Alberta Culture Days -- showcasing Peace River's arts, culture and heritage!

Alberta Culture Days is an annual celebration of the arts, culture and heritage found through out our province. The Peace Country has its own eclectic array of creative events and opportunites to view, participate or contribute to! From a concert at McKinney Hall on September 26th in Northern Sunrise County to two full days of the Dixonville Harvest Days September 26th & 27th to September 27th in Peace River, there is much to see and do.

PRMA 2009.014.361 Clara O'Neill, Betty Moore and Allie Holt dressed for Mackenzie Daze, circa 1960s.  

Peace River's activities begin on International Peace Day September 21st at Riverfront Park. The unveiling ceremony of a recently installed Peace Pole will be held at 2pm Sunday with a message of peace for the world and in acknowledgement of the historical and contemporary cultures of the people in our region. Local visual artists and quilters will be featured the week of September 22-29th in many participating downtown businesses. Next, the Town of Peace River will offer a FREE concert September 27th with Fairview musician Sarah Richards opening for country singer Duane Steele at the historic Athabasca Hall from 4pm to 6pm. Free tickets can picked up at the Museum and at Community Services. At the Museum our heritage and landscapes are currently expressed in the works of photographer Amanda Monette and in the Aboriginal women's artistry in the exhibit "A Sense of the Land and Its People: A Private Collection".

The Library and Art Gallery is featuring an exhibit of children's art from the summer workshops as well as hosting a book talk at 1pm on the 27th. The day concludes with the first of the season's 'underground Music Society' dances at the Senior's Drop-In Centre from 8:30pm-1am ($25 advanced tickets/ $30 at the door) presenting the blues band "NightKeepers".

The Peace Country has a history of creative expression and innovation and the contemporary scene expressed this week continues the tradition! Carve out the time to celebrate living in the Peace!

PRMA 83.1308.008 Street Bingo was a mainstay of Peace River's Community Culture. circa 1960s.

Artifact of the Week - hog rings and pliers

This week’s featured artifact is a nice box of 100 copper hog rings and hog ring pliers donated by St. Isidore’s Madeleine Martel. For those who did not grow up on a farm, or who are unfamiliar with pigs, these animals have a very strong sense of smell which they use to find food underneath the ground. They then use their snout to dig up their find; this is called rooting. The rings are used to prevent this behaviour in the pigs as rooting can be quite destructive. A ring or sometimes two or three are clipped to the rim of the nose of the pig which makes rooting uncomfortable yet allows the pig to rummage freely for food that is located above the soil.

The set of adjustable pliers would be used to clip the rings onto the nose of the pig. Although this may seem like somewhat of a cruel way of dealing with the natural behaviour of the pig, this does very minimal damage to the pig in a very cheap manner. A drift of pigs would do a lot of damage to a field or pasture if they were not rung which is why in some cases the rings were a necessity. 

PRMA 97.23.11 and 97.23.12

Artist of the Month - Amanda Monette

For the month of September, the Museum's art wall features the work of Amanda Monette. Amanda has only been publicly displaying her work for about a year.

Born and raised in the Peace River valley, Amanda has a deep appreciation and love for the Peace country and nature in general. She and her husband are raising their two children in this area.

While her artistic interests range from piano and dance to acrylic painting and photography, Amanda's true passion is photography. She turns her lens towards family members, events, landscapes and nature, but people are by far her favourite subject. In her own words ... "I absolutely love to photograph people, to try and get as much story, emotion and life to show through as possible, as well as nature, there is so much beauty people tend to just pass by."