“What inspired me was storytelling,” shares Tesler Mosquito. He is from Mosquito Grizzly Bear’s Head Lean Man First Nation and lives in Saskatoon. He’s the owner and CEO of Treaty Six Apparel clothing company, a company he launched to rapid success with orders going out to the North, the US and even as far as New Zealand. He was in the Indian Teacher Education Program at the University of Saskatchewan where he learned about Indigenous history and how the truth had been suppressed.

Mosquito also learned about the power of stories and thought about the different ways he could tell stories, narrowing it down to clothing. He wanted to share about Saskatoon, his community he felt was often overlooked. A mentor he found along the way connected him with a printing shop and gave him advice on how to get started. Mosquito posted mockups on social media and sold a hundred pieces right away.

Enthusiasm for his brand grew and people even wanted Mosquito to expand to cover their treaty territories. Spreading awareness and pride, he’s found great satisfaction while growing his business. He’s also giving back, donating proceeds to causes identified by representatives he’s highlighting. As he’s reflecting on sharing other stories, he’s mindful of trying to appropriately represent other communities he doesn’t belong to.

When it comes to his educational journey, Mosquito went to elementary school and high school in the small town outside his reserve until his family moved to Saskatoon. He struggled in school as he was trying to find himself alongside other students trying to do the same. In grade 11, he was expelled for missing too much school. Raised by a single mother who valued education and told him over and over again how fundamental it was to everything, she inspired him to graduate eventually. He moved in with his brother and got a job at Wendy’s for a month until his mom let him move back in. He switched schools to one with a soccer program which he enjoyed but he was failing after a friend died by suicide. He decided to switch to the school on his reserve and managed to graduate.

For the next six years, Mosquito worked odd jobs until he got into education. At one point, he applied to become a police officer. At another, he worked at a youth centre and he was struck by how many youth were Indigenous. From there, he worked in youth corrections, again, surprised to see how many Indigenous people were incarcerated. He ended up losing that job for being late for work too many times, something he had lost jobs over before. He applied to go to school so he could get money from his band to pay his bills and he was planning to apply to be a police officer again.

Mosquito worked as a server at a restaurant while going through the police recruitment process and ultimately was not accepted. He couldn’t reapply until 2020 so he worked in construction. He went back to university and took the ITEP program. After graduation, he started building his business at live events, selling hoodies and making thousands of dollars every weekend. He met so many people and created a lot of online content for his brand.

To inspire Indigenous youth, Mosquito says,

“the biggest thing that any young person has to develop is confidence. Confidence is the most important thing, because if you don't have confidence, then you can't do anything. They say when your confidence goes, the first thing that goes is your imagination. You can't think if you're not confident. You can't dream if you're not confident. How can you dream of a nice house and a nice car and a beautiful wife if you don't have confidence to get that stuff? Where does confidence come from? Knowing who you are and knowing where you come from. That's what you need…. There's a reason why you're here. You have to find your purpose.”

Inspired by storytelling, Tesler Mosquito built a brand to share the story of Treaty 6 territory with the world. His educational path was rocky but he found his way to becoming an educator, raised by a single mother who reminded him over and over how important education really is. He found the confidence to dream a clothing company into existence and to keep getting back up every time he faced an obstacle until he found what he was meant to do.

Thank you to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article!