General Manager of Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park, Stephen Yellow Old Woman announced in a vide on their YouTube Channel May 17 that Chief Crowfoot’s artifacts are being returned.
The Blackfoot Crossing staff worked diligently for a decade and ultimately sent a formal letter to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, United Kingdom in 2015, requesting that Chief Crowfoot’s war shirt that he wore at the signing of the Blackfoot treaty in 1877, along with other items of significance that belonged to him, be repatriated to Alberta.
Image shows more artifacts that belong to Chief Crowfoot (Photo Credits - Exeter City Council)
These items were held in the UK for well over 150 years inside a drawer. With the help of past and present team members of Blackfoot Crossing, former Chief in Council and Premier Jason Kenney, the artifacts will finally be at home later this month.
Current elders and team members are heading overseas to reclaim the artifacts; the official repatriation for Chief Crowfoot’s artifacts is May 25th.
The Blackfoot Crossing Museum is working out the details of how that day will look and how the homecoming will be celebrated.
With this being an emotional time for the Blackfoot people in the community, the museum will be closed to the public from May 26th to June 7th. However, it will be open to the Siksika First Nation and other members of the Blackfoot confederacy. During that time, the members may enter and have private and uninterrupted viewings with friends, family and clans to see Chief Crowfoots returned items before they are open to the public.
It has also been announced that after two years of the pandemic, the Blackfoot Crossing Museum will reopen with a new teepee camping experience, where those who wish to participate can live inside the teepee’s overnight like the Blackfoot people did back in the day.
They will also celebrate the acceptance and recognition of the first Indigenous owned museum in Alberta, along with being accepted and accredited through the Alberta Museum Association on June 8th.
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/blackfootcrossing
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