Bonnyville's Museum Offers a Slice of Pioneer Life

The Bonnyville and District Museum offers a wonderful display of Bonnyville's history over the past 200 years. Opened in 1991, the museum is run by the Bonnyville & District Historical Society. Situated on 3.5 acres, the museum houses 250,000 artifacts, and is the site of many special events, including a Museum Day, Seniors Day, Pancake Breakfasts and Harvest demonstrations.

At the opening of the museum's grounds stands a hand-carved seven metre tall statue of fur trader Angus Shaw, the first European to come to the area in the mid-1700s. Carved by artist Herman Poulin of Hub Designs in St. Edouard, Alberta, the statue stands as a welcome to the 2,500 people who visit the museum each year.

Behind him stands the museum itself, and a re-creation of the early buildings of Bonnyville, including the first log church, the first hospital, a fur traders shack, schoolhouse, merchant store and machine shed housing an impressive collection of antique tractors and cars.

Inside the museum itself, the exhibits honour the Native, French and Ukrainian cultures that were instrumental in forming Bonnyville. Among the displays is the unique Poitras Collection. In tiny figures made of papier-mache and recycled bits of leather, wire, feathers, cloth and other materials, Bonnyville settler Clementine Poitras created a graphic portrayal of pioneer life among the early settlers in the first half of the century. This collection is one of the most unique gatherings of French folk art in Western Canada. The entire collection was willed to the town of Bonnyville by Poitras, and was displayed in Ottawa during Canada's centennial in 1967.

Other exhibits in the museum include a detailed history of Bonnyville's settlement and the different habits of the three orders of nuns involved in Bonnyville's history: the Nuns of the Holy Cross and the Nuns of the Assumption, who were teachers; and the Sisters of Charity of Notre Dame d'Everon, who helped establish the first hospital.