>>PREVIEW
MAVERICKS: AN INCORRIGIBLE HISTORY OF ALBERTA
Opens March 24
Glenbow Museum
A $12 million permanent exhibition that is set to open at Glenbow Museum tries to answer the unanswerable – What makes one person strike out on an untested path and forge ahead with no guarantee of success while others choose to watch from the safety of the sidelines?
Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta is the largest exhibition to be presented at the museum since it opened its doors in 1976. "It’s 24,000 square feet," exclaims Michale Lang, project manager of the exhibition.
Using the stories of 48 "mavericks" to guide visitors through Alberta’s history, Glenbow staff, led by Lang, have been able to lift facts and figures off the pages of dusty volumes and give them life by illustrating the lives of this collection of fascinating individuals.
"The 48 characters go from famous, not at all famous, to infamous," says Lang.
Divided into 12 distinct exhibition spaces, including ranching, Mounties and mustangs, newcomers, oil and gas and grassroots politics, Mavericks is a feast for anyone who enjoys a good yarn. A wrestler, a politician, a cowboy and a business titan all share the same limelight.
The exhibition was inspired by the book Mavericks by Calgary-based author Aritha van Herk. An active participant in shaping Glenbow’s exhibition, van Herk has written the text for the exhibition’s interpretive panels in addition to an accompanying book titled Audacious and Adamant: The Story of Maverick Alberta.
Yet text and the "old school" style of presenting history is what Glenbow is trying to avoid. Instead, it has literally pulled out all the bells and whistles in order to captivate museum-goers’ imaginations. Train cars rumble, a drugstore sign spins and ghost-like figures beckon viewers to take in what is a multi-media extravaganza. Yet some of the stand-out items in the show are objects lovingly created by local craftsmen and artists. Two prime pieces are the voyager canoe constructed by Don Gardner and Jeff de Boer’s 11-foot-tall barbed wire sculpture of Cyclone, a bronco from the 1912 Calgary Stampede that took on mythological status for bucking 129 cowboys off his back.
Other favourite items for a local audience will surely be the photo of a muscled Stu Hart that is placed near one of his gleaming championship belts. Known in Alberta as the father of Stampede Wrestling, Hart was also a gifted amateur athlete who missed a shot in the 1940 and 1944 Olympics because of the Second World War. Rather than compete for medals, he became a sailor in the Canadian Navy, until he left to become a professional wrestler.
If the wrestling ring isn’t your thing, hop onto the replica of William van Horne’s personal rail car. An American who was appointed general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1882, he was instrumental in the CPR making it to the West.
When the first train reached Calgary in August 1883, the settlement was small. As noted in van Herk’s accompanying volume, James Egan, general superintendent, Western Division wrote to Van Horne, "I have no doubt that when you see the place it will please you. It is west of the Elbow, and the north line of the Section runs across the Bow River. It is a natural Town site, and far ahead of any location that we have on the line of the Road."
Mavericks also rescues several important historical figures from relative obscurity, Frederick Haultain being the prime example. Born in England, Haultain lived in Ontario until 1884 when he moved west to practice law at Fort Macleod.
Haultain ran for the Territorial Council in 1887 and to his surprise won the election. A skilled orator and influential politician, he was a key player in Alberta becoming a province in 1905. Van Herk calls Haultain the "father of Alberta" and few will argue with her assertion after examining the case.
Inevitably, this sweeping exhibition will be criticized because of the people it has left out. There are many more whose stories would fit comfortably under the Mavericks umbrella.
The obvious omission is former premier Ralph Klein. Peter Lougheed makes it into the energy exhibition but Ralph, for all his "individuality," did not. As the manager of the project says, "he was premier at the time," referring to the period Mavericks was developed and the $4 million the province contributed under its 2005 Centennial Legacies Grant program.
Perhaps a more worthy maverick (also omitted) is Leilani Muir. In 1959 at the age of 14, she was sterilized because of the (faulty) belief that she was mentally handicapped. Much later Muir launched legal action against the Alberta government, becoming the first woman in this province to win such a suit and paving the way for others who were harmed in a similar manner.
Anticipating such critiques – and understanding full well that history is dynamic – the organizers of Mavericks are considering adding new faces to the exhibition in the coming years.
"We might even have a Maverick-for-a-year contest," says Lang. |
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