What's going on at the Beautiful Plains Museum

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Published on Friday, July 31, 2015

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By Lea Heschuk

There has been a lot going on at the Beautiful Plains Museum this past month! We had Krista Mills, Britney Weber, Zoey Black and Ariel Neufeld, four Brandon University (BU) Rural Museum Archaeological Outreach students, examining our Aboriginal artifacts. The students are doing the work as a senior level “learning by experience” course under the supervision of Dr. Mary Malainey from the BU Department of Anthropology and Mr. Gord Hill, who is the Manitoba Archaeological Society (MAS) Public Outreach Coordinator.

Their work is part of a project sponsored by BU, the MAS and the Association of Manitoba Museums. The students benefit by gaining hands-on, practical experience of examining, recording and providing information on artifacts, such as projectile points, heavy ground stone tools and pottery sherds, and the museum benefits by receiving detailed information on each of our precontact period artifacts.

In addition, the data collected will provide Dr. Malainey and the MAS with information about the breadth and diversity of materials in the collections and gain more information about archaeological sites of Southwest Manitoba. The most interesting artifact that the students examined was a possible Clovis point. Clovis points are the oldest pre-contact projectile point commonly found in North America and were used between 13,700-12,500 years ago. Clovis points are fairly rare due to the fact that most of Manitoba was covered by Glacial Lake Agassiz at this time. However, this area (and other regions along the Manitoba Escarpment) would have been at or near the edge of the lake, making it one of the few areas in Manitoba where it is possible to find a Clovis point.

Most of the projectile points we have at the museum were found in the Neepawa area, this is because there was something about our location that drew people to it, such as a water source, food source, water crossing, and/or meeting place. The Neepawa area was used by Aboriginals over a long period of time based on the different forms of projectile points found here. The students explained that when looking at projectile points from the oldest to the most recent “you can see the development and refinement of technique in how tools were made; from large points with large flakes removed, to smaller and more delicate [points] with finer flakes removed”. We are hoping to showcase our Aboriginal artifacts with the information the students have provided us next summer in a special display. 

Here at the Beautiful Plains Museum we have also been busy with many projects over the last few months, and we have many organizations/people to thank for their help. Starting with our earliest project, the museum board members extend their thanks to TAC Ventures for the use of a dumpster during our spring renovations. The board members would also like to thank the Beautiful Plains Community Foundation for their support in replacing the eaves troughs at the museum. Thank you to Safeway for their donation of hot dogs and buns for our hot dog sale in June, and thank you to everyone who came out to our sale. Thanks to everyone’s support we cleared over $300 to go towards the maintenance of our old fire truck. Finally, thank you to Westward Ford for storing the fire truck overnight for one night in June.

We are still currently in the process of renovating the museum’s basement. The basement will be closed until next summer. Although the basement is closed, we still have lots to see, such as our new exhibit, “A Woman’s Work is Never Done”, which displays the life of the housewife from the late 1800’s to 1940’s. The museum is located at 91 Hamilton Street, in the former CNR station. Feel free to stop by anytime during our business hours (9am-5pm Monday to Friday, and 1pm-5pm Saturday, Sunday and stat holidays), or call 204-476-3896 if you’d like to book a tour. I hope to see you at the Beautiful Plains Museum!