NORTH BATTLEFORD - Arnolda Dufour Bowes tells a painful piece of history for the Métis people with her exhibit "Applies and Train Tracks," that's running now at the Chapel Gallery in North Battleford.
The Saskatoon-based Métis artist and author reclaims pieces of her father's childhood home in the Punnichy, Sask., area to honour her father and share the experiences of the Road Allowance Métis people in Canada through her work.
According to Maria Campbell's book "Stories of the Road Allowance People," many dispossessed Métis people with nowhere to go built their homes on unoccupied Crown lands that were often set aside for highways or roads. As the Crown lands were developed, the Road Allowance communities were forced from their homes, and many of their homes were burned down.
"Apples and Train Tracks" is a multi-medium art project, which includes acrylics, poetry, photography and other art forms to tell this story.
"I've been able to take different earth elements, whether it was red willow, grasses, deer antlers, duck feathers and [items] like that, to be able to work into different pieces," Dufour Bowes said.
The show also includes artwork from her sister Andrea Haughian.
Dufour Bowes said the project started based on stories her father related about his experience growing up on a Road Allowance in Saskatchewan.
A door and a window in the exhibit were taken from her father's childhood home, an old shack where he used to live in the Punnichy area, that still stands today.
"I was given permission to be able to take the door and windows from the owner because he knew my tie to that land and to that home," Dufour Bowes said.
Before the art project was born, she wrote her award-winning book "20.12 m: A short story collection of a life lived as a Road Allowance Métis," that came out in 2021.
Then, Dufour Bowes decided to tell these stories through her art.
"I wanted to be able to display the life of the Road Allowance Métis here on the Prairies, so that's where those pieces began," she said.
The project also includes her poetry and news articles from around the 1940s when the Métis from the Road Allowance communities in southern Saskatchewan were moved far north from their homes to experimental farms in the Green Lake area.
Dufour Bowes said that many Métis people were disenfranchised and lost their land, but were able to find homes on the Road Allowance in Saskatchewan.
But, she said in the 1940s the Saskatchewan Government forcibly removed the Road Allowance Métis from their communities and burned down many of their homes.
"That's where these stories come from," Dufour Bowes said. "In the art display I have a short narration film that tells the story of when they were removed, and when their houses were burned down. That's where it all stems around - that one story."
The art project documents history as well as her own family's life.
"It's a piece of history that not everyone knows about, especially here in Saskatchewan," Dufour Bowes said.
Her father's family ended up being able to stay in his family's home on the Road Allowance, and didn't have to leave, but many other Métis families were forced to move.
Dufour Bowes wanted to create her project to let more people know the story.
"People throw around these terms of Truth and Reconciliation, and for me in any of my writings or within my screenplays, or my plays or my books, for me I tell truths because you can't have reconciliation until you can hear the truth," she said. "That's the whole reason why I do everything that I've done, whether it's writing or art is to be able to bring out the truths. If people want to be able to move towards reconciliation, we have to have those truths come out."
Dufour Bowes added that telling this story is "never for sympathy, it's for empathy."
"Sympathy is feeling sorry; empathy is for you to walk beside me and hear our stories and feel our stories," she said. "That's all it is."
The show "Apples and Train Tracks" runs at the Chapel Gallery until April 13.
