Hiking with ghosts of the Rebellion

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/09/2010 (5490 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

St. Norbert Provincial Heritage Park

Manitoba’s history came alive last Friday night at St. Norbert Provincial Heritage Park. The park’s annual Ghost Hike commemorates the violent events that led up to Manitoba entering into Confederation in 1870.

The St. Norbert Ghost Hike began ten years ago as a way to involve people in the history of St. Norbert. It started off small, with only eight dedicated volunteers working to bring the history of the area to life, but over the last decade it has grown to the point where more than 45 volunteers participated in this year’s Ghost Hike.

“We have the Ghost Hike here at St. Norbert as a way to get people involved in history,” said park interpreter Alex Ivory. “We had always focused on the history of St. Norbert, but we wanted to get more in depth this year.”

Over 200 park visitors, including myself and a friend, took part in the Ghost Hike this year at the park on Pembina Highway, at the south end of St. Norbert.

We gathered around a camp fire, while Ivory told ghost stories that chronicled the supernatural mysteries of the Winnipeg area. He talked about the hauntings of local landmarks, like St. Andrews Church, Captain Kennedy House, and the Manitoba Theatre Centre.

After getting us in the right mood, Ivory lead the group through the park and through the history of the Red River Rebellion of 1869-1870. Our tour started on the banks of the La Salle River where we encountered actors portraying Metis settlers.

The settlers talked of the invading newcomers from Ontario and how their way of life was changing. After this encounter, we snaked along the river, coming across an armed Métis barricade, entrusted with keeping land surveyors from Ontario out.

As the tour continued, an actor portraying Louis Riel spoke to our group. He discussed his reasons for leading the Métis into a rebellion against the Canadian government and for protecting the culture and land of his people. Like the other actors, the actor portraying Riel did an excellent job, breathing life into the legendary Métis leader.

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The remainder of the tour criss-crossed between the restored settlers’ homes in the park. Encounters with historical figures John A. MacDonald, Bishop Richot, and Colonel Garnet Wolseley helped tell the story leading up to Manitoba’s entrance into Confederation in 1870 and Louis Riel’s subsequent exile to the United States.

The Ghost Hike is an excellent event to draw visitors to a provincial heritage park that is right on Winnipeg’s doorstep. Ivory and his team of interpreters and actors did a wonderful job of bringing Manitoba’s most important historical moments to life. The growing number of visitors throughout the years underlines the success of St. Norbert’s Ghost Hike.

Besides the Ghost Hike, St. Norbert Provincial Heritage Park provides an interesting glimpse into Manitoba’s early French-speaking Métis and French-Canadian settlements.

Four historical homes from the area were moved to the park in the mid-1980s. The Delorme house was home to a Métis family during the mid-19th century, while the Bohemier and Turenne houses represent homesteads from the post-1870 period.

Guided tours of the park are only available for one more weekend (the Labour Day weekend), so if you’re interested in the history of the park, stop in before it’s too late for this year.

Aside from checking out the St. Norbert Provincial Heritage Park, we also (finally) made it to the Duck Mountain area last weekend. A blog post documenting this journey is coming soon.

We’re heading up to the Flin Flon area for the Labour Day weekend, for our last northern adventure. It has been a hectic summer, but there are still many parks to visit, so the journey continues on through the fall and winter.

Parks visited in today’s post:

 

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