On Thursday, September 23, Township staff and Mission House Museum’s former curator David Kelley met with representatives from Algonquins of Ontario to repatriate items that had been housed in the museum.

Staff have been working with the organization since the museum’s closure in the spring to find a home for the artifacts. The vast collection, donated to the Museum by a community member, included pieces of pottery, arrowheads, and scraping tools. These items were all found in Combermere at a few select sites that were known to the organization as former Algonquin village sites. Kelley, a local historian, was able to provide context and greater detail on the sites and the items his museum had housed.

The items will be catalogued, researched and dated, and eventually be displayed for the public to enjoy. They will also contribute significantly to the organization’s knowledge and research of Indigenous history in the Combermere area.

For more information on the repatriation or the Mission House Museum, contact Hannah Gutoskie at recreation@madawaskavalley.ca.