March Speaker Series - Roger Noskiye speaks this Saturday about his art

Roger Noskiye makes his home on the Whitefish Lake first Nation 459 at Atikameg in northern Alberta. He started drawing and whittling as a child and his interest in art was supported at the Northland Elementary School in Atikameg.  He says he ‘drew his way through middle school’ and carried on with his schooling at Grande Prairie Regional College where he finished a visual arts program and from there transferred to New Mexico where he received a scholarship of $75,000 through his art in 1992. Unfortunately, in those days the Band was unable to help him stay and study further so he returned home and today continues to work with his art and his culture.  The Town of McLennan commissioned Roger to paint 12 murals on town buildings and he created a mural for the Lakeland Eagles Hockey club too.

The Alberta Native News featured Roger’s art on the cover in December, 2011 and included a story about his work and his journey as an artist.

Roger will be at the Museum, Saturday, March 22, 2014 between 2 and 4pm painting and talking about his work and how his culture inspires the images he uses.  He will have some works on exhibit and for sale.

This painting, by Roger Noskiye, is titled "Tea Dance". 

Artist of the Month - Dianne Ireland

This month at the Museum, we are featuring the works of Dianne Ireland on the Art Wall. Her acrylic and raw hide works range in topic from scenery to sports to dancing to portraits.

Dianne was born in Peace River and grew up on a farm east of Grimshaw. She and Jim married in 1968 and have children and grand-children to fill their lives.

Dianne has always been interested in art and drawing; she added to that passion for art in the 1970s when she first started painting with acrylic on raw hide. Since then she has taken various Bob Ross oil painting classes and more recently watercolours with Willie Wong.

Having used the mediums of oils, acrylics and watercolours, Dianne can conclusively say that working with oils are her favourites.

The Museum is open from 10 am - 5 pm, Monday through Saturday, there is no fee to view Dianne's work.

March Museum Speaker Series: Lyle Fullerton talks about buffalo this Saturday

Continuing on with our March speaker series, we bring you Lyle Fullerton this Saturday (March 15, 2014) at 2 pm. Lyle is the Special Projects Coordinator, Fish and Wildlife, with Environment and Sustainable Resource Development.

Lyle will be talking to us about buffalo: their history, herd management, herd health, and Wood Buffalo National Park. This park was classified in 1983 as a UNESCO world heritage site and further classified as a Dark Sky Preserve in 2013. This promises to be an engaging and interesting presentation from a speaker who is both passionate and knowledgeable about his subject.

The second of three talks in our March speaker series, Lyle's subject relates to our current exhibit "A Sense of the Land and its People - A Personal Collection". This collection, composed entirely of Plains and Northwest Coast First Nations objects from Dr. David Welch, tells the story of the environments that helped and hindered the lives of First Nations peoples. The buffalo played an essential role in the Plains First Nations' lifestyle, providing them with meat, bone tools, hide, furs and many other resources.

Join us this Saturday, March 15th at 2 pm for an engaging afternoon of talk and discussion. 

A buffalo partial skull on display at the Museum. 

March speaker series at the Museum: Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the first in the Museum's March speaker series. This series supports our current exhibit entitled "A Sense of the Land and its People - A Personal Collection". This exhibit is a collection of Plains and Northwest Coast First Nations objects collected by Dr. David Welch over the last 50 years.

The first in the series features Archbishop John Clarke, a local theologian, who will speak of his childhood in Moose Factory, on James Bay in Ontario as well as his 18 years in the diocese of Moosonee. Archbishop Clarke joins us at 7 pm tomorrow night (Thursday, March 6) at the Museum.

This event is free for all to attend. Please join us.

St. James Cathedral, the congregation of which is one of 33 congregations in the Diocese of Athabasca. The diocese, for which Archbishop John Clarke was responsible, is scattered over an area more than 317, 000 square kilometres. 

Archbishop John Clarke: First in the Museum's Speaker Series on Thursday March 6, 7 pm

After 45 years in church ministry, Anglican Archbishop John Clarke was, in his words, “put out to pasture” the end of April 2009, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Although retired, Archbishop Clarke continues to be active in the workings of the Anglican Church, especially in the Diocese of Athabasca of which St. James Cathedral is part and in which he ministered for 25 years.

As the first speaker in the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre’s March Speakers Series, Archbishop Clarke will share his early years in Moose Factory, Ontario (on James Bay) and his pride in being involved in the community of Moosonee across the Moose River. There, he took part in the construction of the James Bay Education Centre and the first high school on James Bay. “Because I really believe education is the key in the North,” he told a reporter for the Anglican Journal prior to his retirement.

The construction of the centre and high school “gave local inhabitants the opportunity to take their rightful place in the development of their communities. Young graduates became social workers, plumbers, electricians, nurses etc. Previously, all skilled trades and professions were imported from the south.”

He added, “having been sent away from Moose factory when I was 10 years old for a year at a residential school, I made a promise to my wife (Nadia) that we would not send our children away from home to go to school.”

Come to the Museum, Thursday March 6, 2014, 7 p.m. to hear the rest of the story told by Archbishop John Clarke, as engaging a speaker as one could ever find. His approach has been described as “folksy”. Come, hear for yourself. This event is free for all to attend. 

Artifact of the Week - Umbrella Hat

This week's featured artifact is an umbrella hat donated by Joan Wahl. In the 1950s, this hat belonged to Joan's mother, Florentine Bochenko. Joan remembers her mother, a hairdresser, always having a rain hat with her. She had very fine hair and as soon as it would get wet, it would go flat. To guard against such fashion horror, Florentine always carried her rain hat with her, just in case.

The umbrella hat was first patented by William H. Patten in 1880. He developed the umbrella hat while he was a prospector in Mexico. His original design also featured netting which protected wearers from mosquitoes.

In the 1890s, William moved to Seattle, where he became known as the "Umbrella Man". He was quite the handyman when it came to umbrellas of all sorts. His eccentric demeanor, bushy white beard, cane, suit and of course, the umbrella hat, would soon make him famous: when John Ross "Dok" Hager created a new cartoon feature in the Seattle Times, William was featured in all his umbrella hat glory.

PRMA 2012.006.001 A-B

Artifact of the Week - Nazi ceremonial dagger

This week's artifact of the week is a Kriegsmarine officer's dagger from World War II. It was donated by Marsha Tanasichuk and is from her father Stanley Lawrence's estate.

This ceremonial officer's dagger, circa 1940-44 is a war trophy, brought back to Canada after the war. It features an eagle and a swastika on the pommel and is accompanied by its original scabbard.

War trophies have been claimed by soldiers for thousands of years, either to ensure weapons remain out of enemy hands or to commemorate battles fought. Small objects like daggers, guns, flags or helmets as well as large items like machine guns and canons have all been taken by soldiers as war trophies in the past. More extreme examples of war trophies include cultural memorabilia and body parts of defeated enemies.

Stanley Lawrence served in the Canadian Forestry Corps of the Canadian Army during the Second World War. This corps cut and prepared lumber in Canada's abundant forests, until space needed on cargo ships to transport the lumber overseas for the Allied war effort became sparse. From then on, the Canadian Forestry Corps cut and prepared the necessary lumber for barracks, roads surfaces, ammunition crates and trench construction while stationed overseas in the United Kingdom and Europe.

This dagger is currently on exhibit in the Peace River Gallery but it will be coming down soon to make way for an exhibit about the beginning of World War I. The Museum will be featuring a number of small exhibits this year, detailing the centenaries of four big events that all happened in 1914. These events include the beginning of World War I, Peace River Crossing becoming a village, the beginning of the Peace River Fire Department and the beginning of the Record-Gazette newspaper.

Come by the Museum to see all of these great exhibits.

PRMA 2008.050.032 A-B

Artist of the Month for February 2014 - Timothy David Martin

Timothy David Martin began drawing at the age of 7 years in his home province of Ontario. He studied art seriously at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto in the 1970s and later worked as a cartoonist with the newspaper at the University of Toronto. Tim, currently living in Peace River, has selected 24 works of original graphite on bristle board to exhibit this month. The strong influences of Escher and Dali are immediately apparent. The dimension he creates and the eclectic imagery will surely surprise viewers. Tim’s work  may be described as abstract expressionism as it seems to exhibit the improvisational elements renown for this ‘audacious’ 1940s art style.

Be sure to take in this remarkable exhibit by Timothy David Martin during February.

Take an Interpretive Walk with the Museum

This upcoming Monday, February 17, 2014, join the Heritage Places Committee (HPC) and the Museum on a winter stroll along 86th Avenue in Peace River.

The third Monday in February, since 1990, has been known to Albertans as Family Day. It is an opportunity to spend time with family and sharing personal histories has a great way of bringing people together. It also happens to be History Day across Canada.  Families and history are a natural pairing. We invite you and your family to walk with us and learn why the Parkview Subdivision (86th Avenue), a post-war subdivision in Peace River's north end has historic significance to our community.  This neighbourhood, conceived, financed and built by local businessman Oscar Moro, was built between 1958 and 1962.

In post-war times, the idea of suburban development was relatively new, and, as yet, unheard of in Peace River. Mr. Moro, though, realized that this subdivision would use previously underutilized land, provide affordable housing to returning veterans and alleviate the housing crisis that was occurring in Peace River.  It was a time of prosperity influenced by much oil and gas exploration in the Peace Country and it was those families that in large part become the first homeowners.

We will meet at the parking area across from the Kinsmen Funland park at 1:30 pm. Please dress for the weather and bring your family and your friends.

For more information, please call the Museum at 780-624-4261 or email us at museum@peaceriver.net.

A transition on 86th Avenue from the 1950s to the 2010s.