A downtown art gallery is a finalist for a provincial business award honouring outstanding achievement and community contribution.

Grant Berg Gallery, located on the main floor of 214 Place, is a finalist in the Alberta Business Awards of Distinction 2021 in the Indigenous Business category.

“I grew up very close to my grandma,” said Grant Berg, the gallery’s owner and namesake. “She was Cree. She married my grandpa, and he was Scottish, and he had Trapping Licence #2 here in Alberta. My mom was the baby of eight, so you know they have been long gone.

“I just loved those two so much and grew up so close to my grandma so that when I was young, it was obvious she saw a lot in me. With that confidence she had in me, I do every once in a while think that this is pushing the boundaries, but Grandma believed in me, so I am going to push these boundaries in honour of her. It is a direct correlation to me honouring my grandma.”

The awards will be announced June 25 at a virtual celebration, and if the Grant Berg Gallery should prove victorious in its category, it won’t be the first award in its relatively short life.

“It’s been five years since (the gallery) has been brick-and-mortar, five years Grande Prairie and four years Kananaskis,” Berg explained. “It was a business six months before that.

“We did win the (Grande Prairie and District Chamber of Commerce’s) Eagle Feather Award in 2016, and then we won the Art Ouellette Award for downtown in 2018. This was one that was nominated by someone else. I didn’t nominate us or anything like that. It was a person that we know that regulars the gallery, and he actually nominated us. I had to finish the submission.”

The gallery owner does try and help others where he can.

“I do get tapped every once in an a while to mentor or speak to Indigenous business owners,” Berg said. “I am all for helping people out because so many people have helped me out, and I just want to pay it forward.

“I was fortunate in that regard in that I was doing sales and marketing and working with small businesses for 25 years. So for me, I had already built that network of people I could ask and lean on and get advice from. That certainly was not a disadvantage for me.”

Berg said succeeding with the business results from hard work and the support of the people living in the region from Grande Prairie and the surrounding county to Fort Nelson and Peace River and further north over the years.