A few items currently housed at the Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre will be shipped back to their homes.
During Thursday’s county council meeting, Director of Museum and Cultural Services Cathy McGirr, shared that through the museum’s research into a few items, staff decided to have them removed from collection.
The work is related to a major project that was carried out by the Museum, as a part of ongoing efforts to advance reconciliation.
“We have taken the important first step in the identification of the Indigenous cultural belongings in our collection. The research and outreach have resulted in an initial cultural attribution for approximately a hundred belongings. This means further understanding of donors, and further acquisitions of belongings, development of a list of makers and artists, relationship building with local community, and other cultural institutions, and supporting requests for repatriation.”
The outreach included contact with the Great Lakes Research Alliance (GRASAC), the Saugeen Ojibway Nation’s environment office, and holding conversations with the First Nations groups where items originated from.
Within the report submitted to council, eight separate items were up for deaccession.
The first item, a carving of a wooden totem pole, was found to be created by artist Bob Cole, of the Squamish Nation in British Columbia. It will be removed from the collection, and sent back to BC, as requested by the Squamish-Lil’wat Cultural Centre in Whistler.
A total of three items, were created by Arthur Moody of the Haida Nation in BC. They are a small totem pole and a pair of medallions, which were carved out of either argillite or slate. They are being repatriated by the Haida Gwaii Museum in Skidegate, BC.
Museum staff will continue with their work, after finding that approximately 100 different items have now been attributed.
Those items will be sent back to those communities, and be repatriated as they rightfully do not belong to Bruce County.
The Museum also found that four other items, which are unauthorized reproductions of totem poles, and will be removed from the Bruce County collection to be destroyed.