The Red Lake Regional Heritage Centre is looking for people to share their stories for a new exhibit on the Anishinaabe history of the area.
Trevor Osmond, the director at the Red Lake Heritage Centre, said they circulated a poster earlier this month on social media and in paper form around the community to find people to share their stories and knowledge, or a lesson to be told.
Osmond said they wanted to do this project for a long time, as stories are lost when the older generations passes on, but the project was delayed.
“Unfortunately, we had a disaster in 2019, where our roof actually ripped off in a wind storm. So we’ve been handling that as best we can for the last three years or so,” he said. “In transitioning back into our facility, we decided the we wanted to not just put things back as they were, but kind of give things a facelift.”
Osmond said the Indigenous exhibit was one area in need of an update.
“[The exhibits] were about Indigenous people, not necessarily for Indigenous people. So we’ve been working very hard to start trying to create something that’s really more for indigenous people,” he said. “What better way to tell the story of the Anishinaabe history than to have them tell it in their own voices?”
Osmond said they have spoken to an elder and are engaging with the Red Lake Indian Friendship Centre to find people and their stories. The poster is “just to entice people to speak to us that might not be connected to the people that we’ve talked to before.”
However, he recognizes that trust issues due to experiences including residential schools may affect how open people are to sharing.
The hope is, according to Osmond, that as people learn more about the project and exactly about how their information will be share, “they feel more comfortable, they hear their friends and family talking, and maybe they will open up,”
Osmond said the stories will be shared in an introductory video that explores what it means to be Anishinaabe and the identity of the people within the community.
“It’s really starting off simple, but guaranteed some of the answers are a little bit more complicated than perhaps the question would make you think they are,” he said.
“The way we’ve designed this particular exhibit is that it’s going to have a lot of room to grow,” he said. “So each year, we’ll put more and more content on it, and tell more of the story. That’s something that we’re really excited about.”
Osmond said the first iteration of the exhibit will be up and running in the new year, when the museum officially re-opens.
Residents can learn more about the project by calling (807) 727-3006.
