As puffs of smoke rise from a fire inside a kʷikʷəƛəm (Kwikwetlem) big house, middle school student Elsa Romey reaches over to help her twin sister Maya turn soft cedar wood into a box with an inlay-carved lid.

“This is a bentwood box,” she tells CBC News. “You can store stuff in it.”

“Important stuff,” Maya adds. “Things that have meaning to you.”