Fort George and Buckingham House Provincial Historic Site

10/11/2026

Have you ever struggled to fill out an online form because your name or address didn’t fit into the exact format expected by the form? Or the drop-down menu didn’t have the option you needed?

Many people in our past experienced this same problem when it came to the Canadian census. The census usually asked what ethnicity or “race” people were. But a lot of people didn’t fit into any of the categories. Metis people, for example, often had to pick either “Indian” or “white.” This makes it challenging to find all the Metis people in the census records.

The census is one of the tools modern people use to understand the people who came before us. But the census isn’t a perfect tool. The way the census is set up affects which pieces of information were saved. And sometimes that can warp, twist, and mess up our understanding of the past.

This blog post explores how the census impacts our understanding of the Metis, including the children of the Fort George and Buckingham House people.

MÉTIS AND CENSUS: Reading Between the Lines Words by Matt Hiltermann According to Benedict Anderson, the census – along with the map and museum – has “profoundly shaped the way in which the colonial state imagined its dominion.”¹In the late nineteenth century, census categories became incr...

10/09/2026

Mr. Bear is stunned by how awesome the archaeological finds are!

He is especially impressed by long, skinny, pointed pieces of bone or metal called “awls”. Awls are one of those everyday objects that our modern eyes might ignore because they look so simple. But awls were necessary tools.

Every time you needed to sew through leather, you needed an awl to poke holes that your needle could get through. And every time you got holes in the bottom of your moccasins, you had to sew a new leather sole on. Repairing moccasins was a constant task that needed an awl.

Archaeologists found at least 14 metal awls at Fort George.

Pictured here is the plain metal of the awl. This is the way it was shipped across the ocean to arrive at Fort George. See the funny “L” shape in the middle? That’s so that the awl doesn’t slip and slide out of the handle people made for it. Handles were usually made from antler or wood.

10/07/2026

👂Hearing history: What did history sound like?

Animal thunder:

Many people comment how quiet and how beautiful Fort George & Buckingham House. But it would not always have been like that. In the years prior to 1860, when large herds of bison roamed the area, people might well have heard what sounded like thunder.

In 1811 Henry Brackenridge visited South Dakota. He described hearing herds of bison: “Late in the evening we saw an immense herd in motion along the sides of the hill … The sound of their footsteps, even at the distance of two miles, resembled the rumbling of distant thunder.”

Another observer in the 1830s compared the noise of bison travelling to a train: “Still their advance is somewhat frightful their thundering rumble over the dry plain … puffing like a locomotive engine at every bound, does at first make the blood settle a little heavy about the heart.”

Along with that noise, bison herds’ travel could make the ground shake. Palliser was still 2 miles away from a bison herd when we observed “They were in such numbers that their peculiar grunt sounded like the roar of distant rapids in a large river, and causing a vibration also something like a trembling in the ground.”

Jack Brink writes more about the sounds of bison in his excellent book Imagining Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump. These quotes were taken from p.148. You can read the book for free: https://read.aupress.ca/read/imagining-head-smashed-in/section/fdeca709-dadc-42a5-854d-c9acf9502f93

10/04/2026

Who is out enjoying the fall weather today? Runners! Intense runners.

The Iron Horse Ultra Marathon runners will be passing through Fort George & Buckingham House today.

Ultra marathon runners race not just for the mere 26 miles of a normal marathon. Instead, ultra marathon runners go for a whooping 100 miles. (Or 60 km or 100 km if you are intense, but not extra extra extra intense.)

If you see any runners around the county today, give them a wave 👋

10/02/2026

Clay pipes just like these spread across the world in vast numbers, including to right here at Fort George & Buckingham House. White clay pipes like these ones were found in our archaeological digs and are on display inside the visitor centre’s gallery.

Can you think of a modern object that is in use around the world today?

Clay to***co pipes became part of European culture after explorers encountered Indigenous peoples in North America in the sixteenth century.

09/30/2026

“When students hear my story, I see them shift. I see them thinking about their own families, their own hearts. That’s when I know healing is possible—when people truly listen.” – Orange Shirt Day Speaker, 2024

Have you listened to someone else’s story today?

https://orangeshirtday.org/resources/activities/

09/27/2026

Honey, I shrunk the food!

Have you ever noticed how much stuff it takes to go camping?

Now think about camping for 5 months. This is exactly what the fur traders paddling canoes from Fort George to Lake Superior and back each summer were doing.

But they had a problem: Canoes just aren’t that big.

And you needed to carry not only the trade goods or furs, all the provisions for the trip, and of course the people themselves still needed to fit inside the canoe.

Food could take up a lot of space.

One way of solving this problem was to make the food smaller. Not by eating less. Oh, no! These folks ate ENORMOUS amounts of calories. Instead, using Indigenous expertise, fresh bison meat was preserved into pemmican. After the meat was dried, smoked, pounded, and mixed with fat, it took up a lot less space.

So why not take some space-saving food on your next canoe trip? Afterall, our ancestors knew what they were doing!

Photos of modern day canoer portaging at Fort George and pemmican.

09/25/2026

Looking for a book to read over the fall? Do you look at the changing colour of the leaves and wonder how the cooler weather impacted people in the past?
How the weather, plants, animals and local conditions affected humans is part of what “environmental historians” study.

15 environmental historians shared their favourite books that help us to grapple with how the physical world around us impacted people of the past.

Historians and historical geographers from across Canada weigh in on the seminal texts of Canadian environmental history.

09/23/2026

It’s Fat Bear Week!!

What’s your vote? Is Fat Bear Week the most exciting week of the year?

We get to watch fat bears eat fish (click on this link to connect to the live cameras), then we get to argue over which bears are the most pleasingly rotund. You can even vote online. Join in the fun and tell us who your favourite bear is.

https://explore.org/livecams

09/20/2026

Harvest time is here!

Watch out for slow moving farm equipment on the roads, especially at dusk, to keep our farmers safe.

There weren’t any tractors around here in the 1790s, so please accept this impressive1912 International Harvester Mogul 45, now at the Reynolds Alberta Museum, as historical photo tax instead!

Photo courtesy of the Reynolds Alberta Museum.