The Northern Life Museum & Cultural Center is located in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada and is the oldest museum in the Canadian North. The museum hosts a collection of over 10,000 artifacts representing the heritage, culture and events of the people of Northern Canada. The Oblate Fathers and the Grey Nuns collected many of the artifacts currently displayed during their missionary work in the north during the early 20th century. The museum’s primary collection was first displayed in the year of 1964 in the basement of Grandin College (now PWK High School). In 1972 the Northern Anthropological & Cultural Society was founded in Fort Smith for the purpose of promoting, building and maintaining a museum. In May of this year the Northern Life Museum& Cultural Center was officially established and opened to the public. Housed in the museum’s outside gallery is a collection of equipment and machinery that was used in the Thebacha area during the early 1900’s. The exhibit includes a tractor that was brought north in 1918 to work the portage route between Fort Fitzgerald and Fort Smith. It also includes The Radium King, a vessel that was initially used to haul uranium and radium ore and then later used to push barges. The permanent indoor exhibit hosts a vast library of artifacts all relating to one of four themes; Transportation, The People of The North, Missionaries and Natural History / Technology. Wood Buffalo National Park currently hosts the last remaining natural migratory flock of white whooping cranes. In the mid 1960’s the natural whooping crane population was fast approaching extinction when an injured baby chick was discovered in the Fort Smith area. The decision was made to capture the chick, as it would be impossible for it to survive in the wild. With a joint American effort the chick (known as CanUs) was raised and used to rebuild the wild whooping crane population. Canus died at the age of 39 in 2003 and came to join the museum as part of their permanent exhibit.
