Galtcast Galt Museum & Archives

Rebecca Many Grey Horses presents an overview of indigenous history in southern Alberta. Rebecca has facilitated Indigenous history classes here at the Galt for the past two years, bringing in local experts, knowledge keepers and elders to educate large groups of learners. The video features many archival images.

We get over a hundred calls a year form people interested in donating objects to the Galt Museum & Archives. The calls always start with a pitch about the objects. Usually, the first words uttered by the caller are “I’ve got an old-old-old thing…” and sometimes that is followed up with “…it’s museum quality.” But what is museum quality?

Some people think that objects that are in pristine condition are “museum quality.” That can be true, but it really depends on the relationship between the object and the donor. In this video, Collections Technician Kevin MacLean explains the difference between two “museum quality” items, a pristine model airplane from the Lethbridge Prisoner of War Camp and a 1960s “Punkinhead” teddy bear from Eatons. The plane was stored on a closet shelf for decades to ensure that it did not break because it was so meaningful to the child who received it, while the Punkinhead “was loved so much, so intensely, so directly, for so long that it shouts ‘I’ll be loved more than you ever will.’”

Please keep telling us that your potential donations are “museum quality,” but think of it less in terms of its physical condition, and focus more on its cultural quality. That is the usefulness of the object as a tool to help tell the story of a place; in our case, Lethbridge and southwestern Alberta.

You can check out each of the five objects highlighted in this video at the links below:

Punkinhead 1, 20180021003: https://collections.galtmuseum.com/en/permalink/artifact13421

Punkinhead 2, 20180021002: https://collections.galtmuseum.com/en/permalink/artifact13420

Punkinhead 3, 20180021001: https://collections.galtmuseum.com/en/permalink/artifact13419

Punkinhead 4, 20180021004: https://collections.galtmuseum.com/en/permalink/artifact13422

German HE-111 Bomber Model Plan, 20080025000: https://collections.galtmuseum.com/en/permalink/artifact12380

Since 1936, the Lethbridge art scene has flourished, in no small part due to the presence of an enthusiastic Art Club. Artists in the club create, show and sell their work. They teach others the skills to make their own art. Artist Wendy Aitkens explores the history of the club and art of talented members over the last 84 years.

Áísínai’pi (Writing-on-Stone) is a remarkable landscape of great cultural importance. Former park interpreter Rebecca Wilde discusses the significance of the Indigenous rock art, landforms, Blackfoot cultural traditions and Euro-Canadian settler history of Canada’s newest UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Dr. Jay Gamble discusses the relationship between fantasy literature and the epic tradition, a tradition that includes works such as Beowulf, Homer's Iliad and Virgil's The Aeneid. Other fantasy writers discussed by Gamble in this fascinating presentation include Tolkien, Guy Gavriel Kay and Ursula K. Le Guin.

"All structures are, in some ways, ideology made manifest." Graham Ruttan discusses his thoughts about the Plat of Zion, a city planning map that some believe was inspired by deity and which was used as the base map for several southern Alberta communities more than 100 years ago.