Museum board prepares for busy season

The board of the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum made plans during its meeting Monday for the summer season, and heard about the expected completion of the park celebrating Wahkpa Chu’gn Buffalo Jump park by Independence Day this year.

Board Chair Judi Dritshulas said Jim Marshall of Medicine Hat, the artist who made the mural that is located at Havre Inn and Suites and visible from U.S. Highway 2, plans to complete work around it this spring and early summer.

The work will include planting grass and trees, installing a sprinkler system and benches and putting up flags, she said. The benches and trees are memorials from people who donated to the mural, which also has bricks on the back with names of people who donated to the fundraising project.

Emily Mayer, who manages the museum in the Holiday Village Mall and the bison kill site located on the bluff north of the mall, said the season is ramping up both for the museum and the archaeological site. Schools are booking tours for Wahkpa Chu’gn, and she has been working with the people who do the tours for the site.

“I had never seen the stone boil before, so that was really neat, and to taste the buffalo which was delicious,” she said.

Mayer said she is also looking for more volunteers to work at the site, especially because the management of the museum and Wahkpa Chu’gn have been combined.

Mayer was hired to take the place of former museum manager Jim Spangelo, who died last fall. The duties of the position now include managing Wahkpa Chu’gn, which had been managed by John and Anna Brumley of Ethos Consulting.

The Brumleys had managed the site, which was brought to the attention of archaeologists by John Brumley in the 1960s when he was a child, since the 1990s.

John Brumley went on to become a prominent archaeologist himself, returning to Havre to manage Wahkpa Chu’gn, and continue work on it, with his wife for decades before the couple retired last fall.

Mayer said displaying the historic homes of Havre quilt made by Karen Vosen, which was raffled off at the historic tea fundraiser held last month, was a big hit.

“Showing the quilt at The Women’s Expo was really good exposure for us,” she said.

The board also continued to plan its summer presentations

Havre/Hill County Historic Preservation Commission member Keith Doll will make one of the presentations, on World War I and how it impacted Havre.

Mayer said her presentation will likely be on the sedition laws passed in Montana during World War I and their impact on this area.

After discussion, the board and Mayer decided to plan on her presentation to be in the Faber School House on the Great Northern Fairgrounds the Saturday during the fair, with two presentations planned.

Havre historian Jim Magera will make a presentation at Havre Inn and Suites during Festival Days. His presentation last year on the history of local names packed the house, with more than 100 people attending one presentation, Dritshulas said.

H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation President Elaine Morse said volunteers have been working extensively on the Havre History Center, the current home of Griggs Printing which will be the future home of the museum.

The foundation has another work session scheduled for Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.

“Anybody who wants to come is more than welcome,” she said.

She said the foundation also has been working on getting brick work done on the building, going with local contractor Frank Leeds Construction with advisors local preservationists Marc Whitacre and Erica Farmer, who have been very helpful, she said.

Morse added that the work by Leeds Construction has gone very well — the south exterior wall is completed, and it is impossible to see it is not original brick work.

“It looks nice,” she said.

The foundation has been setting projects to match what funds it has available, because it does not have enough money to bid the entire project.

She said the work completed on the inside is not visible, and the foundation wants to let people see something is happening, so it plans to put up a sign saying “Future Home of The Havre History Center,” which can then be modified to just say “Havre History Center.”

She said the foundation plans to do its Digging Up History event, an equipment rodeo where people use heavy equipment to dig through sand to find items that can be exchanged for prizes, will probably be held during Festival Days.