Sprague and District Historical Museum to open Indigenous building

In the spirit of reconciliation, the Sprague and District Historical Museum is opening an Indigenous building to celebrate the history of the First Nations and Metis people in the area.

“The settlers came here to the area around 1882, the loggers came, but there’s a whole lot of history before that and the land wasn’t empty, there were people living here and sometimes we tend to forget that,” said museum vice-president Cam Brown.

The 12 foot by 40 foot building will house important artifacts such as a baton that was used in a 1980 powwow in Sprague, items made from leather and bead work, and paintings from famed Indigenous Group of Seven artist Eddy Cobiness and Robert Kakayseesick.

“First Nations’ art really expresses so much of their culture,” said Brown.

What first drew people to the area was the fur trade with the Hudson’s Bay trading post on the American side of the border, but in 1873 the first loggers came. The loggers worked with the Indigenous people of Roseau Lake village where they floated logs of red pine down the Roseau River to the Red River.

There are only a few accounts of the lives of the Indigenous population in the Sprague area during the time of the logging camp, which was established in 1890. One account recounted how there were two rows of log cabins where the First Nations people lived as they worked for the logging company. The men would log the lumber and skin the trees while the women would cut cord wood for fires.

“But there’s very little of understanding of who those people were, because there’s not enough records,” said Brown, who has just completed a 130-page history book on the Indigenous population in the area.

“I think one of the greatest artifacts to me is the genealogy information of the Cobiness family and the Thunder family and the other families that are connected to Buffalo Point,” said Brown about his research.

The grand opening of the Indigenous building will be held on Sept. 20 at 10 a.m. with a pipe and water ceremony to bless the building at 11 a.m. An Indigenous drum group from Roseau River First Nation will also perform and Metis fiddler Gilles Crevier will hit the stage at 2 p.m. Organizers will also have bannock for guests to sample as well as wild rice.

“We’re going to have some sampling of wild rice because everyone talks about with the fur trade how important pemmican was for the fur traders, but apparently wild rice was just as much a trade good because the voyageurs could carry the wild rice and preserve it as well as the pemmican,” said Brown.

Brown, who has been coordinating the ceremonies with Ernest Cobiness, son of Eddy Cobiness and an artist in his own right, and said Ernest told him the day was an opportunity to get a deeper understanding of their shared history.

“He was talking about how for true reconciliation we need to understand each other’s history and culture and be able to forgive each other for things that have gone on in the past and build together and go forward.”