The Turtle Mountain Souris Plains Heritage Association (TMSPHA) held their 10th Annual Local History Seminar last week Thursday, and even though the heavy dump of snow altered the plan somewhat, the organizing committee forged ahead, and they had a great day!

Event organizer and committee administration, JoAnne Juce, says their speaker line-up had a few changes, but the 70 or so people who attended the conference filling the audience chairs all enjoyed the presentations.

"The snow did put a few people off, but the day went remarkably well," shares Juce. First presenter of the day, Minister Leah LaPlante of the Manitoba Metis Federation was to give a presentation on the Metis History on Turtle Mountain, but unfortunately couldn't make it out of Brandon due to the snow and highway conditions.

"So, we were able to find a very, very reasonable alternative who was able to get down to us in about 20 minutes.  Brad Bird put on an excellent presentation and was very amusing," explains Juce.

Janelle Villeneuve tried to get herself to the Deloraine Community Complex so she could present with family members, Stan, Glen and Dave Hicks on the history of the Hicks family from the Ninga area, to share on their cattle grazing at William Lake.

"Janelle was coming from Lethbridge, Alberta, and she flew from Lethbridge to Brandon, got turned back, ended up in Regina, rented a car and drove to Moosomin the night before, and managed to come into Deloraine in time on the Thursday morning," says Juce. "So, she's a pretty dedicated person and she moderated the discussion with her dad and her two uncles!"

A highlight for the members of TMSPHA was the seven local museums or heritage associations that brought samples of their artifacts to display, each featuring a mini exhibit. 

"Our third presentation was about museums, how to help your local museum, so there was a reason to have the museums be invited, just for themselves to learn from our presenters, but also for people to think about how important museums are in our communities," she explains.   "We had Elgin, Deloraine, Hartney, Boissevain, Melita, Waskada and Killarney and everyone had a really great sampling of what their museums were about.  So that was an extra bonus for us!"

Please listen to more with JoAnne Juce below as she shares more on the History Seminar of March 7th at Deloraine!