First Things First

This blog is about a plot of land and a building, one domestic space  in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada that was owned and sold by a dozen families over the last 115 years.

Because the property is part of traditional Indigenous lands that are the subject of the Qu’Appelle Treaty (Number 4), the first acknowledgement must be to the Cree,  Salteaux, Assiniboine and Métis peoples, Indigenous Nations who traveled, hunted, and found shelter in the areas now populated by the city of Moose Jaw and the farms and villages in the vicinity. Before the first plows were brought into the area, according to Leith Knight, Moose Jaw historian and archivist, the first wooden dwellings were the wintering cabins of Metis buffalo hunters who preferred to stay on the plains after the fall hunt. The peoples who moved and told their stories all around this place for hundreds of years did not consider themselves “land owners” or “settlers”.  Yet they surely must be acknowledged as the rightful storytellers about Beginnings.  And if we are wise, we will acknowledge and listen to their powerful narratives, listen and learn.

Hello world!

Welcome to my new blog!!  I’ve been telling some of you for years about the interesting things I have found in researching the house we live in and the families who have lived here since 1913.  Now instead of cornering you at every outing with new tidbits about who lived and grew, married, gave birth and died in our house, I can put my stories in this blog….and you can take it or leave it!!