Born in Daysland, Alberta to a full blood Dene Cree Mother and a Scottish Canadian Father and raised on an acreage. After college Shilllinglaw backpacked Latin America, sailing the Straits of Magellan, she realized uniqueness/fertility of the Albertan landscape, at her ancestors that harvested the landscape.
2009 she was invited to Buenos Aires, Argentina to exhibit and lecture @ Native Rights Humanitarian Conference, she received a special permission from the Canadian Ambassador to sponsored travels to Mendoza, Argentina began working with anthropologist and chief of the Tehuelches descendants of 9000 years protecting the Cueva de Las Manos, Shillinglaw notes her highest honor a blessing from him. The anthropologist then toured her to Maputches tribes that harvested plants for sustainability. Later that year she exhibited, lectured and provided art workshops with Tobian-Guaranian in Paraguay UNICEF School. Their medicine woman invited her and shared knowledge of plant medicines. She understood without translators, alike a conversation with her great-grandmother.
Heather was born into an appreciation and knowledge of nature that radiates throughout her work, from the smallest flower at 2mm wide that she paints at 1.5metres to the smudge bowl (abalone shell and eagle feather) she created at 4 metres wide.
She is continually exploring and learning, exposing and unearthing the underlying knowledge behind our earth and its connection to our society and her Metis heritage.