This exhibition is one of the largest explorations of First Peoples’ history on the continent, with stories spanning 11,000 years and 500 generations.
Tawow...
Okï...
Thla na da...
Doken yaû bi...
WELCOME
(Cree)
(Blackfoot)
(Chipewyan)
(Nakoda)
This exhibition is like no other in Canada. More than 3,000 artifacts, recorded voices, film, dynamic lighting, interactive computer technology and Aboriginal interpreters all help to tell a story of triumph and survival.
The visitor will take a journey through time and space, from the last Ice Age to the present day. It is a remarkable process of discovery: past an ancient 9,000-year-old Bison hunt to a northern fishing camp dating back approximately 1,000 years. Visitors will enter a tipi and find themselves part of an historic event - the first contact between a European and Aboriginal peoples in this region. Then, travelling under the shimmering colours of the Northern Lights, they will meet the people of the north.
The heart of the gallery is an immense tipi - a place for teaching and storytelling. Beyond it, visitors enter the dark period of the last century when government sought to suppress the culture. Finally, through a narrow alleyway, visitors emerge in the present day where the message is of survival, healing and hope.
Aboriginal Cultures in Alberta: Five Hundred Generations is the title of the Gallery’s companion book. Written by Museum curators Susan Berry and Jack Brink and produced in partnership with Syncrude Canada, the book was officially launched on March 4, 2005. To promote learning beyond the Museum’s walls, each school and library in Alberta received a copy of the book.
This exhibition is like no other in Canada. More than 3,000 artifacts, recorded voices, film, dynamic lighting, interactive computer technology and Aboriginal interpreters all help to tell a story of triumph and survival.
The heart of the gallery is an immense tipi - a place for teaching and storytelling. Beyond it, visitors enter the dark period of the last century when government sought to suppress the culture. Finally, through a narrow alleyway, visitors emerge in the present day where the message is of survival, healing and hope.
