Peaks and People

                                     Preserving McDougall Family Documents In the spring of 2017, Alberta lost an important historic place when the McDougall Stoney Mission Church in Morley was destroyed by fire. However, as fate would have it, important historical documents from another branch of the McDougall family have been rescued and preserved for future generations. Archival Assistant Sara Min from the University of Manitoba will relate the contents of the recent acquisition by the Whyte Museum Archives, as well as the archival process she undertook to both preserve and make accessible these important documents. On June 19, 2017, Archival Assistants  Nicole Ensing, Brittany Watson, and myself accompanied the Whyte Museum’s Head Archivist, Jennifer Rutkair , to Drumheller, Alberta to appraise archival materials donated by Ed and Faye  Hnetka . Ed told us that he found ...

The Portraits of Nicholas de Grandmaison Igor and Andrei admiring Nicholas de Grandmaison's painting of his wife Sonia.  Three weeks ago author Igor Krasnov stopped at the Whyte Museum while on vacation to view the artworks of the man he'd been researching and writing about for the last decade: Nicholas de Grandmaison. What began as an interest in learning about his new home in Victoria, B.C. after emmigrating from Russia, evolved into a journey to discover the story of fellow Russian immigrant and renowned artist Nicholas de Grandmaison.  His quest began at his local library where he discovered the famous Canadian painter Emily Carr. Known for her modernist depictions of the Pacific Northwest Coast lifestyle, Carr's lack of Indigenous Peoples portrayed in her paintings surprised Krasnov. Upon further research Krasnov discovered a story in one of her books explaining why she didn't paint portraits of Indigenous Peoples. According to Carr, she once tried...