Sandra Dulcie Rideout (nee Best) was raised in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Nunatsiavut. Upon completing a two year Secretarial Science Program at CONA in 1991 she gained employment with the Department of National Defence where she still works today. Rideout is a true believer in her culture and exercises her traditional way of life by fishing, hunting and most notably, her love for the art of sewing.
Rideout has been sewing for years. Her mom, Vera Best and grandmother Dulcie Montague and Aunt Jane Gear were her biggest influences in the sewing world. She grew up seeing her mother and grandmother constantly making duffle coats, moose hide and duffle slippers, mukluks and moose hide mitts, canvass coats and knitting a wide variety of items. Rideout started sewing at about the age of 10 with hand sewing little things like throw pillows with people’s names on them. When her own children were small she started knitting and crocheting, then, as her children grew, so did her interest in the traditional crafts. She became interested in slipper making and from there, traditional native mukluks, gauntlets, cuffs and leather/fur hats. Rideout has developed and uses her own pattern when making her mukluks and leather hats.
Rideout was chosen to attend the Northern Lights 2012, 2014 & 2016 Business and Cultural Showcase in Ottawa, to show her crafts to more than 3000 people. She was selected to attend the Northern Exposure in St. John’s, NL in 2013, was also selected to attend Sealing Day on the Hill in Ottawa May 2016. Nunavut (NACA) selected Rideout to attend a festival of the Northern Passage in Cambridge Bay, NU August 2016 for a week long event, where she taught. During the years 2011 to 2017, she was hired to teach seal skin cuff making mitts to a group of ladies of the Nunatsuivut membership and the Nunakatiget Inuit Comm corp. She also taught a number of groups through the local Friendship Center. Though Rideout leads a very busy home and work life, she still finds the time to do the sewing she loves, and carry on the tradition taught to her by her mother and grandmother.
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Accomplishments
2012: Selected to represent Labrador as a craft producer at Northern Lights Convention and Trade Show by the Labrador North and Baffin Regional Chambers of Commerce.