Arnolda Dufour Bowes stands in front of the door of her father's childhood home with its original doorknob still attached. (Julia Lovett-Squires/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

Apples and Train Tracks

‘They were communities’: Road Allowance art installation coming to Chapel Gallery

Feb 26, 2025 | 7:35 AM

It began with a board Arnolda Dufour Bowes ripped off her father’s Punnichy childhood home about 20 years ago.

“He wouldn’t let me steal anything,” said the storyteller and visual artist.

She had taken her dad back for a visit and as they were leaving the house, which stands to this day, inspiration struck. A piece of board had been hanging on by one or two nails and Dufour Bowes ran back to claim it.

“He was like ‘What are you going to do with that board anyways,’ I’m like ‘I don’t know.’” she said.

A volunteer stands on the platform during set up. (Julia Lovett-Squires/battlefordsNOW Staff)

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After two decades and a few moves, another trip back to the house that resulted in reclaiming the front door and a window, that board has found its purpose.

“I was like ‘I think I want to turn this into art’ and then from there, it just built from there.”

“Apples and Train Tracks” is the result, and the interactive mixed medium exhibit, which also features her sister Andrea Haughian artwork, has its roots in her father’s personal story of growing up during a period of Métis history often overlooked.

It is now currently being set up at the Chapel Gallery in North Battleford and will run from Mar. 1 to Apr. 13.

Initially, “Apples and Train Tracks” was included in her book ‘20.12m: A Short Story Collection of a Life Lived as a Road Allowance Métis,’ but Dufour Bowes found there was more to share.

“I grew up being told the stories that happened there and then as I got older, I kept these stories and then I decided I wanted to start telling them,” she said.

An Askiy weave that includes an orange sash to honour and remember the Métis children who went to residential schools. (Julia Lovett-Squires/battlefordsNOW Staff)

“For me you can tell stories in more than just written word, so with this, I started it with wanting to do a short narration film,” she said of the installation.

Following the 1885 Resistance, the Métis were dispossessed and displaced and though they were promised land in the prairies in exchange for their land right, they were ultimately forced to settle on road allowance that were left unclaimed and unused.

“The most important part of it is a little piece of unknown history within Saskatchewan,” she said.

“Here particularly, the story I’m telling is in the 1940’s they actually forcibly removed them from their homes with what they could carry, put them on train cars and shipped them up north to Green Lake to what they had – what they called – a Métis Experimental Farm.”

As the trains rolled away, their homes were burned to the ground.

“For me that was a very important part of history that needed to be shared.”

She said the reasons behind the interactive installation and its story are to tell history and build empathy – not illicit sympathy.

“Just being able to walk with us during our stories and understanding them but also to know the resiliency and the tenacity that, even though they were removed, we’re still here kind of idea,” she said.

Dufour Bowes explained there were number of ways the Métis lost their land. When her Kokum married a non-Indigenous man, she lost her treaty status, and they joined others on the road allowances.

The board that started it all is draped with a sash and will hang above the window. (Julia Lovett-Squires/battlefordsNOW Staff)

“They were communities. They weren’t just random homes that were thrown up, they actually had communities, and they were thriving,” she said.

Though they weren’t what society deemed as prosperous, Dufour Bowes said that wasn’t the case.

“To them, they had each other, they had food, they found work, whether it was picking rocks or pickets. The women – a lot of them worked as char (cleaning) ladies,” Dufour Bowes added, noting her Kokum was among them.

The installation made its debut in Wanuskewin this past summer and following its North Battleford engagement, it will then travel to Batoche.

One of the pieces that will play a pivotal role in the installation will be the gravel path and platform section.

“It’s supposed to be a sensory thing where (visitors) actually feel like they’re walking across that path with them,” she said.

“This is supposed to simulate walking onto the train platform, just that empty, hollow wood, when you hear it, it just brings those memories.”

A prairie scene with a charred chair. (Julia Lovett-Squires/battlefordsNOW Staff)

As for the use of the word ‘apple’ – once used as a derogatory word to describe Indigenous people –Dufour Bowes said her father was often called by that term and it was time to take it back.

“I wanted to somehow reclaim the beauty of what an apple is ‘cause he also has very good memories of apples being that Kokum used to make amazing apple pies,” she said.

“In the story, you kind of hear it and then historically, the apple was used for wisdom.”

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

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