Sharon Morin has the dirt on what made this area so rich in the Catholic church’s estimation that it moved its mission here to St. Albert from Lac Ste. Anne.
“As our local historian Ray Pinco says, we’re one of the top four places in the world to grow,” she said.
That’s just one of the tidbits of important local history that she’ll be sharing next Tuesday during a presentation called The Métis: Lac Ste. Anne and St. Albert. Her talk will focus on not only the history of the original settlement but also the development of the mission in St. Albert that grew from the people of Lac St. Anne and who the Métis are.
Morin says these opportunities to discuss the past should help to preserve those stories and to improve cross-cultural relationships in the future.
“My presentations are usually what I call Métis 101. What we’re finding is that we are not promoting ourselves as much as we should be and a lot of things are getting lost within the First Nations and First Nations history is becoming more of the focus when they’re talking about Aboriginal or Indigenous peoples. The thing that’s getting lost in all of that is the diversity within the Indigenous community. I really want to talk about how diverse we are and how we’ve contributed to these communities that we live in.”
She said that understanding Métis history between Lac Ste. Anne and St. Albert is about more than just dirt. It's about how people came together along an important waterway.
“The first mission was built out there [at Lac Ste. Anne] but it didn’t last very long. They were trying to introduce agriculture and so forth but it’s very sandy out there. It wasn’t successful for agriculture but as [Father] Lacombe was travelling to Fort Edmonton, he’s coming through along the Sturgeon River. Métis people are living along the Sturgeon River already. He would stop in and do baptismals and weddings and things like that. They also started to notice the quality of the soil. They started to realize that the soil is really good here and it would be more viable here so they set up the mission here in 1861.”
The talk takes place starting at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 23, at Queen Alexandra School, 7730 106 St. in Edmonton.
History series
Morin’s presentation is the second in the society’s Speaker Series, which started off with a presentation last month on the history of beer in Edmonton. Stephen Yakimets said that the series tries to touch on a lot of historical bases including Indigenous history.“What we try to do is give people an idea of some of the aspects of Alberta history that are not necessarily addressed that are out there but not necessarily something that you might see in an exhibit at the Musée Héritage or the Royal Alberta Museum. We try to talk about some of the things out there,” he said.
Upcoming presentations will focus on the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic and the founding of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada. Musée Héritage Museum’s Aboriginal programmer, Celina Loyer, will offer her own presentation on the history of the Michel Band on Feb. 26, 2019. Visit www.historicedmonton.ca to learn more.
