Thunder Bay Museum highlights importance of treaties through travelling art exhibit
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — The Thunder Bay Museum is highlighting the importance of treaties through a travelling exhibit from The MUSE: Lake of the Woods Museum and Douglas Family Art Centre focused on Treaty #3. The exhibit, which includes the Sacred Treaty and adhesion documents as well as colourful information panels developed by the Indigenous Advisory Committee of The MUSE: Lake of the Woods Museum and Douglas Family Art Centre, is on display until the end of April 2025.
“Our modern era is really defined by us all being treaty people,” says Scott Bradley, executive director at the Thunder Bay Museum. “Since the 1850s, the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Crown and the success of Canadian government has been often defined by the treaties. Whether they’ve been abided by or not is obviously a big debate and contention, but it’s really important for people to learn about and understand the history of these treaties and how they came about and the context for all that. Not many people know that full context so it’s really important that we bring this exhibit in and add all the additional content the museum generated for the other treaties that are in northwestern Ontario.”
Bradley says they added exhibits about the Robinson Superior Treaty of 1850, Treaty 5, Treaty 9, and the Adhesions to Treaty 9.
“We generated some maps, we’ve included the original treaty text as well as a brief description of how the treaty came about, what events led to that treaty, who was involved, and what were the basic terms of the treaty,” Bradley says. “We think of them as these things from 170 years ago, but they are still part of the responsibilities of the Canadian government. So it’s really important for us to put those into context for everyone and for everyone to realize this is still happening, this is still ongoing and there needs to be some resolution.”
Braden Murray, director at The MUSE: Lake of the Woods Museum, says they had the travelling exhibit on display in the summer of 2023.
“The Sacred Document exhibit was developed in cooperation between Grand Council Treaty #3 and the MUSE Indigenous Advisory Committee,” Murray says. “As part of the commemoration of the 150 years of signing of Treaty #3 in Northwest Angle, the documents were brought to this area and there were four events in Treaty #3 territory. The exhibit, developed with the MUSE Indigenous Advisory Committee, was developed to travel with the documents and also stay here at the museum to educate the public and let people know and give the story and really kind of help people better understand the treaty and the treaty relationship.”
Murray says there was a really good response to the exhibit.
“It was up in July, August, September, and October and that’s obviously our busiest time,” Murray says. “I think a lot of people … had heard the term Treaty #3 before, but they weren’t necessarily aware of the whole story, they didn’t know what happened since the signing, they weren’t necessarily aware of everything that had happened since and how we’re moving forward. So it really helped to educate the public and a lot of people left saying, ‘Oh wow, I had no idea, that was really interesting.’ So we really were happy with that, that people were able to come in and have some takeaways.”
Murray says the reproductions of the treaty documents and adhesions were quite interesting.
“They’re very different from what the modern kind of handwriting even looks like, so people were really keen at that,” Murray says. “Seeing the language, seeing the different signatures, it really helps connect the past to the present and the future. As far as the exhibit itself, the panels are very colourful, there’s lots of great images and it really succinctly kind of tells the story of the signing and sort of how we’ve moved forward from that.”