04 What’s a Matoska?
Lakota for “white bear.”
Mato means bear and ska means white. The company was named after one of Brent and Nancy Schellhase’s dogs, a Great Pyrenees who looked like a small, shaggy white bear — small for a bear: Matoska weighed over 100 pounds.
The bear in the Matoska logo is a pictographic bear taken from a winter count drawing from the Upper Missouri region, circa 1830.
The focus has never moved: the art and history of the North American Plains, and the materials to make things with.
- 1991
Matoska Trading Company is founded. Brent sells at powwows, then at larger shows.
- Then
“We opened our first retail location after we had outgrown operating from our house.”
- 2003
A retail store opens on Chapman Avenue in Orange.
- 2011
The move to 123 N. Glassell, in Old Towne proper, just north of the Plaza.
“I’ve been a student of the culture my whole life, and I’m a craftsman who uses much of the materials we sell, as well. I enjoy it and it’s a labor of love.”
