The local “Call Before You Dig” safety program is well known. Anyone planning to dig deeper than 15 cm for any reason needs to contact Manitoba Hydro to “identify underground electrical and natural gas lines before you dig to prevent personal injury or death, costly repairs, equipment damage, service outages, and environmental pollution.” [1]
Fifteen centimetres isn’t very deep, and nowhere near six feet under. Imagine the surprise in 1967 when workmen digging a sewer trench on Buchanan Boulevard uncovered not a utility line, but five skulls! The community club there ought to be haunted.
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| Archaeologists at the University of Manitoba had few clues as to the story behind the odd find. It remains a mystery. [2] |
Mysterious, but perhaps not so surprising. A 1970 article reported that local archaeologists recorded 58 historical and prehistorical sites within Winnipeg’s perimeter highway. Extensive archaeological work preceded The Forks development, and its Archaeological Impact Assessment and Management Plan acknowledged that, “The Forks is the most significant archaeological site in Manitoba, if not the entire prairies.” [3] Winnipeg Free Press columnist Niigaan Sinclair has written about the effects of smallpox and locations around Broadway and Main Street, concluding that, “Much of the city’s downtown could be the site of a massive Indigenous burial mound.” [4]
A 1970 study claimed, “The Sturgeon Creek area proved ‘slightly disappointing,’ but pre-historic traces indicate a small complex of habitation area and burial mound.” [5]
In 1983 Winnipeg Free Press writer Myron Love lamented that only three or four identified sites in a 1980 archaeological report had received any attention. Dozens were listed, including “a substantial village buried possibly alongside Sturgeon Road,” most likely near a burial mound in St. James-Assiniboia. Love wondered if this was the Indian burial mound “being used as a snow dump.” [6]
In 1968 the Living Prairie Museum was established at 2795 Ness Avenue as a 13-hectare tall grass prairie preserve. The nature park protects a scarce habitat that once dominated the plains. In 1974 the museum wanted the city to extend the site and prevent adjacent industrial development. The newspaper article added a suggestion that “the city acquire the site of an Indian burial ground farther north and link it to the Living Prairie Museum.” [7]
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| The 1974 plea for more acreage did not prevent industrial development nearby. [7] |
A reunion of sorts was held by the Living Prairie Museum in 2006. The burial mound a mere 400 metres due north of the museum was mentioned when oldtimers reminisced in a project called “A Walk Through the Prairie Past – the History of the Living Prairie Museum” hosted online by the VMC (virtualmuseum.ca). [8]
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| A map on the VMC site notes location #1 as an “Indian Burial Mound.” [8] |
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| Overlaid on a current Google map, location #1 appears to be an odd collection of stones (circled here in red) just north of Murray Park Road and adjacent to Boeing Canada’s parking lot. |
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| A closer view of the site [Google maps] |
Museum founder and dedicated naturalist Dr. Robert Nero noted the “historic Sioux burial mound that sits on very decent prairie.” He said he was disappointed that this area “had not been embraced within the boundaries of the Living Prairie Museum site and that burial mound preserved and identified and designated.” Archaeologists determined that the site was several hundred years old and contained the remains of five or six individuals. [8]
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| First excavation of the burial mound, 1930. [8] |
Reunion interviewee Jack Brown told of the initial excavation of the burial mound:
They dug out the top, ’til they come to some stones and then they dug by hand and they dug around and cleaned off these stones and there was a pile of stones in the center and four small, small piles in the direction of the compass (north, south and east and west) and it was getting on to late and the guy wanted to take a picture of these, but he said, well, we’ll do it in the morning, so after they left, I guess some kids had come before they got there in the morning and had scattered the stones around so he said, put them back like they looked, and the guy took his pictures, but then they removed the stones and they dug below them and they took out seven skeletons, human skeletons, and the guy took them away, the bones away with him.
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| The site was excavated again in 1960. [8] |
No doubt there are several such local burial sites that have escaped notice. Perhaps that is for the best. May they rest in peace.
Sources
- “Call Before You Dig” program, Manitoba Hydro. https://www.hydro.mb.ca/safety/click_before_you_dig
- “The Case of the 5 Skulls,” Winnipeg Free Press, October 25, 1967, p. 3
- Forks Archaeological Impact Assessment and Management Plan. City of Winnipeg, Forks Renewal Corporation, 1988. https://www.theforks.com/uploads/bibliographies/1988-Forks_Archaeological_Impact_Assessment_and_Mngm_Plan.pdf
- Niigaan Sinclair, “Smallpox epidemic left massive Indigenous burial ground under Winnipeg’s downtown,” Winnipeg Free Press, October 3, 2018, p. 11
- “Students Comb City For History,” Winnipeg Free Press, January 17, 1970, p. 3
- Myron Love, “Careless feet walk on rich heritage: Clues indicate a buried Indian village,” Winnipeg Free Press, March 26, 1983, p. 34
- “Residents Want Park Enlarged,” Winnipeg Free Press, April 226, 1974, p. 31
- “A Walk Through the Prairie Past – the History of the Living Prairie Museum,” https://www.communitystories.ca/v1/pm_v2.php?id=exhibit_home&fl=0&lg=English&ex=00000661
