Artifact of the Week - Meteorite donated by the Hills family

This week’s feature artifact was chosen because of its connection to Dr. Leonard (Len) Hills, a well-known geologist at the University of Calgary. Dr. Hills was born in Judah and passed away on August 4, 2013 in Calgary. Dr. Hills achieved great things throughout his career as a geologist and influenced a great many lives. He will be missed.

This meteorite was donated by the Hills family. The meteorite is part of a large meteorite that exploded and fell over Bruderheim, a small town in Central Alberta, on March 4^th, 1960.

PRMA X87.1522.1 Meteorite

The meteorite is in our geology display, along with several other treasures that have been found in the Peace Region, and we invite you down to the museum to see for yourself!

In memory of Dr. Leonard Hills

Artifact of the Week - Projectile Point

The museum is starting a new weekly feature where we will be highlighting an artifact of the week. The museum has a collection of over 8,000 artifacts, each of which are historically significant and feature a story. Every exhibit that we create features some of these objects but we thought we would bring even more objects out for you to see, in a digital format. Enjoy this new feature and do let us know if there is a specific object you would like to see.  

This week’s featured artifact is a projectile point that would have been used either as a spear point or a dart point and is likely over 5,000 years old. It was found by collector Hans Huber near his farm, between Peace River and the airport. This is an atypical piece simply due to the colors of the material that was used. Most chert or flint found in the area is black in color, but this piece is filled with whites, greys, blues, and greens.

68.17.19 Projectile Point

This is only one of our many stone tools on display, and we encourage you to come down to the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre to see the rest of our excellent collection of stone tools. Feel free to ask about our stone tool collection and to visit our library for more information on archaeology in Alberta. 

A New Focus in our Natural History Display !

Over the summer we have been rearranging our natural history display to give both a more comprehensive overview of the regions natural history as well as giving more information about the artifacts. We rearranged our geology display, giving it better lighting and more identification, with an emphasis on the oil industry. Our osteology (bone) display now not only speaks to the bison and other ice age animals, but also several different animals that come from the north Peace Region with an emphasis on comparative craniology and dentition. We also identified more from our palaeontology display, which emphasizes ancient sea life in Alberta.  Finally, we improved our archaeology display, giving visitors the chance to see almost every angle of our stone tools.

Our Natural History display. 

The display features everything from dinosaur bones, to a meteorite, to a partial bison spine, to arrowheads, and even the tooth of a woolly mammoth.  We invite you down to the museum to get up close and personal with our artifacts and to learn from our new display.

The Osteology display case featuring bison bones and other animals. 

Thank you to our speakers!

The Museum has been very fortunate to have two fantastic speakers over the last week. Both talented, informative, and fun speakers!

Eric Moller and Stephanie Capyk of Cardinal Creek Honey graced us with their sweet presence last Saturday, August 10th. They regaled us with stories of beekeeping and the various practices used in beekeeping.

Last night, August 15th, Teresa Griffith joined us to tell tales from her new book "York Boat Captain: 18 Life-Changing Days on the Peace River". Through laughter, stories, and fun, Captain Overboard (as she is sometimes known) shared some of her time on the Peace River with her audience, just enough to entice us to buy the book and read it for ourselves.  

Teresa Griffith signing her book for a fan. 

"York Boat Captain" Book Launch with Teresa Griffith

Have you ever met an author who was also a York boat captain? No? Well, after you meet Captain Teresa Griffith, you will no longer be able to say that.

Teresa had the audacity to become the first woman captain of a York boat – a position reserved for men in the heyday of fur trading and York boats in the 1800s. In fact, the crew of the fur-bearing boat was all men. Leap ahead to 2011. We  have not only a female captain, but also a female crew member – not token females, but hardworking, skilful participants carrying their weight literally and figuratively – Teresa as captain (sweep) and Cheryll Ferguson-Welke as oarsman along with her male counterparts.

Teresa Griffith’s book – York Boat Captain, 18 Life-changing Days on the Peace River is not a women’s story, as such, but rather a people story – a  documentation of the human spirit – merging skill with emulating the activities of days gone by – business and survival.

In Teresa’s compelling, spellbinding and informative book, she makes what might be considered mundane – the prep work – fascinating – a good lead up to the adventure of the 18 days on the Peace River for whom all involved was a life-changing experience.

Teresa’s well-written, attention-getting work is a darn good read.

York Boat landing at Riverfront Park, Peace River, June 2011.
Photo by Beth Wilkins, Researcher, Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre.  

Please see for yourself, at the launching of the book York Boat Captain, 18 Life-changing Days on the Peace River – Thursday, August 15, 7:30 p.m. at the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre. Captain Teresa Griffith looks forward to chatting with you about her adventure and signing her book, which will be for sale. Cash or cheque is acceptable.

The Art of Beekeeping

Erik Moller and Stephanie Capyk of Cardinal Creek Honey practice the gentle art of beekeeping in the County of Northern Lights with Erik’s father Knut Moller. They describe themselves as follows:  “We're a couple of beekeepers living on the edge of the Alberta prairie and northern boreal forest, one foot firmly planted in parts northern, the other always itching to get onto the ocean and into the mountains”

The Museum’s current exhibit Roots in the Peace, features a contemporary photography exhibit of local organic producers in the Peace Country and Cardinal Creek Honey can be seen in this collection. To compliment this exhibit, Erik and Stephanie will be speaking about their experiences at the Peace River Museum August 10^th, 2013 at 3pm.  This is a free event and will undoubtedly be ‘sweet’!