A few months ago we heard that Fort Battleford had been closed down. We could hardly believe it and couldn’t think of a good reason why closing The Fort would be a good idea. We had lived there for more than ten years while Dad was Superintendant and it felt very personal. Since then Dad has done lot of research to find out why it was closed. He has written to several different government officials at different levels to express his concern. Here are some of his thoughts about the closure.
Tara Scaglione, a staff reporter for the Battlefords News-Optimist, wrote in 2010 that Battleford’s ‘extensive’ history played an important part in defining the community and even the nation at large. “But every so often, the fire that is our heritage wanes and threatens to slip into the darkness of forgetfulness. Sometimes, we lose these pieces of ourselves, but sometimes we are fortunate enough and someone steps in to save what would otherwise be lost,” she wrote, going on to explain Campbell Innes’s role in saving Fort Battleford.
When I became officer in charge of “Fort Battleford National Historic Park” in 1952 it seemed well “saved” and securely established. At that time only five of its many buildings from its historic period remained and housed artifacts to enhance the stories of its role in the history of the area and the rest of the nation. It also included the results of collections of “Indian”, fur-trade, Territorial Government and pioneer artifacts housed in the barracks building called, “The Indian Museum”. Looking back to when I started 71 years ago and over the subsequent thirty-two years of my attachment to National Historic Sites, it seems that those years may have been, not only the hey-day of my working period, but the hey-day of that Federal Historic Parks organization.
I realize my good fortune, to have had two good things to help me when I started. My first three years at the Fort had the guidance and mentorship of Campbell Innes, the man who was the main force behind the saving of Fort Battleford. I came there with a great deal of respect and something of awe of the man. Campbell Innes was well known by all the area school children growing up in the 1930s-40s when he was School Superintendent of all rural schools in the Battlefords area. He had impressed us with recording the stories of our elders and the history of the Indians, the fur-trade, and the pioneers and how these stories, sites and artifacts are so important in bringing the facts of the past vividly into our present. In 1952 that opportunity was placed right into my hands with all the tangible, historical resources for my use in presenting history to a new generation.
Fort Battleford is one of the tangible artifacts of National Importance and a fact of history. It must be cared for and preserved as much as personal artifacts like my grandparent’s marriage certificate or a prime ministers home, the Crown Jewels in London, the war club of Wandering Spirit and the markings of the facts of the Battle of Cut Knife Hill on Poundmaker Reserve would be.
The second advantage that influenced that era of interest in things historic were two major events, both programmed to stimulate the public consciousness toward things historic. First was Saskatchewan’s 50th anniversary as a province in 1955 and then Canada’s Centennial Celebration in 1967 followed, and more quietly, by the 100th anniversary of the North West Territories in 1976. If this present generation lacks the incentive to flock to our historic sites at present, they must at least preserve them for the future when someone may add the tinder to light the flame of interest once more.
It seems that there were two parts to the original Federal undertaking for the preservation of the of Fort Battleford. 1) The preservation of the Northwest Mounted Police buildings of the historic fort as a memorial to the services of those men of the force; and 2) a Museum of the Cree and Assiniboins people and their cultures through to the fur-trade and pioneer settlement periods. It now seems a time not to closed Fort Battleford but to let what is left of the Fort buildings carry on with their original intent and to take this opportunity to place an emphasis on the Museum portion with full indigenous participation.