippers, and ten gloves for your pallbearers for a funeral potlatch. Sometimes it happens so fast, and people are not prepared. That’s when families help each other,” she said.

Much love and intention goes into beading and sewing for family and loved ones. Roach’s mother made her a graduation dress of moose hide with a flower beaded belt and a pair of mukluks.

“Mom and Ada Gallen would sew at our house, and I’d come in and try stuff on. They told me they were going to sell it, but it turned out to be for my graduation. I was really surprised!” Roach laughed, then said her mother named her Maggie after her grandmother, so her mom also honored her grandmother with the dress and mukluks.

“It takes a lot of discipline. My mom used to say, ‘Get up, clean your house, and when you’re all done with that, sit down and sew.’”

The longest part of the process of making slippers or mittens is the beadwork. Roach said she recently made a pair of slippers with a beaded eagle head, and it took her five hours just to sew the white beads around the head. Once the beadwork is done, the moose hide and liner are cut from a pattern and laid out with beaver trim. Then the pieces are sewn together. Roach said it usually takes a day to complete a slipper once the beadwork is finished.

“It takes a lot of discipline. My mom used to say, ‘Get up, clean your house, and when you’re all done with that, sit down and sew.’ People bead flowers; some will do moose, caribou, bear, ra- ven, and seagull. They have to be careful what they put on a vest or dress because of the clan,” said Roach.

It’s an expensive hobby or craft because of the cost of materials. Roach said the beaver skin alone could be up to $100-$200 each depending on the size, and smoked moose hide goes for $3,000. Commercial moose or elk hide is much cheaper, and many people use that now.
“My husband, my boys, and I go out and hunt beaver. They bring it back, and I skin it, salt dry it, and send it out to an oil and mink tannery outside. I’d rather go hunt beaver and take care of it myself than buy it from a shop because it costs $23 to get the beaver tanned versus buying one for $180 at a shop. Gathering all the furs is part of the pricing too.”

**Slippers with fur tops, sewn by Maggie Roach’s sister, Cheryl Silas.** Photo courtesy of Maggie Roach

Roach said sometimes people don’t like the price of her work, but she said she is confident in what she charges for her craft. She used to doubt herself and didn’t want to overprice or underprice anything, but soon realized the cost of materials and the value of her time and skill are what set the price of her items.

Maggie Roach’s work is currently sold at The Hub in Glennallen and Posty’s Native Gift Shop in Chistochina.

“I used to sell in Anchorage, but I haven’t been to Anchorage in gosh, I don’t know how many years now,” said Roach.

Roach’s time in Anchorage in the past was tense. Her daughter Katalina arrived prematurely at five months and was placed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for three months. The baby was so tiny, that Roach didn’t know if she would bring her daughter home or not.

Roach started sewing. It was early October, and she sewed at the hospital until Christmas. By then, the baby was doing well and moved from the NICU to a regular floor where Maggie could see her anytime.

“One nurse asked me if I had kids. I told her I had three boys at home, and she told me to go home. You can’t do anything for her. Your daughter is going to be here for a while.”

Roach said she sold everything she sewed during those months in the NICU to a woman at the Alaska Art Exchange, and that’s how she got home to spend Christmas with her husband and boys.

“That beadwork that I made [in the hospital], I didn’t have to use it to bury my daughter. I brought my daughter home, and now she’s tall, almost taller than me,” Roach says with a sparkle in her voice.

People in the Upper Tanana, Northway, and surrounding villages, frequently make beadwork and basketry. Roach said, “A lot of beautiful stuff comes out of here, like Marilyn Paul, she does birch bark baskets and baby carriers, and they’re really beautiful. She goes out and gets her own supplies. Judy Thomas does really good beadwork and Margie Torres.”

Other Upper Tanana artists’ names roll like a river from Roach as she proudly shines a light on her community. It is impossible to name every artist here, but it’s a start on the long list of Upper Tanana artists:

”Joyce Johnson, Pamela Baker, Dianna Ervin, each of my sisters: Cheryl Silas, Brenda Engleman, Salina Northway, Sherlene Mark, Charlotte Brinkman. And Emma Hildebrand does caribou tufting and quill work. There is an artist from Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory, Melissa Isaac, and Avis Sam tans her own moose hide and sews mukluks. Her signature is wolf hide mukluks. Howard Fix tans his own moose hide and does woodwork, and his wife also does woodwork and beading/birch bark. They have a beautiful garden.”

Roach said she’s pretty busy right now keeping The Hub supplied and working on another project of beading credit card holders and five pairs of slippers. She also likes to have things to gift for Christmas and said she sells more of her work during the Christmas season. When moose hunting ends, she will be sewing...a lot.

“The life I have right now is all because of my husband. I have him to thank for everything he has provided for this hobby of mine. He always asks me what I am sewing on.”

It gets so busy sometimes that Roach can’t accept all the calls for her work. She wishes there was a way to organize passing orders on to other artists that she can’t fill, like an artist co-op or more outlets where she could refer her sisters.

“I told my husband, I always wanted my small business in my yard someplace, like a little cabin, just have a little gift shop for sewing potlatch stuff or whatever so people don’t have to travel a long way to get that stuff. But my husband is still working on his business,” said Roach.

Marvin Roach is retired from the Alaska Department of Transportation, and has his own wood business.

“The life I have right now is all because of my husband. I have him to thank for everything he has provided for this hobby of mine. He always asks me what I am sewing on,” said Roach.

Maggie Roach stopped sewing nearly three years after losing her son until her husband, Marvin Roach, bought her a moose hide, inspiring her to sew again.

“I was just grieving for my son and put down my sewing for a while. That year I didn’t shop for my kids for Christmas until the very last minute, then I made them all mukluks and beaver hats. That’s how I got back into sewing. My husband encouraged me,” said Roach.

A friend also sent Roach a card during that time, and inside was a slipper and glove top, and her friend wrote, “Get busy.”

“I did. I started sewing, and it was healing. It was healing me and lifting me up because it was one of the things I love to do. I was always thankful to her for doing that,” and thankful to her husband, said Roach, for encouraging her and making it all possible.

To contact Maggie Roach about her sewing and art, email her at: maggie35northway@yahoo.com or Facebook message @Maggie.Roach.