Aboriginals meet celebs

Alberta's Northern Cree shares fashion secrets for Grammy gala"The first year that we went, we all dressed in penguin suits and we were invisible," recalls Wood, noting the vast majority of other nominees in 2002 appeared in tuxedoes, too.

So when Northern Cree returned with a second nomination in 2004, Wood says they wore traditional ribbon shirts and vests. The stars were intrigued.

"We were at this one Grammy party and out of the crowd comes a little tiny woman and she comes up to the biggest guy in the group and goes, 'Wow, nice shirts. Where'd you guys get them from?' " says Wood, a high school teacher in Hobbema, Alta., about 70 kilometres south of Edmonton.

"I was looking at her and I thought, 'That's--", and I asked her, 'Are you, are you--Britney?' And she said, 'Yeah! You know me!'."