In Isabella Kulak\u2019s home is a box of about a few hundred letters, notes, and hand-drawn pictures of\u00a0ribbon\u00a0skirts sent to her from across Canada and beyond \u2014 fan mail from those who consider her story and the origins of \u201cRibbon\u00a0Skirt\u00a0Day\u201d as inspirational.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have like a whole notebook of letters, a whole stack of drawings from all these schools, and it makes me feel so happy, and it warms my heart,\u201d said Isabella, a shy 15-year-old, on a phone call from her home in Kamsack, Sask., located about 270 kilometres east of Regina.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do want to eventually write back to them, but I am really busy with school.\u201d<\/p>\n
After all, the Anishinaabe girl is still a teenager. This past week, she had a volleyball tournament. These next few months, she will be completing Grade 10and the next big step is on the path to medical school, she said.<\/p>\n
About five years ago, then-10-year-old Isabella, a member of the Cote First Nation in Saskatchewan, wore a\u00a0ribbon\u00a0skirt\u00a0to a formal day at her school, Kamsack Comprehensive Institute. It was the last day before Christmas break.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0ribbon\u00a0skirt, a colourful and handmade cultural garment worn in ceremonies or for special events, was not formal enough, she was told by an educational assistant at the school. She should have worn a store-bought dress, like one of her classmates, she was told.<\/p>\n
She returned home and cried, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe went to school so proud and came home pretty sad, not wearing her\u00a0skirt\u00a0anymore, and it completely broke my heart,\u201d Lana Kulak, Isabella\u2019s mother, said.<\/p>\n
The Good Spirit School Division later apologized for what Isabella\u2019s father said he believed was a racially motivated comment.<\/p>\n
Her story, shared first person-to-person then online, was met with mingled anger over the perceived racism in those comments and with support for the young girl.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I see, like, how much it affected people in a positive way; now they\u2019re not afraid to show their culture and wear their cultural attire,\u201d Isabella says, slowly and thoughtfully.<\/p>\n
Isabella\u2019s experience in December 2020 was the thread that stitched together a national\u00a0Ribbon\u00a0Skirt\u00a0Day in Canada.<\/p>\n
In December 2022, an act to establish Jan. 4 as National\u00a0Ribbon\u00a0Skirt\u00a0Day received royal assent. That was the first day Isabella returned to school after Christmas break, alongside family members who were wearing\u00a0ribbon\u00a0skirts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like the world woke up and decided it was time to have a change happen,\u201d said Lana, looking back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeing national\u00a0ribbon\u00a0skirt\u00a0resources everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Children from different elementary schools across Canada have sent Isabella letters, including those in her box \u2014 an RCMP-emblazoned container, originally full of gifts from the Mounties. It\u2019s now stacked with drawings from the children of their own\u00a0ribbon\u00a0skirts.<\/p>\n
Isabella also received one of the first letters from a retired RCMP officer who had served in the Kamsack area.<\/p>\n
Seeing her name plastered across social media posts back then was overwhelming for Isabella. Even still, the growth of the movement is a lot for the family to wear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll ever get used to being the centre of attention. I know it\u2019s hard for Isabella,\u201d said Chris Kulak, Isabella\u2019s father.<\/p>\n
The family is on a first-name basis with federal and provincial politicians.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe teach our girls to be humble and respectful and always realize that when something like this happens to you, you have a responsibility to carry it forward,\u201d Chris said.<\/p>\n
Neither Chris, Lana, nor Isabella has Facebook, but there\u2019s a dedicated support page for Isabella on the social media site (though its activity teetered off in 2024).<\/p>\n
One post details how a group of grade-school students created their own handmade book about Isabella\u2019s story to share with younger students. Others posted with photos of them in their own\u00a0ribbon\u00a0skirts.<\/p>\n
Ribbon\u00a0Skirt\u00a0Day means much more to Lana than the cultural attire. She sees it as a symbol of dealing with intolerance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Isabella\u2019s story opening up so many different eyes and so many different positive stories coming from this, it really, really makes me happy to see what\u2019s happening for my children and the future generations seeing such a positive change,\u201d said Lana.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 4, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Isabella Kulak\u2019s home is a box of about a few hundred letters, notes, and hand-drawn pictures of\u00a0ribbon\u00a0skirts…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":492790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-492789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115839354074067543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}