Traditional Indigenous time keeping focus of Galt event

By Ry Clarke - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on January 19, 2023.

Herald photo by Ry Clarke Participants create their own winter counts, a traditional Indigenous calendar that tells the previous year in pictorial form, during programming Wednesday at the Galt Museum.

The Galt Museum held its bi-monthly Creative Community programming on Wednesday, giving a special nod to the new year and how we keep track of significant events in our lives.

Audience members were invited to come to the Galt to learn about the Indigenous way of time keeping and how our Gregorian calendar differs from theirs. Participants learned about winter counts and how the pictorial calendar shows a history of tribal records and events, followed by an activity designing their own winter counts.

“It is a calendar using pictures to tell records of historical and memorable events of an Indigenous tribe. They were a way of preserving a tribe’s history for generations,” said Kristin Krein, Galt Museum community programmer. “This is from our plains tribes, this was used in these areas. It was called a winter count because Indigenous nations didn’t divide time as European people did. In winter counts a year was not January to December, historically Native Americans counted a year from the first snowfall to the next year’s snowfall.”

A modern winter count replica was on display for participants to draw inspiration from. The piece was created by Ira Provost, guest curator, titled Piikanikoan – Living under a Blackfoot Sky: A Modern Winter Count, displaying artful representations of his life of music, heritage, education, career, and culture.

The exhibit was designed to travel and is available on loan to schools, libraries, community groups, and smaller rural museums.

Creating insightful programming for audiences, the hands-on activity helped challenge the way we view everyday norms.

“I spent so much time in education in the last two years in my previous role, and sometimes it isn’t challenged that the calendar can only be one way, the Gregorian January to December,” said Krein. “Winter counts were passed from one person to the next, to assist people in knowing and understanding where they had been and what had occurred in the previous years.”

Exploring education programming, the Galt strives to bring audiences compelling content that sparks thought and learning.

“I am always learning, I want to make sure that I am putting an awareness out that this is a journey for all of us. I am not an expert by any means, and if anybody has something that they’d like to learn more about – we don’t want things to be generic – I am happy to learn what I can,” said Krein.