The Moncur Gallery is well known across our province and beyond for its unique and well-presented collection of pre-contact artefacts. It is an important Boissevain attraction and a tribute to the man who is commemorated in its name.
Bill Moncur, who was born in 1910, farmed about five miles north of Boissevain. He was a naturally curious and observant man. As he worked his land he often found arrowheads and other hand-crafted tools. His first find, in 1924, was an arrowhead. He learned that his land sat upon a notable Indigenous trade route called the Mandan Trail. He wanted to know more about the people who travelled that trail and lived in this region.
On a cold winter’s day in 1942, Bill was at the Deloraine train station. He noticed an exchange between the conductor and an older Indigenous man. The older gentleman wanted to send skunk furs to Hudson’s Bay in Winnipeg, but the conductor had refused to take the stinky furs. Bill intervened and solved the problem by securing the furs between two cars so the smell wouldn’t inconvenience passengers. An enduring friendship was the result of that chance meeting.
Seeking to learn more about the artifacts he had been collecting, he invited the man, Charles Chaske Eagle, known as Sitting Eagle, to coffee and pie in a restaurant. They met several times over the years. Bill learned that Sitting Eagle was Dakota; the last remaining resi dent on land formerly known as Turtle Mountain Indian Reserve #60.
He learned that Turtle Mountain was central to seven First Nations on the Plains: the Cree, Saultheaux, Ojibwa, Hidatsa, Dakota, Arikara and Assiniboine. These Nations would send representatives to mediate conflicts between their Nations and later, to discuss settler expansion into their territories. When they met, a council circle was formed and seven stones – one for each nation - placed in the centre. According to Bill’s telling of the story, the Council had decided that its work was done, but they wanted to preserve the Council Stones, and the story of the Council. How best to do this? Sitting Eagle proposed that the Council welcome Bill into their midst.
Bill was keen to get involved and so met with the representatives in a clearing under a great oak, somewhere on Turtle Mountain. He observed quietly as seven stones were brought out. The representatives smudged, then smoked the sacred pipe, passing it clockwise. After a discussion, the Council asked Bill to protect, and to teach about, the artifacts left in his care. Bill promised to do his best.
Some time later, the Deloraine station manager alerted Bill to a package left for him. Two rocks. After a few months, five more had arrived. Seven in all. Sitting Eagle apparently carried them from his home on Turtle Mountain to the station. Bill added each to his collection. All roundish and smooth. Varying sizes. Three weeks after he received the final stone, Bill heard that his friend and teacher, Sitting Eagle, had passed away.
You can visit the Council Stones, and all the artifacts Bill collected and preserved, at the Moncur Gallery in Boissevain.
Bill’s contribution to uncovering our region's history is far reaching. His work of collecting the stories of the pioneers, and in locating historic sites, became the basis for the Boissevain history book Beckoning Hills, published in 1956. He wrote numerous entries in the follow-up volume Beckoning Hills Revisited (1981) and was a great resource for many other publications. From 1970 until 1979 he was the administrator for the Manitoba Agricultural Museum in Austin. He was the recipient of numerous awards for his work in history, archaeology, wildlife conservation and community service.
Perhaps an entry Bill wrote for Beckoning Hills Revisited best explains his love for the region and his motivation for his many contributions…
“Other than the nine and one-half years spent as administrator of the Manitoba Agricultural Museum, I have lived where I was born. Looking back I would not have it any other way. Our farm, with its bluffs and meadows, has its share of wildlife and prairie flowers. The early trails that once crisscrossed the farm, gave me a deep interest in this district’s past, as do the Indian artifacts that I found over the years. This, and the many neighbours and friends we have had the privilege of knowing, leaves one with a bountiful treasure of memories.”
Bill Moncur (1910-2001). We owe him so very much.
Sources:
Interviews with James Ritchie
Bill Moncur and the Council Stones. A Vantage Points Flashback radio (CJRB)
story by David M Neufeld.
Boissevain History Book Committee. Beckoning Hills Revisited. Altona.
Friesen Printing, 1981
https://www.moncurgallery.org/bill-moncur/
https://moncurgallery.org/council-stones-sitting-ea gle/
