(Submitted photo/Gailmarie Anderson, Melfort and District Museum)

By Ben Tompkins

Prestigious Honour

Melfort and District Museum presented with Award of Merit from Museums Association of Saskatchewan

Sep 29, 2021 | 3:31 PM

Over the past six years, the Melfort and District Museum has worked to create an indigenous exhibit that encompasses the breadth of plains history, from its earliest peoples to historical and even contemporary examples of Saskatchewan First Nations culture and art.

It is the Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology Building.

This exhibit provides visitors with a glimpse of life on the ancient plains, indigenous tool use, their culture, and the modern methods with which archaeologists uncover and understand a way of life that cannot be encompassed within textbooks or schoolroom classes.

The Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology Building has become a crowning exhibit for the Melfort and District Museum featuring Indigenous inclusivity. They had a “soft opening” of the building, with a smudging ceremony and a drumming circle. Although the exhibit is open for tours, they still plan to conduct a “grand opening” with a full-scale program on June 21, 2022, Indigenous Peoples Day.

The Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology Building houses two large collections donated by local individuals and their families. Initial donations by the Hrytzak-Morgan estate were collected over the lifetime of Isadore Hrytzak, whose collection boasts some 3,600 individual artifacts.

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This already impressive collection was further supplemented by the Tom Smith collection. A long-time collector of First Nations artifacts, Tom Smith would collect approximately 1,700 artifacts over the span of his life. Both collections are now on permanent display within the museum.

The exhibit provides visitors with a glimpse of life on the ancient plains, Indigenous tool use, their culture, and the modern methods with which archaeologists uncover and understand a way of life that cannot be encompassed within textbooks or schoolroom classes.

The Melfort and District Museum was nominated for a Museum Association of Saskatchewan Award of Merit for their work on the Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology Building Exhibit and was selected to receive this award in the category for institutions with a budget of over $50,000. The award was presented during a virtual event on Wednesday morning.

Gailmarie Anderson, Curator at the Melfort and District Museum, said that it was quite the honour to receive this award from such a professional institution and that the recognition they have received with it has been a true blessing.

“It’s an honour,” said Anderson. “It’s pretty important because the museum is our professional association. They require a high standard of work and we met that. We have received congratulations from museums across the province, as well as the Canadian Museums Association, so it puts us on the map.”

The museum itself sits within the limits of the City of Melfort, and has for the past 50 years curated, preserved, and presented local artifacts ranging from the ancient to the contemporary. The Melfort and District Museum wishes to continue this legacy of education to future generations through the Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology Building.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter @BenTompkins_8