This Friday, the Lacombe and District Historical Society will be hosting the first of their monthly speaker series with special guest, Dawn Wambold. The speaker series is something the society has been working on for the past couple of years and is being put into action this month kicking off with a virtual session due to concerns with the COVID-19 pandemic.  

“Our first one is on January 28th at 7:00PM and it is with Dawn Wambold from the Metis Nation of Alberta. She's doing a lecture series based on her current Master’s degree that she is just finishing up right now at the University of Alberta,” said Executive Director of the Lacombe and District Historical Society, Melissa Blunden.

With so many cold days this winter, you might be wondering how the Métis and Indigenous communities survived through some of Canada’s most extreme temperatures and Wambold will be able to provide a bit of insight. The topic will delve into the Women of Buffalo Lake overwintering in the community.

“She focuses on the Buffalo Lake site that was occupied by the Métis during the 1870s and focuses specifically on artifacts that have been found at the site that discussed women's roles there,” added Blunden who noted it is a series the society is looking forward to.

Wambold uses archaeology as a means to tell the story of her ancestors with a special focus on women at bison hunting winter camps as a scholar at the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology.  She hopes her research is able to tell their stories.

“She's basically done her entire degree on this sort of research using archaeology and different levels of research at different libraries and Indigenous locations as well.  So, she's really the expert on asking those questions,” said Blunden.

The speaker series will be offered free of charge but they will be taking in donations for the Lacombe and District Historical Society. To attend the virtual event you can register to the event by visiting their website or social media pages. The event will be capped at 100 registered people.

“We're hoping that we'll be able to fill it up, but we're excited that it's even got a few responses. We sent it out to quite a few of our networks throughout the region, and even all across Canada in the museum world, there's a lot of people interested in it,” said Blunden.

If you are unable to make it this Friday, there will be plenty of other opportunities to learn about local history. The historical society is hoping to host twelve speaker series throughout 2022 on several different topics.