In life and in art: How an Indigenous artist used 2026 Olympic curling uniforms to share her heritage
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When one thinks of curling, we often think of ice, brooms and a cold one after the bonspiel.
But for 2-Spirit Anishinaabe/Cree artist and activist Shelby Gagnon, a collaboration with Goldline Curling and Curling Canada for the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympics was an opportunity to present a different side of one of Canada’s most beloved sports.
It gave Gagnon the chance to tell stories of her deep connection to land and water through her art, the importance of land and water protection, and share Indigenous history.
Goldline Curling is the leading supplier and manufacturer of equipment for players ranging from local to professional levels. They are to curling what Bauer is to hockey.
Ahead of the uniform and merchandise launch, Goldline Curling president Erin Flowers felt “nerve wracked,” because this series of uniforms was special.
At an event in Thunder Bay, Ont., Curling Canada unveiled their 2026 team uniforms, featuring a design inspired by nature, Indigenous culture, and the iconic Maple Leaf.
As the conduit of the collaboration for the True North series of curling merchandise with Gagnon, the pair connected in September 2024 when Flowers saw her work in a local magazine and then a mural while in Thunder Bay, Ont. They developed a friendship and had mutual friends in the curling community. It fell together organically. Then Flowers had an idea for using Indigenous art on the kits.
Flowers and Gagnon had worked on this project with Regina-based designer Steph Schmid. Flowers ensured that Gagnon felt liberated in her process and had the capacity to create art not only for the Olympic curling team, but different designs with a Maple Leaf as the feature point.
The design of the Maple Leaf has lines tracing the shape to represent water and in a subtle and beautiful way, are calming and meaningful.
For a team representing Canada, the Maple Leaf is significant. It is not only the centre of the flag, but it offers its own strong emblem of nature tying into what Gagnon wants. The Maple Leaf design came to Gagnon quickly and despite having different iterations, she was happy with how it looked on the final product.
The curling kits have a full sleeve of Gagnon’s art with the Maple Leaf on the back. It’s a strong reminder that Canada has the athletes’ backs, Flowers adds.
I asked Flowers if she hesitated at any point during the project. Flowers had read a lot about the appropriation of Indigenous art, which she believes “runs deep.” She was upfront and honest with Gagnon and explained that as a white-run business, she would be collaborative and defer to Gagnon on the art.
“Your art blows my mind. Let’s see what we can do,” Flowers told Gagnon.
She gave Gagnon a lot of time to ruminate on her offer. They had many conversations about the state of the world, and the state of the Olympics.
Flowers did not shy away from expressing her own ambitions. The highest platform of sport in curling is the Olympics and that could serve Gagnon in her storytelling.
“That is the goal for every athlete, and that is arguably the goal of my business is to have your product on that platform,” she said. “We had the uniforms as well. So it’s a big opportunity for me and Goldline to go out globally as to who we are.”
Water and the hummingbird
For Gagnon, the goal was to convey her passion and commitment to protection of nature.
“I like to incorporate a lot of water and water elements,” Gagnon told me on a call. “Growing up right beside Gichigami [Lake Superior] water has just always been in my life. We are water, and it’s so important to honour the water and to protect the water. … Because even right now it’s snow, and it could shape shift, and looking at the element of shape shifting with water, and the water is holding the hummingbird.”
Flowers trusted Gagnon and believed in the vision of telling a story about the elements, and deference and respect of the earth. That related back to Olympic curling in a profound way through water and the hummingbird as well. The hummingbird has a lifespan of four years — which is coincidentally the same amount of time as an Olympic quadrennial.
The design for the hummingbird is something that Gagnon “whipped up one afternoon” as she was drawing on her iPad. She played with it a little and added various elements of the moon in the circle but settled on a final version with flowy lines that felt more her style and encapsulated what a hummingbird means.
Gagnon explained that the symbolism of the hummingbird was perfect for the Olympics. She was initially drawn to the idea of the bird because of what it means in Indigenous culture and how that could relate to Olympians.
“When that main bird comes to you, it’s like a visitor,” she explained. “It’s like your ancestor, or someone in another world, like the spirit world, coming to greet you and acknowledge you and say ‘hi.’”
That idea of visiting another dimension or realm stuck with her.
The idea of visiting applied to athletes because they travel a lot, and there is a lot of meeting and visiting with others. She described the actual bird, its physiology of heart racing — also not uncommon for athletes.
“It’s always like little quick visits, like they’re so small and they’re so fast and their heartbeat so fast, and it’s just like you have to really be paying attention and really attuned,” Gagnon said.
I was captivated by her describing the process to me because the more she explained, the more it made sense.
But the business side wasn’t easy or fluid all the time. Flowers described how they ran into some issues.
“Oh my gosh! With our manufacturing, we almost didn’t have product in time,” she said. “We had issues in early January because we still didn’t have the hockey jersey in stock because it was stuck between Vancouver and here. And we had actually air-shipped over a small amount for the [Olympic] trials in Halifax. They sold out immediately.”
She snapped her fingers to emphasize the speed.
In life and in art
The uniforms were embraced by Curling Canada and the wider community. Flowers told me that when they were unveiled publicly in Halifax at the end of November, the response was overwhelming, and beautiful.
“I had no idea how the curling community [athletes, coaches, staff, fans] would respond,” she said.
“I didn’t have one athlete of Colleen Jones’ generation that didn’t see that Maple Leaf on the back that represented Canada that didn’t come to me and say, ‘Erin, I have worn this Maple Leaf, I have coached this Maple Leaf, I have seen this Maple Leaf. And I’m 75 years old, and I’ve never seen anything like this that feels like this.’”
They sold out of much of the True North merchandise at the Halifax event.
While this was a savvy business move, the connection between the women at the helm of this project was a huge success.
Gagnon’s focus is not on commodification and money, but acknowledges she is getting more comfortable in the business aspects of being an artist and knows that Indigenous artists don’t get remunerated in the ways they should.
Relationships are important to her and building a relationship with Flowers and Schmidt is important to her in life and in art.
Flowers tells me that Gagnon’s art is “a gift” and believes it will evoke emotion. It comes at a fortuitous time considering that it feels like parts of the world are not thriving or are in crisis.
“The symbol of a hummingbird is good luck on a long journey,” Flowers said.
“And Lord knows, we all need that right now.”
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