Artifact of the Week - Dorothy Wittmeyer's wedding dress

This week’s featured artifact is the dress that Dorothy Andrew wore, on July 2, 1955, when she married John Gray Wittmeyer. This beautiful wedding dress is made of taffeta and lace. Based on the inside seams of the dress and stitching, we believe this dress was likely homemade. Perhaps Dorothy made it herself, or she had someone make it for her, but it isn’t likely that it was commercially made.

Dorothy and her 5 siblings were all born and raised in Peace River, by their parents, Bill and Agnes Andrew. Bill was a master blacksmith, machinist and welder, while Agnes spent her time raising the children, curling and cooking a fine meal.

Dorothy and Gray spent their married life in Colorado and Oregon. She may not have lived in Peace River for quite a few years, but when making up her will, Dorothy thought of her parents and her hometown. Upon her passing in 2011, it was revealed that Dorothy had bequeathed between $500,000 and 700,000 to a group or groups in the Peace Region that would memorialize her parents. After an arduous process, the recipient of this bequest was the Peace Regional Outreach Campus, in order to purchase and improve a building to house their school, programs and daycare. The Grand Opening for the new Andrew Education Centre is today (September 3, 2013), and Peace River is pleased to welcome back to the Peace Country, Rotarians from Eugene-Delta, Oregon, who along with Peace River Rotarians, administered this bequest and chose the deserving recipient.

Dorothy and Gray enjoyed a wonderful life together, full of love, laughter and memories. We invite you down to the Museum to see this dress on exhibit, along with photos of the Andrew and Wittmeyer families. 

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’!

Walking Tours to celebrate Heritage Day - August 5, 2013

Heritage Day is August 5th, 2013! This annual Albertan holiday was created in 1974 by the Alberta Government in order to celebrate the cultural heritage of Alberta and all of its people. This day is celebrated each year on the first Monday in August.

Staff at the Museum and Archives are celebrating our local heritage in style, by offering three separate Historic Walking Tours for Heritage Day. You can learn so much by taking a stroll - things you may walk by everyday but never think twice about! Now, you get the chance to get some of those questions answered by joining us on one or all of these historic walks.

The schedule is as follows:

               11am   Learn about the Pioneers of the Peace with a tour of Mt. Pleasant Cemetery.  Meet at the cemetery.

              1:30pm   The town’s built heritage will be the focus of a stroll along the historic streetscape of 102 Street.  Meet at the Museum.

 

               1 - 4pm   Interpretive tours of the NAR Station - drop by anytime.

Dress for the weather as tours will go rain or shine! No pre-registration required.

 

For more information on the tours, please contact the Museum at 780-624-4261 or www.peacerivermuseum.blogspot.com or www.peaceriver.ca

 

 

Heritage Places Open House at Peacefest

This Saturday, during Peacefest 2013, the Heritage Places Committee (HPC) will be on hand, ready to answer any questions you might have about heritage buildings and landscapes in town. Information about the heritage places designation process and the work that has been completed to date by the Committee and the heritage consulting firm Donald Luxton and Associates, can be viewed.

The HPC would like to collect any stories and information that you may have about heritage properties in town to help us appreciate the families and businesses associated with each place. Or, maybe you have a suggestion for a heritage property that we should study in the future.

This Municipal Heritage Places Program started in Peace River 3 years ago. The first year, we studied 10 properties, including such places as Mount Pleasant Cemetery, the Telegraph Office and Athabasca Hall. This year, the program continues with 12 new properties for study, including The Ground Level Youth Centre, Ruth Kidder’s home and Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church.

If you have any stories to share about heritage properties, stop by and see our committee members from 11 am to 6 pm at Riverfront Park, this Saturday, July 13, 2013.