Page 10 – Manitoba Museum

Posted on: Monday September 9, 2024

We are deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Grand Chief Cathy Merrick, and offer our sincerest condolences to her husband, children, grandchildren, her home community of Pimicikamak Cree Nation, and all her relations. Grand Chief Merrick offered wise counsel, immense knowledge, and warm kindness to everyone who had the honour of being in her presence. Grand Chief Merrick was a courageous warrior, a truth teller, and an advocate who never wavered in her calls for justice for Indigenous peoples.

When she was first elected in 2022, Grand Chief Merrick met with us at the Manitoba Museum to ensure we understood how to be true allies to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities. She generously offered her guidance and support to the changes we would make and returned to sit in circle with us many times as we undertook the work of fulfilling our promises.

“Grand Chief Merrick was direct in her words about where the Museum needed to do better, she was clear about our unique responsibilities, and thoughtful in her expectations. She was also hopeful. When we last saw each other, she left me knowing the monumental tasks that were ahead of us, and that she believed we would do the work needed, that she had faith in us. To me that is who Grand Chief Merrick was, an incredible leader who demanded the world be better while dedicating every moment of her own life to making it so.” – Dorota Blumczyńska, CEO

The Manitoba Museum Board of Governors and staff grieve the loss of Grand Chief Cathy Merrick, our province’s greatest Matriarch, our most resolute Warrior, and beloved Kukum to generations.

Posted on: Tuesday September 3, 2024

Have you ever heard of the killdeer? This bird has a clever way of keeping predators away from its nest of eggs. Learn how in this video with Learning & Engagement Producer Erin!

Posted on: Tuesday August 27, 2024

Sometimes our Curators find unexpected items in donations to the Museum Collections. What at first may look like it falls under one discipline, like Archaeology, may in fact fall under another discipline entirely! Learn about one neat example in this video with Curator of Archaeology Dave Finch.

Posted on: Tuesday August 20, 2024

Can you get rocket fuel from water? Join Science Communicator Rhianna in the Explore Science Zone to conduct some hydrogen electrolysis and learn about rockets!

Catch Forward to the Moon in the Planetarium this summer!

Plan your visit today

Posted on: Tuesday August 13, 2024

You may be familiar with large, round, vinyl records for playing music, but do you know what was used to play recorded music before that?

Join Learning Facilitator Erin in this video from outside the Ukrainian Booksellers and Publishers Ltd storefront in the Museum’s Winnipeg 1920 Cityscape to learn more.

Posted on: Friday August 9, 2024

The Criddle family made money in all sorts of different ways, from farming, to community service, to handcrafts! In this video Collections Technician of Human History, Cortney Pachet shows us some of the beautiful mother of pearl inlay work done by Evelyn and Stewart Criddle.

Posted on: Friday August 9, 2024

By David Finch, Curator of Archaeology

I lived in Yellowknife for ten years where the seasons are definitely pronounced. Downtown Yellowknife wraps around a small lake and I used to shop at stores on the other side. Shopping in winter was easier because I didn’t have to go around the lake – I could just walk across the ice. For the rest of the year, I faced a longer trek to reach my destination.

A miniature museum diorama showing a community during three different season of the year, and demonstrating the changes in activities and living.

There is a concept in science called the seasonal round, which is basically how a group lives at different times of the year. Note that I did not say “in all four seasons” because that’s a Western idea of time – one traditional Cree view of the year has six seasons.

Regardless, humans and animals follow seasonal cycles that we see reflected in archaeological sites. Summer fish camps are different from fall hunting sites, and both are different from winter trapping cabins.

Image: A museum diorama of seasonal Anishnaabe campsites demonstrates the concept of a seasonal round. ©Manitoba Museum

Archaeologists also follow a seasonal round – it’s hard to dig in frozen ground or to survey when there is snow. In Manitoba, the season for fieldwork is often from May to October, with the winter months spent writing reports.

Shoreline of alake beginning to melt in spring time. Further from the shore there is ice and snow on the surface of the lake, and near the shoreline, which is still covered in snow, pools of water are beginning to show through the ice.

Spring break-up creates challenges for getting around, so it’s the perfect time for reports and a pot of tea. ©David Finch/Manitoba Museum

Accessing the country near Hudson’s Bay is a lot easier with snow machines. ©David Finch/Manitoba Museum

This summertime focus affects our mobility: recorded sites tend to be near highways and shorelines because most fieldwork is done during summer from trucks and boats. Ancient access was different, and winter sites might be in what we now write off as bogs.

One way around these problems is to think broadly about how, where, and when we can explore the land: oral history and traditional land use can help predict where sites may be (and where we should dig); underwater archaeology and remote sensing can reveal hidden sites; and making community connections and getting to know the land in all seasons can also point us in the right direction.

Lakes and rivers are like highways, both in ancient times and for archaeologists. ©David Finch/Manitoba Museum

Doing community-based fieldwork in Labrador (working in fall means fewer bugs. ©David Finch/Manitoba Museum

Did you know that roughly 2.5 million (86%) of the Museum’s 2.9 million artifacts are part of the Archaeology collection? Containing objects dating from the last ice age through thousands of years of Indigenous history and the arrival and settlement of Europeans in Manitoba, the collection represents over 12,000 years of Manitoba’s history. Visit today to explore the Archaeology collection and all the stories it has to tell.

Dave Finch

Curator of Archaeology

Dave is an archaeologist and ethnohistorian who works with communities in the Canadian Subarctic. He was born in Winnipeg and was raised in northern Manitoba and northwest Ontario. He has also worked in environmental assessment and forensics, and in areas from the Northwest Territories to Labrador. He received a Masters in Environmental Studies from Lakehead University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from the University of Winnipeg.

Meet Dave Finch

Posted on: Tuesday August 6, 2024

Spotting a shooting star can be a pretty exciting experience. Join Planetarium Astronomer Scott Young at our Space Rocks exhibit to learn about some of the best meteor showers of the year – one of which is coming up later this month!

Visit the Science Gallery, where you can check out the oldest rock you’ll ever touch!

Plan your visit

August brings the return of some planets to the evening sky, the most famous meteor shower of the year, and longer nights than we’ve seen for a couple of months. The Milky Way is on full display, offering an unforgettable view from a dark, moonless sky. Unfortunately all of these benefits will likely be offset by smoke in the air from forest fires across Canada, which has become a fixture of summertime observing for the last several years.

The Perseid Meteor Shower

The annual Perseid meteor shower is the most famous meteor shower of the year, although it is not the best one of the year. Its occurrence in August during summer vacation likely makes it more accessible than the much better Geminids, which occur in mid-December. For a complete rundown on the Perseid meteor shower, check out this blog post.

2024 is a good year for the Perseids, since the peak time occurs with the Moon out of the sky. The thing about meteor showers is, they peak in the few hours before dawn for any given location. So to see the Perseids at their best, you want to observe from about 1:30 a.m. to dawn. There will be almost no meteors before midnight – you might see one or two, and the ones you do see will likely be bright ones, but it won’t be much of a “shower” unless you stay up all night.

To observe the Perseids, get away from city lights. Light pollution will wash out the fainter meteors, and there are a lot more faint meteors than bright ones. Bring a reclining lawn chair and blanket to ward off the early-morning chill, and set up facing the darkest part of the sky (or straight up, if you’re in a nice dark spot). Turn off your electronic devices and your car’s lights – any stray light will make it hard to see the meteors for you and anyone near you. The meteors only last a second or two, so you need to watch the sky continuously – literally, don’t blink or you’ll miss it.

You can also try and take pictures of meteors – set up your camera on a tripod and take a bunch of time exposures of the sky. If you’re lucky, a meteor will happen while you’re taking a picture.

We’d love to show your Perseid pics on Dome@Home, our online astronomy show. Send them to space@manitobamuseum.ca and then tune in to our August 28th show at 7 p.m. Central on the Museum’s Facebook and YouTube channels.

The Solar System

Finally, some planets are visible in the evening sky! Barely…

Mercury is still on the evening side of the sky, but in August it sets just after the Sun and so isn’t visible for Canadian viewers. Folks farther south still have have a chance to catch it early in the month, low in the west just after sunset.

Venus has appeared in the evening sky, although like Mercury it is still low in the sky; only its great brightness allows it to be spotted very low soon after sunset. The thin crescent moon is nearby on August 5th.

Mars rises about 2 a.m. local time in the northeast, inconspicuous compared to nearby Jupiter and both the Pleaides and Hyades star clusters. Mars and Jupiter pass less than half a degree apart on the morning of August 14th; see the Sky Calendar entry below for details.

Jupiter is the brightest “star” in the eastern sky after midnight, outshining all the visible stars as it cruises through the stars of Taurus. The waning crescent Moon is nearby on the morning of August 27.

Saturn rises about 11 p.m. local time early in the month, and moves into the south by dawn. The ringed planet reaches opposition on September 8, so it’s coming into its best viewing position for the year. The rings are only tilted about 4 degrees to our line of sight, making them appear very thin from our point of view. The nearly-full Moon is to Saturn’s left on the evening of the 21st.

Sky Calendar for August 2024

Click on highlighted dates for a star chart showing the view!

Aug 4: New Moon

Aug 11 – Aug 12 (morning sky): Best viewing for the annual Perseids meteor shower; see featured article above. Decent rates should occur the morning before and after as well.

Aug 12 (evening sky): First Quarter Moon

Aug 14 (morning sky): Jupiter and Mars are close together in the morning sky, separated by less than the size of the Full Moon. They’re still pretty close the morning before and after this date.

Aug 19: Full Moon

Aug 20-21 (after midnight into morning sky): The waxing gibbous Moon is to the left of and slightly above Saturn. The two are only about 3 degrees (6 Full Moon diameters) apart, fitting easily into the same binocular field-of-view.

Aug 26: Last Quarter Moon

Aug 27 (morning sky): The waning crescent Moon is above Jupiter, rising together in the morning sky about 1 a.m. local time in the morning sky. Mars is below and to the left, forming a not-quite-right triangle. The red supergiant star Aldebaran is to Jupiter’s right along with the Hyades star cluster, with the Pleaides above them all. The morning rising of these star clusters remind us that winter is coming.

Aug 28 (morning sky): The Moon, Mars, and Jupiter form a very squashed triangle pointing downwards in the eastern sky before dawn.

Aug: 29 (morning sky): By this morning the Moon has moved farther on, still forming a rough line with Mars and Jupiter in the early morning sky.

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

Astronomy

Thursday September 4, 2025

Posted on: Tuesday July 30, 2024

Sometimes objects come in to the Archaeology lab that aren’t really artifacts, but are still interesting in their own right. This happened this past spring when volunteers in the Archaeology department came across some curious objects while processing artifacts. I had asked them to go through a donation made by the Criddle family, and among the arrowheads and scrapers were two weird little blobs that none of us could figure out. Until recently, that is.

The Criddle family came to Manitoba in 1882, and they had a property near Wawanesa that was like a little piece of England on the Prairies. They donated a large collection to the Museum that included everything from photographs to furnishings. (The Museum has covered their collection several times in our social media.) It turns out that the donation included some archaeological artifacts that were collected almost incidentally. Like a lot of farming families, the Criddles picked up artifacts and other objects that they came across in their fields, and these eventually made their way to the Archaeology lab.

Volunteering at the Archaeology Lab

The students volunteering in my lab are just learning about Manitoba archaeology. They’re fast learners, and they are getting a sense of how to sort cigar boxes full of bric-a-brac into organized piles of ancient tools, bone and shell, and so forth. In this collection they found two irregular cylinders of what looked like stony or metallic material. These were non-magnetic, so at first we thought they might be lead scrap or maybe furnace slag. That didn’t explain their irregular-but-oddly-identical appearances. They looked like they might fit together, but fit together into what?

Two mysterious objects found in the Criddle collection.

The objects almost look like they had little legs…

Let’s jump ahead in time a bit. A few weeks ago, Museum staff were working with our new pXRF instrument. That bit of alphabet soup stands for portable X-ray fluorescence, which is a non-destructive technique to determine which elements are in an object. The instrument emits X-rays which contact the target object and then create secondary x-rays, the frequencies of which can be matched to the elements present. The Museum is using our pXRF instrument for research in all of our departments and also to analyze objects under conservation. (We can also do analysis for other researchers for a fee.)

The results came back: a lot of iron, a bit of sulfur… and no lead. We scratched our heads and then it dawned on us that looked a lot like pyrite. Joe Moysiuk, our Curator of Geology and Palaeontology, suggested that our blobs could be ancient shells that had been fossilized and replaced with pyrite. We took a closer look and the two pieces articulated, just like part of a shell. Joe took another look and suggested they might be from Baculites, a type of straight-shelled ammonite that went extinct around the same time as did the dinosaurs. Imagine a squid-like critter with a long, straight, segmented shell behind it.

A fossil segment of an ancient cephalopod, in front of a scale bar where every square is 1 cm wide.

Stories Written in Stone

Baculites segments (particularly the larger ones) are sometimes called “buffalo stones.” These figure in the stories of Indigenous peoples of the Plains, such as the Blackfoot who call them iniskim. The fossil segments have articulation points that look like heads and legs, and resemble little buffalo. As a result, they have a spiritual connection to the larger animals and were used to call them. I am unsure if something similar existed on the Manitoba plains but I suspect that it did. If anyone is willing to share old stories, please drop me a line.

I can’t say if these little fossils were collected or used by Indigenous people in southwestern Manitoba. They definitely stood out as something unusual and were picked up by the Criddles. For me, these are also ecofacts – objects found at archaeological sites that are not made by humans but still tell you things about the landscape. They opened my eyes to questions of palaeontology and ethnography that I otherwise might not have looked into.

Every field, and every object in that field, can tell a story.

A segment of a Baculites fossil from the Cretaceous era, collected near Brandon and now in the Museum’s Palaeolontology collection.