Diorama Details

Diorama Details

By University of Winnipeg student Kristina Misurska

 

Hello, everyone! Kristina’s blog post for this week is going to be a bit different than some of her other posts:

Over Reading Week I went to a conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so I didn’t start any new research. Most of my work since my last blog post has been focused on continuing to figure out what is going to be involved with the QR code project, so I thought I would instead take this opportunity to blog a bit about the diorama itself.

Two figures in a miniature diorama winter scene, wearing traditional winter gear and with bundles on their backs.

The diorama is an astounding piece of work. Betsy Thorsteinson, an extremely talented artist, along with her skilled group of volunteers, put an incredible amount of detail into the diorama. The result of all their hard work is a diorama that, from afar, looks as if it could be a photograph of a real-life fishing camp. Taken as a whole, the diorama is beautiful.

To fully appreciate the amount of effort that went into the creation of the display, however, it helps to take a closer look. To that end, two separate monocles, or monoculars, are provided with the diorama so that visitors can get a close-up view of some of the details. The monocle lets viewers zoom in on different areas and see food being prepared in pottery vessels, birds flying amongst trees, and fish being smoked over fires.  The monocles help to focus on the thought and precision that went into the display. From the figurines of the family, to the branches of the trees, to the smoke rising from the campfires, every detail tells a story.

 

Image: Closeup of winter travelling scene, Aschkibokahn Diorama

The monocles help visitors to zoom in on areas that make them curious. This parallels what I am hoping to accomplish with my project –  to give visitors the option of learning more about the present-day site, along with seeing the bigger picture of the site.

That’s all for this week! Please check back next week to see how my project progresses.

Where the Dead Things Are

Recently, Melissa Pearn, our Cataloguer of Natural History collections went on maternity leave. She wrote this blog entry before she left.

 

As a Natural History cataloguer, I have the opportunity to work with some very interesting specimens. I love that my job involves all three areas of natural history – botany, zoology (mostly entomology), and palaeontology/geology. Having studied pollination and reproduction of Lady’s Slipper orchids for my Master’s thesis, I especially enjoy working with the botanical and entomological specimens. It’s fascinating to get to see some of the plants and insects that I have heard or read about, but have never had the opportunity to see in nature.

I’ve recently been cataloguing an interesting collection of Manitoba insects. The specimens were collected in the 1920’s and 1930’s, in places such as Victoria Beach and Winnipeg (especially Transcona). Not only is the collection fascinating because of its age and local origins, but also because of its diversity. Many of the specimens belong to the Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies), but the collection also includes insects from 11 other groups such as Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps), Coleoptera (beetles), Diptera (flies), Hemiptera (the true bugs), and Odonata (dragonflies), among others.

The collection was assembled by Manitoban naturalist and entomologist George Shirley Brooks. He was born in Wrentham, Surrey, England in 1872 and came to Manitoba around 1913. He was not only a founding member and president (1932-1934) of the Natural History Society of Manitoba, but also co-founder of The Manitoba Museum and author of “Checklist of the Butterflies of Manitoba”. He died in Winnipeg on October 20, 1947 and is buried at Brookside Cemetery.

Older collections such as this one are very valuable for the information that they contain. Because many specimens have a collection date and location, they can help researchers to evaluate and determine population trends over time, or to determine the status of rare species for example. In order to maintain the integrity of these types of collections, proper storage and handling are very important. In Natural History, specimens are stored in a collections room that is controlled to create just the right temperature, light, and humidity conditions. Under less than ideal conditions, or when on display for long periods of time, specimens can become altered, as can be seen with the faded coloring of some of the moths and butterflies in the Brooks collection.

An open storage drawer containing a variety of pinned insect specimens.

Insect case with Hymenopterans (bees, wasps), Dipterans (flies) and Hemipterans (true bugs).

An open storage drawer containing a variety of pinned insects including moths and dragonflies.

Storage case with insect groups Lepidoptera (moths) and Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies).

Two pinned Luna Moths with distinct colouration differences. the wings of the moth on the left is faded nearly to white, whereas the one on the right has green wings.

Two Luna Moth specimens. Though approximately the same age, the one on the left has become severely faded.

NOTE: Melissa had a healthy baby girl on Feb. 3. She is named Ivy. The Museum staff wish her family all the best.

QR Code For Aschkibokahn Mini-Diorama

By University of Winnipeg student Kristina Misurska

 

Welcome back, everybody! This week Kristina’s post is a quick look at some of the behind-the-scenes planning that she’s been doing for her project:

As I mentioned in my last post, the goal of my project is to look at ways of linking the Aschkibokahn archaeological site and diorama with the present-day community of Duck Bay. The work I did this week involved looking at how to best integrate our research materials into the existing exhibit.

Two individuals each holding cell phones standing in front of the Aschkibokahn diorama in the Manitoba Museum's Lower Parklands Gallery.

One of the ideas we have come up with is to set up a QR code that links to a webpage with supplementary information about Duck Bay. Some of the materials we are hoping to share on this page include a poem written by Melba Sanoffsky, who grew up in Duck Bay, as well as photographs of the community through the years.

Before we can go any further we have to do something practical: ensure that smart phones are able to get reception in the exhibit area.  To check this, I visited the gallery with one of the curators. We have different service providers and we wanted to make sure we both had a signal and reception. We pulled out our phones, and success! Now we know it is possible to use QR codes in the exhibit area. The next steps will be to look at the materials we have at the museum, and to decide what else we would like to include in our web display.

 

Image: Kristina with Amelia Fay, Curator of the Hudson’s Bay Collection, checking web access at the Aschkibokahn mini-diorama.

At this point, the web page/QR code is just a concept. I will keep you informed as to what we actually come up with. Stop by the blog next week to see where I’m at with my project, and don’t forget to visit the new diorama!

Slicing the Onion

By Dr. Graham Young, past Curator of Palaeontology & Geology

 

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a presentation at McNally Robinson in Winnipeg, as part of our Museum lecture course Into the Vault. I was planning to talk about the ancient island shoreline deposits we have been studying in the Churchill area, and as I thought about history and pre-history, I was reminded of an observation I had made during an earlier trip to southwestern Manitoba. In most parts of a relatively flat landscape, the ground surface is the result of processes in the present day and the recent past; it is only where some of that surface is peeled away that we can really see evidence of a deeper past.

View down a downtown road between tall office buildings during winter. Under a blue sky there is snow along the sides of the road and leafless trees.

Downtown Winnipeg, as it has looked so often this winter.

Looking down a gravel road under a clear blue sky. Yellow canola grows in fields either side of the road.

The endless horizon of a flat landscape in western Manitoba.

Photo taken from a moving vehicle on a single lane road. A vehicle drives in front, and in the distance, further in on the field, are three modern windmills.

Our modern landscape is different from all past landscapes.

View up a gentle hill towards a now abandoned homestead built out of fieldstone.Overgrown bushes and trees grow close to the building.

On the surface, we can see evidence of the historic past: an abandoned farmhouse at Brockinton, Manitoba.

Where the earth is split open, along riverbanks and shorelines, and at roadcuts and quarries, we can see its older layers. While the surface usually represents the present, recent past, and relatively recent prehistory, the layers below that surface may be extremely old. Southwestern Manitoba and the Hudson Bay Lowland are both in the part of North America known geologically as the Platform, which has been free for a very long time from disruptive forces such as earthquakes and volcanoes. As a result, the layers are relatively orderly; the sediment was laid down almost horizontally, layer upon layer. Slicing through them vertically looks quite similar to slicing an onion with a knife.*

A whole onion upside-down on a plate.

A whole onion upright on a plate.

A whole onion on a plate with a hand holding a knife blade to the side of the onion in preparation of slicing.

A wedge of an onion sliced to show its many layers.

As we dig down into the upper surface of the land, below the historic remnants we can see evidence of prehistoric occupation of this region. Almost everyone is familiar with widespread artifacts such as arrowheads, but in some places in southern Manitoba we can see ancient burial mounds or traces of long-past hunting sites.

Elsewhere, the cuts in the Earth extend into older layers. Some of these layers are still made of sediment that has not been turned to rock, but they date from the late part of the Ice Age, before people are known to have lived in this part of the world.

Two individuals trekking through tall grass towards a distinct mound in the land.

Calf Mountain, near Morden, is an ancient burial mound.

A person leans down into frame, reaching down towards bison bones embedded in the soil.

Kevin Brownlee examines bison bones at a hunting site dating from about 1200 years ago.

An individual stands beside a cut of ground beside a bank higher than themselves.

Near St. Lazare, Kevin looks at a cut bank is composed of till (sediment) deposited thousands of years ago by a glacier.

View towards a gorge with a river flowing through the centre. Green and yellow folliaged trees grow either side.

If the cut is deep enough, or if a high part of the bedrock reaches up to near the surface, we may see layers that date from long before the Ice Age. For example, along the Manitoba Escarpment there are many places where strata of Cretaceous age can be seen. These beds, dating from the later part of the age of the dinosaurs (roughly 100 million to 66 million years ago), are composed of shale and related rocks made of sediment deposited in the Western Interior Seaway.

If you were to drill a vertical hole into the Earth anywhere in southwestern Manitoba, your drillbit would eventually pass down through the Cretaceous layers into successively older beds of Jurassic, Mississippian, Devonian, Silurian, and Ordovician age (see diagram below). Units of these ages are always in the same order, from youngest at the top to oldest at the bottom, thanks to the simple and straightforward law of superposition and principle of original horizontality. Basically, sediment layers deposited by water or wind tend to be close to horizontal due to gravity, and each layer is laid down on top of the older layers that are already present in an area.

 

Image: In the Wawanesa gorge of southwest Manitoba, the upper yellowish sediments are glacial and postglacial, while the lower grey ones are from the Late Cretaceous Period.

The geological time gaps in the Manitoba record (such as between the Mississippian and Jurassic rocks, where we might have expected deposits from the Pennsylvanian, Permian, and Triassic periods) simply represent intervals in which sediment was not being deposited in this region, and was perhaps being eroded.  Most of our sedimentary rocks were deposited under seawater; the intervals of deposition occurred at times when the sea invaded the middle of the continent, and the gaps in deposition represent times when the sea left this region. We are in the latter sort of situation nowadays, though of course sediment IS still being deposited in one part of the middle of North America: in Hudson Bay.

The layers in the diagram below look to be strongly tilted, but this is because the diagram has a 200x exaggeration of the vertical scale, relative to the horizontal. In reality, they are tilted just a few degrees. The tilt is related to their having been deposited on a seafloor that sloped gently toward the centre of the ancient sedimentary basin, which was located to the southwest.

A geological diagram slowing the layers of earth from west to east in Manitoba.

A west to east geological cross-section through southern Manitoba shows how the older strata are located below younger ones (vertical scale greatly exaggerated). (Image from the Manitoba Geological Survey).

A rugged cut of bank with bare trunks of trees in frame both below and above the cliffside.

Limestone beds in the Fisher Branch area, north of Winnipeg, were deposited during the early part of the Silurian Period, about 440 million years ago.

This slight tilt is, however, very important when we consider where we might find particular layers on the surface. Geologists often talk about the rocks of the Platform as having “layer cake stratigraphy.” Like the onion, the layer cake is a useful metaphor. If we imagine a cake plate being tilted, and then the cake being cut parallel to the tabletop, it is obvious that the lower layers of the cake would be visible from above as you move away from the direction of tilting.

A landscape looking out over the cliffside of a stretch of land leading down to a shoreline. The sky is dramatically lit with thick clouds in shades of light and dark blue.

Similarly, in southern Manitoba we see older layers meeting the ground surface as we move eastward, away from the centre of the sedimentary basin. Although there is Cretaceous bedrock at the surface along the Manitoba Escarpment, the sedimentary rocks in the Winnipeg area are far older. North of Winnipeg we can visit sites that straddle the boundary between the Ordovician and Silurian periods, with Silurian beds about 440 million years old near Fisher Branch, and Ordovician beds 445-450 million years old at Stony Mountain and Stonewall.

The oldest Ordovician sedimentary beds in Manitoba, belonging to the Winnipeg Formation, can be observed toward the eastern side of Lake Winnipeg at places like Manigotagan and Black Island. Just east of these places, however, we reach the bottom of the layer cake. The “cake plate”, if you will, is composed of the very hard, very old rocks of the Precambrian Shield (aka Canadian Shield).

 

Image: Sandstones of the Ordovician Winnipeg Formation at Black Island, Manitoba, are about 454-458 million years old.

The Shield rocks are geologically complex, having been formed as mountains were growing, volcanoes erupting, and continents crashing together in this region about 1.8-3.5 billion years ago. Since they were formed by such active processes, they are often folded, faulted, and overturned; as a result we can no longer apply our simple onion/cake metaphors once we reach those rocks. But those comparisons work wonderfully in any of Manitoba’s younger strata!

 

* The growth of onions is apparently quite different from this age-layering of sediment on the Platform, but it is still a handy visual metaphor.

Aschkibokahn mini-diorama

By University of Winnipeg student Kristina Misurska

 

I would like to introduce Kristina, a Master’s student at the University of Winnipeg, who is completing a program in Curatorial Practices. As part of her internship with the Manitoba Museum (TMM), she is working on a couple of projects to gain experience in different areas of museum studies. Last month, she wrote a blog post about a project with the HBC Collection, and this month she is working with Anthropology Department on exhibit design and programming. This is her first Anthropology blog:

View into a mini diorama showing an area of land progressing through the seasons, and the adaptions of the people living there during each season.

On January 16, TMM unveiled a new display in the Parklands/Mixed Woods Gallery, called the Aschkibokahn mini-diorama. This diorama, the result of nearly twenty years of research, planning, and hard work, explores the activities of an Anishnaabe family from about 800 years ago as they move across the land from winter to summer. The project is based on work undertaken at the Aschkibokahn archaeological site, located near the present-day communities of Duck Bay and Camperville.

One of TMM’s goals for this exhibit is to link the archaeological site to these present-day communities. My role in this project is two-fold. On the one hand, I will be gathering and sorting through existing research to figure out the best ways to integrate this information into a comprehensive exhibit. On the other hand, I will be exploring different means of re-establishing connections with community members in order to gain a fuller picture of the history of the region.

 

Image: New Parklands Gallery Diorama

I will be posting blogs over the next couple of months to keep everyone up to speed with my project. I hope you all stay tuned to see how the project progresses and I encourage everyone to come down and check out the beautiful new diorama!

Remembering Columbia

The phone woke me up early on a Sunday. My sister calling. She’s not an early riser; something must be wrong.

“I was listening to the news – the space shuttle was supposed to land, but didn’t.” Silence, as I try to process the information.

What?

In 30 seconds I am in the living room, putting on my glasses with one hand and fumbling with the TV remote in the other. I don’t have to switch to NASA-TV. The story is everywhere. The Space Shuttle Columbia, with its crew of seven astronauts, is missing.

Two minutes later, I’m in the car, heading to the Planetarium. We have better resources there, NASA TV direct from satellite and several computers for streaming and searching. I don’t know why I’m going; it’s not like NASA needs me, but I just have to go, to know, to do SOMETHING. I arrive, breathless, to find other co-workers streaming in. Some have tears in their eyes. The reports come slowly: all contact lost during re-entry; no landing; some kind of warning indicators in the left wing; and then the first video of a fireball breaking up in the sky over Texas.

My recollections of the rest of the day are a blur. For the first few minutes, I had held out hope that the crew might have escaped, but that hope quickly dwindles. Columbia is gone.

They were only sixteen minutes from home.

The phones start to ring. Local media, other staff, the public. We watch the news, check forums, watch and re-watch the footage of the launch that we had taped nearly two weeks before. Anderson Cooper, one of CNN’s “new guys” at the time, is at the desk when it happens, and he becomes the face of the tragedy until veteran space reporter Miles O’Brien gets there. All of the talking heads on every network are asking the same question: What had happened?

In the aftermath, it turned out that Columbia was doomed from the time it launched. A piece of insulating foam broke free of the shuttle’s big orange external tank during the launch, damaging the heat shield on the front of the left wing. When the shuttle re-entered the atmosphere, the frictional heating burned through the heat shield, tearing off the wing and causing the shuttle to break apart at 400,000 km/h. NASA had screwed up, and people had died.

Historically, the end of January has been a bad time for space exploration. On January 27, 1967, the first Apollo moon rocket caught fire during routine testing on the launch pad, and three astronauts perished. On January  28, 1986 the shuttle Challenger exploded during launch, killing all seven astronauts aboard. And now a second shuttle and its crew of seven was gone.

In every case, NASA rallied, found, faced and fixed the problems, and moved on. There were words about the cost of exploration, the necessity of risk-taking, the benefits of curiosity and passion. Today, more than a decade after the loss of Columbia, there are people living full-time in space. The International Space Station and the Chinese Tiangong 1 space station orbit overhead, the frontier outposts of our exploration into the universe. But is it worth it? Is it worth seeing crying families every decade or so, immersed in a disaster that grips the world?

There is no right answer, but I can tell you what every member of the crews of Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia would tell you: it is not only worth the cost, it is essential. Humanity must explore. The practical reasons are obvious: growing population and dwindling resources on our home planet; knowledge and technology to be gained; searching for other habitable worlds to colonize and explore; the possibility of life elsewhere. But the main reason humanity must explore is this: exploration is one of the defining characteristics of the human species. We have always looked at the horizon and wondered what is out there. It has defined our modern world, and driven the development of technologies that today are essential to our civilization. Exploration built the world we live in, and without it, humanity is doomed to a slow, stagnant decay into extinction.

Today I remember those who have given their lives while exploring space. Thank you for reaching for the stars.

Official photo of the three-man crew of Apollo 1.

Apollo 1 (January 27, 1967)
Virgil  “Gus” Grissom, Command Pilot (United States)
Edward White, Senior Pilot (United States)
Roger Chaffee, Pilot (United States)

Formal photograph of Vladimir Kamarov in uniform.

Soyuz 1 (April 23, 1967)
Vladimir Kamarov, Commander (Soviet Union)

Photo of the three man crew of Soyuz 11 in the cockpit.

Soyuz 11 (June 30, 1971)
Georgi Dobrovolski, Commander (Soviet Union)
Vladislav Volkov, Flight Engineer (Soviet Union)
Viktor Patsayev, Flight Engineer (Soviet Union)

Challenger Mission 51-L (January 28, 1986)
Francis R. Scobee, Commander (United States)
Michael J. Smith, Pilot (United States)
Ronald McNair, Mission Specialist (United States)
Ellison Onizuka, Mission Specialist (United States)
Judith Resnik, Mission Specialist (United States)
Greg Jarvis, Payload Specialist (United States)
Christa McAuliffe, Payload Specialist/Teacher in Space (United States)

Official photograph of the seven-person crew of Columbia, Mission STS-107.

Columbia, Mission STS-107 (February 1, 2003)
Rick D. Husband, Commander (United States)
William C. McCool, Pilot (United States)
Michael P. Anderson, Mission Specialist (United States)
Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist (United States)
David M. Brown, Mission Specialist (United States)
Laurel Clark, Mission Specialist (United States)
Ilan Ramon, Mission Specialist (Israel)

Scott Young

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.

Winter Without Central Heat: How wildlife on the prairies survives

During frigid winter days I find myself marveling at how wild plants and animals manage to survive the cold temperatures. As my current area of study involves flowering plants and their insect pollinators, these are the organisms that I will focus on in this blog.

Although geothermal energy has recently become a popular way to help heat our homes, plants and insects have been using geothermal heat to stay warm for millions of years. While air temperatures fluctuate quite dramatically over the year (by almost 80 degrees C here in Manitoba), the temperature under the ground remains much more constant. Even in winter, the soil temperature typically remains above freezing; the deeper you go, the warmer it gets, at least until you get way up north where the deep permafrost occurs.

Many plants and insect pollinators exploit the warmer temperatures underground by spending the winter there. Perennial forbs simply allow their above-ground parts to die after transferring as much of their sugar and nutrients as they can into the roots, tubers, and underground stems for storage. Once spring arrives and it warms up, the plants use their stored food to grow brand new leaves.

Likewise, many insects will burrow into holes in the earth where they remain inert, living off of stored fat until spring. This is the strategy of many of our wild bees and some flies. However, not all individuals survive the winter. The only bumblebees (Bombus spp.) that survive winter are the queens; all of the drones and workers die. The queens go into hibernation with some of their eggs already fertilized so that they can begin laying them once nectar and pollen from the first spring flowers can be obtained.

A low-growing plant with small pink flowers at the tops of long stems.

Perennial plants like three-flowered avens (Geumtriflorum) store food in their thick taproots over the winter.

A bumble bee on a small yellow flower.

Bumblebee (Bombus spp.) queens need nectar and pollen from plants like hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canescens) as soon as possible in the spring to start egg laying.

Other plants and pollinating insects deal with winter by entering a much more cold-tolerant stage. Annual plants store all of the energy they produce in the summer in their seeds; the parent plant dies in autumn. Biennials produce a cluster of leaves the first year and then copious seeds in the second year. Most seeds contain concentrated sources of nutrients, protein, and sugar; everything that a baby plant needs to grow into a little seedling is there. Seeds generally have a very low water content which means that they are less susceptible to freezing damage than actual plant tissues would be. Thus annual plants escape the cold by remaining dormant as seeds underneath a layer of insulating leaf litter and snow. This layer, called the subnivian zone, is also much warmer than the air temperature, typically around 0 degrees C.

Many pollinating insects such as flower flies, butterflies, and moths survive the winter as eggs, larva, or pupa. Regardless of which life stage is overwintering, a sheltered spot near the ground is essential. Female insects typically lay their eggs inside plants stems or rotting logs, or under thick leaf litter, grass hummocks, rock piles, or moss. Eggs are also often coated with foam that contains a natural antifreeze (e.g. glycerol and/or sorbitol) to protect them. Insects that overwinter as larvae or pupa also typically produce natural antifreeze to lower the freezing point of their tissues so that they can withstand cold temperatures; this strategy is called freeze avoidance. For this strategy to be successful a dry hibernation site is needed; thus a water-repellent coating is required to help keep the insect dry. Alternatively, some insects are able to control where ice crystals form in their bodies so that their cells are not damaged; this strategy is called freeze tolerance.

There is only one pollinating Manitoba insect that escapes the cold by running (well flying actually) away from it: monarchs. Monarchs evolved from a group of tropical butterflies. Lacking the mechanisms to tolerate cold weather but benefitting from the abundant milkweeds farther north, the elaborate migratory pattern of the monarchs evolved. Recently I found out that some of the monarchs that hatch in Manitoba spend their winters in Cuba. So I guess humans are not the only ones who are snowbirds!

A low-growing plant in sandy soil. Its branches spread out, with small yellow flowers at the tips.

Yellow evening-primrose (Oenothera biennis) is a native biennial plant that is pollinated by bees.

A brown Sphina moth resting on a leaf, with its wings folded on its back like a triangle.

Sphinx moths (Sphingidae) overwinter as pupa underground.

Three monarch caterpillars wrapped around the stems of a milkweed plant.

After eating milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) in Manitoba, monarchs (Danaus plexippus) migrate to warmer climates.

With this information in mind, you can modify your own gardens to provide winter habitat for pollinating insects. By leaving rotten logs, rock and leaf piles, and cut plant stems in your yard over the winter, you are providing habitat where pollinators can safely spend the most frigid months of the year.

This post originally appeared on www.LandLines.ca, the blog of the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson

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

An Act of Kindness

When I first started at the museum I spent a lot of time opening cabinets and drawers to check out this remarkable collection that is now under my care. There are many impressive artefacts, but this one really struck a chord with me.

I opened a drawer to find what appears to be a simple box (carefully constructed by skilled conservators!). A closer look at the photo label revealed someone’s leg! I was a bit shocked, I did not expect to find a prosthesis in the HBC collection. I immediately went to our database to find out more.

A long white box with a photograph of the contents taped onto the top.

A photograph taped to the top of a collections storage box showing a rudimentary prosthesis leg, labelled "Tullauhiu's leg".

As it turns out, Tullauhiu was an Inuit hunter who lost his leg to a polar bear. John Ross (yes, THE John Ross who went in search of the Northwest Passage) ordered the Victory‘s carpenter to fit Tullauhiu with a wooden leg. The carpenter apparently worked with the ship’s surgeon and Tullauhiu was fitted with a prosthetic leg on January 15, 1830.

Constructed from wood, leather, iron nails, sheet copper, and copper nails (hence the green-ish tinge) Tullauhiu was given a new lease on life.  What prompted John Ross, on his second Arctic voyage, to do this?

Ross briefly mentions this event in his 1835 Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a NorthWest Passage (this excerpt is from page 5). Apparently the event is also discussed in Farley Mowat’s Ordeal By Ice (1993: pg 228-236) but I have yet to snag a copy to see for myself.

Perhaps it really was just a simple act of kindness, or maybe there was more to the story (page 52 of Ross’s narrative alluded to something). Either way, looking at this prosthetic leg in a box gets me thinking about what this leg meant for Tullauhiu.

A view of the artifact inside the storage box, a prosthetic peg leg.

A clip of a journal entry reading, "Not to name mere instances, we found the aged [indecernable] drawn on a sledge by his companions, when the old man above alluded to was suffered to walk as best he could : as was equally the case with Tullauhiu, whom we supplied with a wooden leg to replace his loss."

Close-up on the top portion of the wooden leg.

That’s what I love about my job, it’s not just the material ‘things’ in the collection, but the stories behind them and thinking about what these items meant for the people who made and used them.

 

*UPDATE: The plot thickens on this interesting artifact, stayed tuned for part 2!*

Dr. Amelia Fay

Dr. Amelia Fay

Curator of Anthropology & the HBC Museum Collection

Amelia Fay is Curator of Anthropology and the HBC Museum Collection at the Manitoba Museum. She received her BA in Anthropology from the University of Manitoba (2004), an MA in Archaeology…
Meet Dr. Amelia Fay

Joe Maruca’s “Secret” Notebook

At some time or another, we have all experienced a really satisfying day at work, or perhaps more often, a day that left us wanting to vent our frustrations. Today we might use social media to voice these emotions. In the days before Facebook or Twitter, Joe Maruca documented his working life in a ‘Secret’ notebook filled with amusing cartoon sketches. 

Recently, I processed a fascinating collection of family items donated by the children of Joseph and Alice Maruca. These include a porter’s uniform, photographs, documents and the notebook. Joe’s father, Vincenzo had immigrated from Italy in 1920 and worked as a freight carpenter at the CNR shops in Transcona. In the 1950s Joe Maruca was employed as a Porter Captain at the Royal Alexandra Hotel in Winnipeg. The “Royal Alex” was part of the Canadian Pacific chain and was considered one of the finest hotels in western Canada. It opened its doors on Higgins and Main in 1906 and served as a social centre of Winnipeg until 1967. The hotel was demolished in 1971. 

A worn sketchbook, it’s red cover torn and with the remains of torn off tape or stickers. A reminding piece of blue tape reads, “Secret” below a slightly torn sticker showing an image of a large red and white multi-story building and text reading, “The Royal Alexander / Winnipeg Man. / Canadian Pacific”.

Through Joe’s sketches we can see a humorous account of the inner workings of the Royal Alexandra as viewed through the eyes of the front line staff. There is the frustration of being under tipped by a wealthy client or being “twisted” by a co-worker. The word twist can be as slang expression meaning to cheat or have something wrench from your grasp – when a fellow porter takes your next client and tip! We also see Joe as the hero of the story and a bit of a lady’s man. 

Cartoon sketch showing a round man flicking “1 thin dime” to a struggling porter holding a bag of golf clubs and standing beside three suitcases. A bubble above the porter’s head reads, “I should have stuck to shoe shines”.
“One Thin Dime” sketch by Joe Maruca
Cartoon sketch showing a man on his knees in front of another man who stands filing his nails, with one foot up on a chair. The standing man saying, “Well I don’t know – coax me”, while the kneeling man says, “Please Maruca I’ll never twist ya again”. Sketch title at the top reads, “CONTROL / Yes Sir”.
“Control”
Cartoon sketch showing two women standing near the foot of a large flight of stairs with a framed mountain landscape hanign above the landing. One woman says, “Oh! There’s Maruca” and the other says, “Yea! Smile”. In the upper left corner is written, “Great guy when it comes to women”.
“A great guy when it comes to women”

The Royal Alex was home-on-the-road to musicians who came to play at the hotel or local hotspots such as the Don Carlos night club. Included in the donation is a collection of signed photographs of notable African-American musicians of the era – The Mills Brothers, The Charioteers, Nellie Lutcher and The Deep River Boys. Joe enjoyed a positive reputation among these performers and the service he provided would have been in marked contrast to the discrimination they faced at segregated American hotels in the 1950s. “When you’re in Winnipeg ask for Joe, he’ll take good care of you” was the message passed among the performers. A couple of his sketches suggest that Joe may have had musical dreams of his own.

Signed black and white photograph with slightly weathered edges of Joe Maruca in his porter’s uniform posing with Harry Douglas.
Harry Douglas with Joe Maruca “To Joe, Thanks for being so wonderful to me. Sincerely, Harry Douglas, Deep River Boys”
Cartoon sketch showing a four-man band on a stage. In the corner is a large firepace and a person sitting in an armchair watching the band. The cellist is labelled “Maruca” and writing near the pianist reads, “How’d Maruca get in this one”. Wriitng along the bottom reads, “Sunday Evening (Irving Plumb.)”.
“Long hair Maruca”

As new artifacts are added to the Manitoba Museum’s collection, our understanding of the past expands. Donations from families like the Marucas help to give us a glimpse the life of a talented ‘average working Joe’. 

Nancy Anderson

Nancy Anderson

Collections Management Specialist – Human History

Nancy Anderson holds a B.A. (Hons) in History from the University of Winnipeg, and received her M.A. in Canadian Social History jointly from the University of Winnipeg and University of Manitoba. She has over 30 years experience…
Meet Nancy Anderson

Mini-Diorama Opens

By Kevin Brownlee
Past Curator of Archaeology 

Yesterday the Museum launched a spectacular new mini-diorama in the Grasslands/Mixed Woods Gallery. The exhibit highlights the incredible talent of diorama artist Betsy Thorsteinson. Betsy along with Debbie Thompson, Ruth Dowse and countless volunteers worked on the project. The diorama highlights four separate scenes: a mid winter camp in Duck Mountain, moving camp in late winter, early spring maple sugar camp and fishing camp in late spring. These scenes represent an Anishnaabe family as they move across the landscape about 800 years ago. 

Close-up of a Museum diorama featuring members of an Anishnaabe family moving camp on snowshoes and sleds through a snowy forest.

Two of the scenes are based on archaeological excavations. The mid winter camp is representing a site on Child’s Lake in Duck Mountain. The spring fish weir is representing the Aschkibokahn Site at the mouth of the Duck and Drake Rivers on Lake Winnipegosis. The use of a mini-dioramas to depict the past is an exceptional way of communicating the results of archaeological research. There is no better way of bringing the past alive.

I have had the pleasure of assisting Betsy on this exhibit. I provided the colour of fish both before and after it was smoked, how bear paw snowshoes are worn and how the internal organs of fish were prepared. In other circumstances I related stories and experiences to Betsy and these would appear in the diorama. Grey Jays or Whiskey Jacks are called Grandmother by many First Nation people, who will feed these birds when they visit camps. Feeding these birds shows respect to the visiting grandmothers. When you visit the diorama find the Grandmother.