Resilience During the Great Depression

Friday February 14, 2025

Doing biological field work always comes with challenges. Since I began working at the Museum in 2003, the summers have been relatively wet. As a result, I’ve had to deal with muddy roads, many, many biting insects thirsty for my blood, and bootfuls of water obtained while exploring flooded wetlands. This year though, the roads were good, the biting insects non-existent, and many wetlands were so dry that I could walk right into the middle of them-no rubber boots required! In contrast, my main concern this year was possibly getting heat stroke!

Looking out over a lack and nearby brush and wetland.

As part of my research for a new book on Manitoba’s flora, I’ve been trying to track down populations of historically-collected plants (some of which haven’t been collected for over 100 years) to see if they still grow here. Fortunately, this year, all of the sites I needed to visit were close to major bodies of water: Lake of the Woods, Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba, and Lac du Bonnet. As a result, I was able to go for a quick swim in the nearby body of water to cool off after a long day of hiking. Swimming is especially satisfying when you have been wearing long pants, wool socks and hiking boots in 30°C+ temperatures all day. Field work this year also involved drinking copious amounts of water (which were nearly completely sweated out given that I didn’t have to go to the bathroom all day!), lots of SPF 50 sunscreen, taking breaks under the shade of a tree, and wearing a cooling, water-soaked bandana around my neck.

This wetland near Lac du Bonnet that I visited was almost completely dry.

Looking down a emerging sandbar toward a section of wooded land. Water flows either side of the sand bar.

Dipping my hot feet in the cool lake water at Elk Island Provincial Park felt amazing!

Looking down at a wispy green plant growing in sandy ground by low water/.

I also got lucky with my field work, finding a new rare plant population and a new plant species for the province. The first rare plant species I discovered was Hairy Bugseed (Corispermum villosum). This species is currently ranked S1 (critically imperilled) in Manitoba because there are only three populations known in the province. I discovered a small population at St. Ambroise Beach Provincial Park on Lake Manitoba. Additionally, the population of this species that occurs out at Lake Winnipeg was found to be more extensive, extending all the way to Elk Island Provincial Park.

A new population of Hairy Bugseed was discovered at St. Ambroise Beach Provincial Park.

Out at Lake of the Woods, there are several plant species that reach the northeastern edge of their range. One is the lovely Small Purple Fringed-orchid (Platanthera psycodes). It was suspected to occur in Manitoba, but no one had actually collected a specimen until 1984. As I had never seen it before, I was thrilled to find and photograph the two plants in flower at the site.

Not far from the orchid, I saw another plant that I was on the lookout for: White Avens (Geum canadense). Although this species is relatively common in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, it has apparently never been collected in Manitoba before. I carefully removed part of the stem only (not the root) to make an herbarium specimen, after verifying that there were more than ten additional plants in the vicinity.

The Small Purple Fringed Orchid was an exciting, and beautiful find!

I collected the first ever specimen of White Avens in Manitoba this summer.

Finding these new, rare plant populations made the hot, July temperatures much easier to handle. The specimens collected will be carefully preserved in perpetuity at the Museum to document these plant populations for conservation purposes, and for future researchers to study.

Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson

Curator of Botany

Dr. Bizecki Robson obtained a Master’s Degree in Plant Ecology at the University of Saskatchewan studying rare plants of the mixed grass prairies. After working as an environmental consultant and sessional lecturer…

Meet Dr. Bizecki Robson

Museum Stories: Botany

Wednesday September 25, 2024

Pawing for Prairie Plants

Manitoba’s native prairies are endangered because most of them have been cultivated for annual crop production. As a result, some of the rarest species of plants…

December is the time of year when people tend to eat desserts with lots of spices in them, including…

Monday December 4, 2023

Roots, Shoots, Flowers, & Fruits: The Anatomy of a Gingerbread Cookie

Fungi grow just about everywhere and yet we are usually ignorant of their presence until they produce mushrooms in our lawns…

Monday April 3, 2023

The Fungus Among Us

Like many of you, I enjoy walking through my neighbourhood and smelling the sweet fragrances of the summer flowers. Unfortunately, like many things, flowers are ephemeral. When I see a flower, I am always reminded of the Robert Herrick poem urging us to:

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.”

Since most wildflower field guides only feature pictures of the flowers and leaves, it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to identify plants in the fruiting stage. So, to help our visitors identify the fruits of some of the most common plants in our province, a new case in the Museum’s foyer, called “The Importance of Being a Flower” recently opened. This case features 14 species of fruits juxtaposed with a photograph of the flower. Although fruits and seeds are not always attractive to look at, they are just as important as the flower, perhaps even more so, for they carry the DNA of another generation of plants in them. Flowers may only last a day, but seeds can last for decades or even centuries. The oldest seed to ever germinate was a 2,000 year old date palm collected by archaeologists in the 1960’s from a fortress that had been build by Herod around 35BC and destroyed by Romans in 73AD (click here to read more)!

A display case containing a series of fruits and seeds of wildflowers, with a large text panel on the wall behind it.

A new, temporary exhibit on seeds is in the Museum’s foyer.

In severe drought years, like the one we are experiencing this year, some summer- and autumn-blooming perennial plants will not produce flowers or seeds at all; they conserve scarce water resources by foregoing reproduction altogether. Doing so increases the likelihood that the adult plants will survive. Although most spring-blooming plants did produce flowers, they may produce fewer seeds to reduce water stress on the adult plant.

Museums and other institutions like gene banks and University herbaria, protect and preserve fruits, seeds and other storage tissues of economically important species, as well as wildflowers. You may have heard of one of these facilities, the so-called “doomsday vault”, formally known as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. This Norwegian facility has ultra-cold storage freezers that keep the DNA in seeds from degrading rapidly, the way they would at ambient temperatures. However, that facility is our last line of defence; other collections are also needed to adequately protect plant genetic diversity, including the Plant Gene Resource of Canada in Saskatoon, (click here to learn more). Many of our most important crop species are stored in gene banks for use in breeding programs, or to use if natural disasters negatively affect crop fields or wild plant populations.

The Museum collection contains the fruits and seeds of many species.

The fruits and seeds of each species are displayed on top of a picture of the flower. MM 45580

Museum designer Anastasiia Mavrina tests the specimen layout for the case.

A small wooden chest containing rows of vials filled with seeds.

Another important thing to remember is that plants are constantly evolving to adapt to new conditions. Therefore, it is important for botanical institutions to continue collecting new samples to capture this evolution. As well, seeds stored in the vaults must be periodically grown, to allow them to generate newer, fresher seeds for preservation.

In addition to the foyer case, several of the Museum’s old seed collections are on display towards the end of the brand new, Prairies Gallery. Wildflower seeds collected in the 1920’s by naturalist Norman Criddle, are in the Breaking the Land case, and a collection of crop seeds made by a Junior Seed Growers Club in the 1930’s, are in a case on the Great Depression.

Some of the seeds in the Museum’s collection are so small that I marvel at the fact that all the information needed to build a new plant is actually inside. Life is truly amazing! Now, get out there and carpe diem!

This collection of crops seeds is in a case on the Great Depression in the new Prairies Gallery. H9-12-225

A display case with four rows of vials filled with wildflower seeds.

Norman Criddle collected the seeds of many species of wildflowers in the Carberry Sand Hills in the 1920’s. H9-23-142

Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson

Curator of Botany

Meet Dr. Bizecki Robson

Museum Stories: Botany

Wednesday September 25, 2024

Pawing for Prairie Plants

Manitoba’s native prairies are endangered because most of them have been cultivated for annual crop production. As a result, some of the rarest species of plants…

December is the time of year when people tend to eat desserts with lots of spices in them, including…

Monday December 4, 2023

Roots, Shoots, Flowers, & Fruits: The Anatomy of a Gingerbread Cookie

Fungi grow just about everywhere and yet we are usually ignorant of their presence until they produce mushrooms in our lawns…

Monday April 3, 2023

The Fungus Among Us

Posted on: Tuesday August 17, 2021

By Debbie Thompson, past Diorama and Collections Specialist

More than 440 million years ago, during the Ordovician Period, northern Manitoba was at the edge of a sea near the equator. Among the many invertebrates that swam and lived in the salty waters were jellyfish. Their fossilized remains are the focus of ongoing research at the Museum.

After years of collecting, specific specimens were chosen to undergo a process called thin sectioning. This process creates ultra-thin slices of rock and fossil, supported by epoxy and glass slides. They are thin enough to allow light to pass through, revealing details about internal structures, which can then be studied using a microscope.

The fossils selected for this process can range in size from one to four centimeters in diameter. Every block is trimmed using a rock saw, so that the block will fit onto a glass slide. The fossil surface then needs to be polished smooth and to an accurate scale in millimeters written on two sides of the block.

Palaeontologists and volunteers search for fossil jellyfish during Museum fieldwork. Image: © Manitoba Museum

The red arrow points to the fossil block, note the scale (numbers written on sides of block). The foil is peeled back to reveal the polished fossil surface. The purple arrow points to the glass slide, which has been polished so that epoxy glue will stick to it. The yellow arrow points to a container that is warming one part of a two-part epoxy. The hot plate heats up these components to aid in the even flow and setting of the epoxy. Image: © Manitoba Museum

Each slide is labeled with the data regarding that particular specimen. If too much epoxy is applied, it will flow over the edges and seep underneath the slide. Here the polished fossil surface has been epoxied to the glass slide. Image: © Manitoba Museum

After the adhesive sets, but before it cures hard, any epoxy that seeped underneath is carefully scraped off using a razor blade, and solvent removes remaining residue. Image: © Manitoba Museum

Normally, a whole day will be spent just gluing the specimens onto the slides. To help pass the time, it helps to listen to country music while doing this (although the Curator would strongly disagree with my choice of music). Image: © Manitoba Museum

Before starting the rock-cutting saw, the radio is turned off, much to the Curator’s delight! The thin section machine is noisy, creating the need for ear plugs and heavy-duty earmuffs. Safety glasses are a must, guarding against stone chips. The gloves protect the hands from being water logged for extended periods of time. A mask is needed to prevent breathing in the water spray laden with sediment, as the water is recycled and gradually becomes dirtier the more it’s used. The sponge is used to clean up the sludge that accumulates in the tray. Image: © Manitoba Museum

The block is held on the thin section machine’s arm, and gently pushed into the saw. Very thick blocks will require several cuts from each side. Being extremely cautious, this could take me about 5 minutes to cut. Image: © Manitoba Museum

The cut is finished. The glass slide with the thin slice of rock and fossil is still attached to the arm while I hold the remaining block. On both surfaces, the paler, circular fossil jellyfish can be seen. Image: © Manitoba Museum

The saw, with the cutting blade on the left and the polishing wheel on the right. The gauge in the middle indicates the thickness of the slide being polished. The slide will now be moved to the right-hand arm of the thin section machine, where it is polished on a diamond wheel. Image: © Manitoba Museum

The fossil has been cut and partially polished so thin that light begins to pass through it. It is nearly thin enough for microscopic study. The final hand polishing will be done by the Curator, using a slurry of fine grit on a glass plate. The slide is then placed in a protective envelope. In this example, the fossil is near the top left corner of the slide. Some of the internal features are a dark reddish colour, due to the presence of iron oxide. The faint pale outline is the edge of the jellyfish’s bell. Image: © Manitoba Museum

The newly exposed cut surface is re-polished, and the whole process is repeated. Depending on how deep into the rock it goes, each block can yield 4 to 6 thin sections, creating thin slices that are just two millimetres apart. If a new fossil appears, we keep making thin sections. If the fossil disappears, one more slide is made to confirm that we have reached the end of sectioning for that specimen. Image: © Manitoba Museum

Light passes through a finished thin section, revealing such intricate details as the rust coloured internal canals (due to the presence of iron oxide), and the margin of the bell with faint traces of its tentacles around the outer edges. Ruler is in millimetres. Image: © Manitoba Museum

After sectioning, the slide is scanned on a photographic flatbed scanner. A computer program then digitally assembles the thin section photos for each jellyfish to generate a 3-D image of the body, including internal structures and in some cases, tentacles.

Museum Stories: Collections & Conservation

Collections & Conservation

Thursday April 24, 2025

Tackling Dirty Data One Field at a Time

One prevailing comment I hear about my job, whether in person or via social media, is “your job sounds so cool!” And you know what? It is. But I’m about to reveal the dark underbelly of my job…

Collections & Conservation

Tuesday February 11, 2025

A Sticky Situation

Tape might seem like a good option when it comes to quick repairs of torn papers or fast mounting of photographs in an album, however, they age badly …

Collections & Conservation

Friday December 20, 2024

Behind the Scenes – A Morning at the Museum

Mornings in the Museum sometimes feel like the movie Night at the Museum. I cannot say that I have ever experienced anything coming to life when I am inside an exhibit or diorama, but when my colleagues walk by…

August brings the Perseids meteor shower, an annual event that gets many people looking skyward. In recent years, social media has been hyping (and sometimes overhyping) celestial events, since they tend to generate a lot of interest (and thus “clicks”, “likes”, and “shares”), so it can be hard to know what you can actually expect to see. Here is the Manitoba Museum Planetarium’s guide to the 2021 Perseids meteor shower.

Perseids Meteor Shower 2021

Start of activity: July 17

Peak activity: early morning of August 12

Peak rate: 50-75 meteors per hour from a dark sky

Lasts until: August 24

A photograph of several meteors shooting past in the night sky as the last bits of sunset fade away near the horizon.

What’s Happening?

A meteor is the formal name for a “shooting star” or “falling star” – it’s a streak of light that flashes across the night sky. They happen when a tiny piece of dust or grain of sand from space crashes into the earth’s atmosphere at thousands of kilometers an hour. The speed of the dust particle gets turned into heat and light energy, and creates the visible flash we see. The piece of dust is totally vaporized while still high up in the atmosphere dozens of kilometers above Earth’s surface.

This actually happens all the time, but most of us don’t notice. If you went out on a dark, moonless night you’d probably see a half-dozen metros per hour if you watched the sky continuously. But they only appear for a second and they’re gone – so look down at the wrong time and you’ll miss them.

The source of this dust is perhaps surprising – it’s leftover material from the formation of the planets. There’s dust spread throughout the solar system, each piece in orbit around the sun like a tiny planet. The earth as it orbits the sun sweeps up some of this dust, and each one becomes a meteor.

Several times a year, though, the earth goes through an extra-thick area of dust – like a cosmic dust bunny. These dust bunnies are left behind by comets – “dirty snowballs” a few kilometers across that orbit the sun in oval-shaped orbits. When comets get close to the sun, the snow melts and leaves the dust behind in a trail. If that trail happens to cross the orbit of the earth, we will see a meteor shower every year on that date.

The Perseids

The Perseids meteor shower is probably the best-known meteor shower (although it’s not the best one of the year) because it happens during summer vacation time for the northern hemisphere. Its peak is around August 12th each year, although the date varies by a day or so. The Perseids are dust left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle, which loops around the sun every 133 years or so. The meteor shower is named after the constellation that the meteors seem to come from – the constellation Perseus.

How and When to Look

The best way to see meteors is to get outside the lights of the city. Some of the meteors will be faint, and so you will miss them if the sky is too bright from nearby streetlights, houses, or other sources of illumination. A park or parking lot outside the city is a good place to head. This year, the light from the Moon will not interfere either because the moon will set in early evening, so this is probably one of the better years to see the Perseids.

Meteor showers are the ultimate in low-tech observing. Take a blanket or reclining lawn chair along, and set up with your feet pointed away from any nearby lights or light pollution. (For southern Manitobans, this generally means putting your back to Winnipeg’s lights.) You don’t need binoculars or a telescope – you want to be able to see as much sky at once as you can, since the meteors can appear anywhere in the sky. A telescope would just narrow your view too much.

Turn off your phone – the light from a mobile device will ruin your eyes’ ability to see faint stars and meteors. Even a quick glance will make it hard to see for a few minutes, so resist the inclination to check the web. Spend the time with the stars instead.

As for when the look – it depends on what you want to see. If you go out before midnight, you will see only a few meteors, but the ones you do see will probably be big bright ones. If you want to see lots of meteors, you want to watch from about 2am to dawn on the morning of the 12th. In the run-up before dawn, your part of the earth is heading straight into the trail of dust, and you’ll see the most meteors.

This is why some people have been disappointed by meteors showers (in addition to the social media hype). Meteor showers have a slow fade-in period of a few weeks, then a peak that might only last a few hours, followed by a slow fade-out. On the night before or after the peak, meteor rates are often less than half of what the peak is, and the rate drops quickly as you get farther from the peak.

This year, the Perseids are definitely worth the drive out of town for the peak. I plan to be out from dark on the 11th until dawn on the 12th with our all-sky camera system to record what we can. Follow the Manitoba Museum on social media for updates and live broadcasts during the meteor shower (weather permitting).

While you’re out counting meteors, there are lots of other sights to see: constellations, planets, satellites, and the year’s best views of the Milky Way. Visit the planetarium in person to see Manitoba Skies, a live sky tour, to learn more (showtimes here). You can also check the Manitoba Museum’s Astronomy blog for Manitoba Skies posts about monthly night sky information.

Clear skies!

Scott Young

Planetarium Astronomer

Scott is the Planetarium Astronomer at the Manitoba Museum, developing astronomy and science programs. He has been an informal science educator for thirty years, working in the planetarium and science centre field both at The Manitoba Museum and also at the Alice G. Wallace Planetarium in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Scott is an active amateur astronomer and a past-President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

Manitoba Stories: In the Sky

May brings us later sunsets and shorter nights, making stargazing a late-night affair. With some bright planets, a meteor shower, and lots of interesting events, it’s well worth staying up for.

Thursday May 1, 2025

The Sky for May 2025

“April showers bring May flowers”, goes the saying, and it’s true that April does often have a lot of rain (or at least clouds) for Manitoba. On clear nights, though, we get a unique view away from…

Monday March 31, 2025

The Sky for April 2025

March brings the spring equinox, warmer weather, and the last chance to see the winter constellations. This year, March also hosts a pair of eclipses and a planetary line-up that is almost as good as it gets…

Friday February 28, 2025

The Sky for March 2025

Posted on: Tuesday August 3, 2021

By Maureen Matthews, Past Curator of Cultural Anthropology

For the commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of Treaty Number One, three Treaty medals from the Manitoba Museum will be on display at Lower Fort Garry. Although these medals were used by Canada to acknowledge promises made by the Crown to First Nations people in Treaty negotiations, they also reveal a history of First Nations protocols, diplomacy, and political advocacy at a difficult time.[1]

The gift of medals to honour mutual obligations in Manitoba began with the fur trade. The first HBC Chief’s medal was created in 1776 by Thomas Hutchins, Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) Chief Factor at Albany who found that among the Ininiwak who lived on the edge of Hudson’s Bay, there was an expectation that medals would be offered. Hutchins told the Governor of the company that “ … medals also are much esteemed amongst them if large, and if presented with ceremony when the Calimut [Calument or Pipe] is smoaked[sic], will be not only deemed a mark of distinction but perhaps be a means of binding the Leaders more securely in your Interest.” (quoted in Carter 2004). During and after the war of 1812, many First Nations leaders in Canada and the US were presented with medals featuring King George III in thanks for fighting with the British against the United States. By the time negotiations for the Numbered Treaties were initiated, medals were part of a 200 year long First Nations history of Treaty making and had been used to secure a range of mutual understandings, alliances, and friendships.

Photograph of a Treaty Number 1 handshake medal. A circular silver medal portraying a representitive of England shaking hands with a First Nations leader. They stand on grassy ground in front of tipis and the rising sun. Text around the edge of the medal reads, “Indian Treaty No. 1 / 1873”.

When we talk about Treaty Number One, the image which comes to mind is the famous handshake medal shown here, but in fact this is not the medal that was offered in August 1871 when Treaty Number One was finalized. If you look carefully, you will see that this medal is dated 1873.

The Treaty Commissioners who arrived from Ottawa in 1871 to negotiate Treaty Number One seem to have underestimated the importance of the gift of medals as a gesture of good faith and reassurance to First Nations leaders because the first medal they presented to the chiefs in 1871 was a smallish silver medal with an oak leaf wreath on one side and a standard image of the young Queen Victoria on the other. The medal was chosen from the existing stock of generic medals made by J.S. & A.B. Wyon of London, England. It was small, thin, and made no overt reference to the momentous nature of the Treaties it was meant to signify. The Chiefs who participated in the negotiations that year thought it looked a little too much like a prize at an agricultural fair, and after seven days of negotiations and months of preparation on the part of First Nations leaders, this non-descript Treaty medal seemed to the Chiefs to be an inadequate gesture. As an expression of intent, this generic medal must have worried the Chiefs because it left a feeling that Canada was not taking to heart the enormous implications of the Treaties.

The Treaty Commissioners, having registered the rebuff, returned to negotiations in 1872 with a much more dramatic medal. It was very large, 95 millimeters (almost 4 inches) in diameter, and was based on the medal struck to celebrate Canadian Confederation. The center circle has an image of Imperial Britannia as a Roman matron with a lion resting his chin on her lap and the four founding provinces, as Roman maidens, each hold a shovel, axe, paddle or scythe illustrating their province’s economic possibilities. Surrounding this Confederation image, the medal maker, a Canadian silversmith Robert Hendry of Montreal, added an 11-millimeter band which declared, on one side, “INDIANS OF THE NORTH WEST TERRITORIES,” and on the other – the side with the image of a slightly older Queen Victoria – “DOMINION OF CANADA / CHIEFS MEDAL 1872.” This medal was initially welcomed by the chiefs until it became apparent that it had been struck in copper and merely electroplated with a thin coat of silver. The Anishinaabemowin word for silver is zhooniyaawaabik, literally ‘money metal,’ and it matters if it is pure. When the silver began to peel and rub off, the Chiefs judged this medal a very shallow gesture on behalf of the Crown.

By the summer of 1873, the chiefs were restive, most particularly because oral promises made at the time of the first signing were not being written down on the Treaty documents, but also in protest that the 1872 medal had been yet another inadequate signifier of the sincerity of Canada’s promises. So it was in the summer of 1873 that the now famous 99 per cent pure silver medal with the handshake was commissioned. Like the first medal, this one was made in London, England, by J.S. & A.B. Wyon. The front features a bust of Queen Victoria and the inscription “VICTORIA REGINA.” The inscription on the reverse side reads: “INDIAN TREATY N°. – and the date 187- .” The spaces were deliberately left blank and were incised with the Treaty number and date at the moment of concluding each successive Treaty. The handshake medal was used until Queen Victoria’s death, by which time relationships had taken such a negative turn that a hollow bronze medal with Edward VII on the back was accepted with little comment.

Photograph of eight Treaty Medals on a black background. Top row is the front of each medal, bottom row is the back of each medal.

The handshake medal has come to resonate powerfully with First Nations peoples for the promise it holds, for the idea that a respectful relationship with the Crown will be restored. But the handshake medal is still a product of the 1870s, designed in London by an engraver who had never been to Canada and had certainly never met a Treaty Chief.

The fully clothed figure on the left side of the medal, a representative of the Queen, resembles no one more than the Prince of Wales, later King George V, although the uniform is controversial. But with Queen Victoria on the back and someone who looks like the Prince on the front, the medal is a graphic confirmation that the Treaty relationship is between the Crown of England and First Nations. The bare-chested, feather-skirted Chief, on the other hand, is problematic. Photographs of Treaty events in 1873 show crowds of men dressed in suits and it is actually quite hard to pick out the Treaty Commissioner and his party unless they are up on a dias or have a chair to sit on, because everyone present is dressed the same. The chief on the medal does not seem to bear any relation to the First Nations leaders who made Treaty Number One. The adjacent photo is of Chief Gaagige Binesi, Forever Thunderbird, also known as William Mann Sr. who negotiated Treaty Number One on behalf of Sagkeeng First Nation. The large photo, taken and printed in the 1870s, shows Chief Gaagige Binesi wearing the original Treaty Number One Chief’s coat he received in 1871. Five generations of the Mann family looked after this photo. In 2012, 140 years after it had been taken, Ted Mann brought the photo to the Manitoba Museum asking that it be used to tell the story of his famous ancestor and his role in the making of Treaty Number One. The image actively foregrounds a strong, confident Treaty Chief and provides a corrective to colonial imagery that patronizingly romanticizes Indigenous peoples and undermines their authority.

And where did this strange Indigenous imagery come from? It is probable that the engraver at Wyon in London was using as a model, an American Peace medal from the American Revolutionary War when George Washington was President. There were many iterations of this American medal over the years, but the feather skirt and strange feathers persist.

An American peace medal portraying George Washington offering a long pipe to a First Nations Leader. Text at the bottom reads, “Geroge Washington / President / 1792”.

The handshake Treaty Medal is a part of First Nations Treaty history and the gesture of the tentative handshake suggesting equity alludes to a British way of making a promise. First Nations people have a long history of holding the Crown to account for these promises. And if the inescapable implication of the Treaty Chiefs is that First Nations participants in Treaty-making were “noble” but naïve, and probably incapable of understanding Treaties or their implications, the photo of Chief Forever Thunderbird provides a strong counter narrative to the racist image of primitive naiveté; the portrait shows that the chiefs negotiating the treaty were wise and thoughtful political figures. The handshake medals, as signifiers of the Treaty relationship, like the Treaties themselves, hold both the promise of sincere reciprocity and the dangers of racist condescension.

[1] Others argue that the fact of the changes were made as the negotiations proceeded through each of the early numbered treaties – as new provisions for hunting rights, rights of occupation, and a medicine chest clause were added – is evidence that there was some significant degree of First Nations agency in the negotiations taking place. In an article looking at the change in view on Treaty No, 1, Hall cites the following historians: John Leonard Taylor (1975, 1979), Richard Price (1979), John Foster (1979), Hugh Dempsey (1978), and Chief John Snow (1977). See Hall who talks about the treaty negotiation during Treaty One here.

Museum Stories: Anthropology

Anthropology

Tuesday August 3, 2021

Treaty Number One Medals at the Manitoba Museum tell a First Nations Story

For the commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of Treaty Number One, three Treaty medals from the Manitoba Museum will be on display at Lower Fort Garry. Although these medals were used by …

Anthropology

Tuesday June 28, 2016

Ancient pottery making described in new Anishinaabemowin translation

Jacob Owen of Pauingassi was always cheerfully willing to explain the complexities of Ojibwe history and philosophy with stories from his own life. Margaret Simmons, who conducted this interview…

Anthropology

Thursday November 5, 2015

Chief Piapot and the Qu’Appelle Treaty

This is an image of an original 1875 handwritten parchment document related to the signing of Treaty No. 4., the “Qu’appelle Treaty”, temporarily on display at the museum …

Sepia photograph of a young man wearing an army uniform and hat.

In recognition and celebration of National Indigenous History Month, we’re featuring an artifact from Private David Thomas, a Peguis First Nation soldier who died in the First World War. An exhibit featuring his story and a handkerchief he had sent to his sister from Europe was on display in November 2020. Unfortunately we closed to the public that week because of a COVID-19 province wide lockdown, and no one was able to see the exhibit! We’re putting it up again in November, 2021, and then it will become part of the Parklands Gallery “Impact of War” permanent exhibit.

David Thomas was only 18 years old when he left his home at Peguis Reserve to fight in the Great War in Europe. He joined the 108th Battalion (Selkirk) in 1916, which was soon shipped out to England. A year later he was killed in the Battle of Passchendaele, in Belgium. Private Thomas died on October 26, 1917, the first day of the assault, possibly a victim of a poison gas attack. The 27th Battalion (City of Winnipeg), was finally able to capture the village of Passchendaele on November 6. Over 4,000 Canadians died and almost 12,000 were injured in two weeks of horrific fighting.

Private David Thomas, 1916. Courtesy Karen Schnerch.

Private Thomas likely purchased this beautiful handkerchief in France. He sent it to his sister Mary Ann, who was living at Peguis Reserve. It is embroidered with a maple leaf and crown, and the words “Honour to Canada.” After learning of David’s death, she framed the handkerchief and it was displayed in Thomas family homes for over one hundred years. It was donated by the family to the Museum in 2020.

Framed silk handkerchief, 1917. H9-39-91. Image copyright Manitoba Museum

The central crest features a maple leaf inset with a crown and the word “CANADA.” Below, the term “Honour to Canada” is embroidered. H9-39-91. Image copyright Manitoba Museum.

David Thomas’ sister Mary Ann, her husband Frank Smith, and their daughter in 1912. Mary Ann received the handkerchief as a gift from David. Image courtesy Terry Overton, grand-niece of David Thomas.

A black and white photograph of a lone soldier trudging towards the camera through the mud and puddles of a battlefield.

First Nations Soldiers

Over one-third of eligible First Nations men and women in Canada voluntarily enlisted during the First World War. More than 50 First Nations soldiers received recognition for bravery during combat. While there was a shared sense of camaraderie with non-Indigenous soldiers during the war, they returned, having been stripped of their Treaty rights, to a country that provided no compensation or support for First Nations veterans after the war.

The Battle of Passchendaele, where David Thomas was killed. Also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, the fighting raged on with British, New Zealand, Australian, and Canadian troops pitched against German forces for over three months. “Battle of Passchendaele – Mud and Boche wire through which Canadians had to advance.” CWM 19930013-512, Canadian War Museum

Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Curator of History

Meet Dr. Roland Sawatzky

Museum Stories: History

Friday February 14, 2025

The New Hurtig Furrier Exhibit

The Museum has a rich collection of Chinese-Canadian artifacts that have been donated over many decades.

Tuesday July 30, 2024

Chinese-Canadian History at the Manitoba Museum

The Manitoba Museum is no stranger to cameras in our collection. We care for 103 of them, to be exact…

Wednesday August 9, 2023

The Devin Tri-Color Camera

On the morning of June 10, 2021, early risers across Manitoba will see a partial eclipse of the sun from most of Manitoba.

TO VIEW THE ECLIPSE YOU MUST USE ONE OF THE SAFE METHODS DESCRIBED BELOW.

The eclipse is already underway by the time the sun rises, and only lasts about an hour after sunrise, so this will be an early morning event on June 10.

A crescent of the sun mid-eclipse as the moon passes between it and Earth.

From Winnipeg, the rising sun on June 10, 2021 will appear similar to this view, shot during the 2017 eclipse. (Image: Scott D. Young)

What is Happening?

As the moon orbits the earth, it sometimes crosses the sun from our point of view in an event called a solar eclipse. When the moon only covers part of the sun we see a partial eclipse – this is what we will see from Manitoba. From other areas of the earth, the moon will appear to cross the center of the Sun, blocking out most of the sun’s rays in an annular or “ring” eclipse. This occurs because this eclipse happens when the Moon is near its farthest point from the Earth and so doesn’t appear quite big enough to cover the entire sun. When an eclipse happens when the moon is near its closest point to earth, the moon’s disk can cover the entire solar disk and a total solar eclipse results. A total solar eclipse is one of the true spectacles of nature, worth traveling to see. A total solar eclipse crossed the central United States in August 2017. Manitoba last witnessed a total solar eclipse on February 26, 1979.

For more details on the mechanics of eclipses, see NASA’s explanation here.

How Can I Observe the Eclipse Safely?

The sun is always too bright to observe directly without special eye protection. Sunglasses are not sufficient – a specially-made solar filter is required to prevent permanent eye damage. Eclipse glasses purchased for the 2017 total solar eclipse are sufficient as long as there are no scratches or holes in the silver Mylar material. A #14 welder’s glass (available at welding supply shops) will allow you to view the sun safely. No other materials should be used – while dark plastic or Mylar balloon material may dim the sun’s image in the visual range, the invisible ultraviolet and infrared light can still enter your eye and cause irreversible damage or even blindness.

Due to COVID restrictions over the past year, the Museum’s shop is not open, and we do not have any eclipses glasses for sale.

If no appropriate filter is available, you can use a pair of household binoculars to project an image of the sun using the method described here. Note: DO NOT LOOK AT THE SUN THROUGH BINOCULARS! Make sure you follow the instructions carefully, including the part about turning the binoculars away from the sun every few minutes to let them cool down. The Museum is not responsible for any injury or damage due to solar viewing; if you’re uncertain it’s best to watch the event online.

If you have a telescope, do not look at the sun with it or you will instantly and permanently blind yourself. Safe solar filters that fit over the front of the telescope are available for telescopes through mail order, but they will cost $100 or more and at this point are unlikely to arrive before the eclipse. You can use your telescope to project an image of the sun similarly to the binocular method shown above, but the increased heat may damage your telescope. This is not recommended unless you already know how to observe the sun properly.

When and Where Should I Look?

All of Manitoba can see the partial eclipse, although most of it occurs before sunrise; we catch just the end of it. The annular or ring phase is only visible from a path that starts in northwestern Ontario, goes up over the north pole, and down into eastern Russia. With provincial and international borders closed at the time of writing, Manitobans will have to be content with a partial eclipse and an online view of the annular portion.

For all of Manitoba, the eclipse is already underway as the sun rises – check your local newspaper or heavens-above.com for sunrise and sunset times for your location. In Winnipeg, the sun will be about half-eclipsed when it rises at 5:27 am CDT in the northeast, and the moon will uncover the sun as they both rise. By 5:55 am CDT (less than a half-hour after sunrise) the eclipse will be over from Winnipeg.

Points farther north in Manitoba will have better views. From Churchill, Manitoba, the sun rises at 4:08 am CDT with the eclipse beginning 4 minutes later. At 5:09 am CDT the sun reaches a maximum of 85% eclipsed before the moon moves on and uncovers the sun. From Churchill the eclipse ends at 6:08 am CDT. Flin Flon will see a maximum 75% eclipse just after sunrise; Thompson reaches 85% about 10 minutes after sunrise.

Links

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/map/2021-june-10?n=265 – eclipse times and simulated views for any location

https://eclipsophile.com/2021ase/ – maps and weather prospects for the eclipse

https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/ – eclipses and transits overview

Scott Young

Planetarium Astronomer

Manitoba Stories: In the Sky

May brings us later sunsets and shorter nights, making stargazing a late-night affair. With some bright planets, a meteor shower, and lots of interesting events, it’s well worth staying up for.

Thursday May 1, 2025

The Sky for May 2025

Monday March 31, 2025

The Sky for April 2025