Artifact of the Week - Bone Flesher

This week's featured artifact is a flesher, donated by Tom Rumball in 1973. This artifact
would have been used to de-flesh animal skins when preparing hides.

As people who utilized and lived with the environment around them, First Nations Peoples fashioned their tools out of bones and rocks.  In this case, a leg bone from a deer was fashioned into a tool used to scrape flesh from hides. The First Nations people would also eat deer meat, tan and use the hide for clothing and shelter, and use deer sinew for sewing. The First Nations people used every part of an animal, wasting nothing.

While bone tools were used for working meat and hide, rocks were fashioned into arrowheads and spear points to hunt animals.

Our featured artifact this week coincides with next week's presentation by Dr. David Welch. Dr. Welch will be speaking about his collection of stone and bone tools and the fascinating stories associated with them.

Dr. Welch will be speaking at the Museum on Wednesday, June 4, 2014 at 7 pm. Everyone is invited to this free presentation.

PRMA 73.540 Bone Flesher. 

Stone tools presentation by Dr. David Welch - June 4th at 7 pm

On Wednesday, June 4, 2014, at 7 pm, Dr. David Welch will be joining us at the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre, to talk about his pre-historic stone and bone tools. After a lifetime's worth of collecting, researching and examining stone tools, he is a great source of information and stories.

This presentation complements our current exhibit "A Sense of the Land and its People: A Personal Collection" which showcases a variety of Northwest Coast and Plains First Nations Artifacts from Dr. Welch's collection.

The artifacts in the exhibit are representative of the environments that the Northwest Coast and Plains First Nations lived within and how those environments influenced their food, clothing, lodgings, hunting practices, artistic expression and ceremonies.

Please join us for this free event as we learn more about stone and bone tools, as well as hear Dr. Welch's stories and experiences collecting them.

For more information, please contact the Museum.

Artifact of the Week - Dr. Sutherland's coffee pot

This coffeepot belonged to Dr. Frederick Henry Sutherland who worked as a physician in Peace River for many years. He was also mayor of the town for 16 years and served with the Canadian Medical Corps in World War I. Dr. Sutherland is the namesake of Sutherland Nursing Home/Continuing Care Centre and most recently Sutherland Place. He was considered by many to be a great man.

This aluminum coffeepot was donated by his daughter Alma Richardson. According to Alma, Dr. Sutherland enjoyed his coffee immensely and this pot was his pride and joy. At the time, the 1950s-1960s, aluminum was thought to cause Alzheimer’s disease, an idea that Dr. Sutherland rejected, so much so that he used this aluminum coffeepot every morning for many years.

PRMA 2013.009.002 - The coffee pot that Dr. Sutherland used every day. 

Artists of the Month - Holy Family School in Grimshaw

The Museum art wall is pleased to host its annual May Student Art Feature. This year we welcome the amazing and impressive work of Holy Family School's First Nations, Metis and Inuit (FNMI) option class from Grimshaw.

First, each student chose a First Nations, Metis or Inuit artist they wanted to learn more about. From there, the students created a painting that was inspired by the artist that they had chosen. Each student thoughtfully created their piece, bearing in mind the spirituality and emotion that goes into the creation of a piece of artwork.

The student artists, Holy Family School, and especially the FNMI coordinator, Tanys Oxman, are very proud of what has been created. We at the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre are certainly impressed.

Thank you to the Peace of Art Art Club for sponsoring the Art Wall. Please come out and support the creativity of our local students.

Holy Family School FNMI Coordinator Tanys Oxman, after installing the students work at the Museum.