Rhonda Snow

Rhonda Snow is proud Anishinabe.

Rare Breeds Canada has presented her with a lifetime achievement award for her tireless work preserving the Native Pony breed. Her vivid Woodlands style canvases captivate viewers and share the knowledge which she has received from the Elders about the “small horses of the big woods”. She has personally cared for many Native Ponies, playing an important role in the comeback of the breed from near-extinction.

Rhonda is currently working intensively with breeders to help establish educational and equine-assisted learning programs that feature the Native Ponies and encourage them to closely connect them back to their original lifeways as wildlife.

She is also actively researching the history of the breed, interviewing elders and knowledge keepers to collect stories of how Indigenous peoples related to horses both before and after contact with Europeans.

As a teaching artist for the National Arts Centre, Rhonda has appeared across Canada in cross-cultural workshops that promote truth and reconciliation through art, music, and storytelling. She previously visited Parry Sound at the 2019 Gchi Dewin Indigenous Storytellers Festival. Rhonda is visual director of The Spirit Horse Returns, a new work for full orchestra which will introduce young audiences to the Native Ponies of This  Indigenous Land.