Brenda Holder slips a pair of muskrat mitts over her hands. They’ve got a few advantages over those sported at Marmot Basin, and keep her hands warm in the stove-heated tent.

“They don’t freeze up and they’re waterproof,” she says. “You usually line them with the fur of another animal."

A direct descendant of the Cardinal Metis, Holder has set up camp in Wapiti campground to share her culture with park goers. Through a pilot program in conjunction with Parks Canada, she has opened the first commercial interpretative program at the site, which has been running for two weeks.

“We’ve come back to the park to provide educational and cultural opportunities,” Holder said.

This includes medicine walks around Wapiti campground, teaching campers how to make moccasins and perform beadwork. It also includes learning lessons from the forest, such as what plants have healing properties. She lifts a jar with a familiar green plant inside.

“Grandpa’s whiskers are a good fire starter and they are also used as an antiseptic and antibiotic,” Holder said. “And yarrow is common here. It’s a first aider’s best friend. It’s good for flus and colds and it could be packed into wounds to stop bleeding.

Three staff members currently help Holder run the camp, teaching medicine bag making to beadwork.

“Beadwork came when we were taken in by the Grey Nuns,” Holder said, showing off a traditional flower design resembling a wild rose. “They taught us to do beadwork and this is a typical flower pattern we would use.”

The display is the first part of what she hopes to be an expanding business. She said she hopes to hold a hide tanning seminar later in March, using elk, moose and perhaps a bear hide.

The programming is the first step in a new relationship JNP is attempting to develop with more than 20 tribes that use the park. It’s been accepted as an approved practice with a preferred partner by the Park, which is part of its focus on visitor experience. An aboriginal presence has been missing for some time, and Holder notes how Parks evicted the Metis from the land 100 years ago.

While this is the first time Holder set up a business in the park, she has participated in other events in the past.

“We started to talk to Parks years ago. We took part in Parks Days and aboriginal awareness days,” Holder said.

Holder was born and raised in Jasper, but now runs a business in Canmore. She’s a member of the Metis Nation, but isn’t representing the Nation through this partnership. She’s training others to run the Jasper site, such as Jordan Ede and Morgan Klettl.

This is the first time a commercial operation has been set up in a Jasper National Park campground.

“Because this is a pilot program, we’re trying to figure out the ideal location to do this. We’d like to set up a more traditional outer log structure, but we’re setting up,” Holder said.

Gloria Keyes-Brady, JNP manager of visitor experience, said the parks management plan identified the need to work with aboriginal groups in order to create a greater presence in the park. She said to her knowledge, this is the first time a commercial business has been allowed to operate within a campground.

“This is a new era. The public wants new experiences,” she said.

Parks Canada needs to ‘refresh the visitor offerings’ in the park, Keyes-Brady said, and studies from Travel Alberta suggested there is a demand for aboriginal experiences in the park.

Parks Canada is assisting with some of the marketing of the business, but not with direct funding.

“We don’t know what the capacity is. This is new to us,” Keyes-Brady said.

The pilot project will run until May 2010, when the campsites will be returned to their regular usage.