What Do We Do?
The committee has a mandate is to work with the Town of Carman and RM of Dufferin Councils to identify and preserve local heritage resources and to provide opportunities for public awareness, education and participation in heritage conservation.
Over the past several years, C/D MHAC has worked in close collaboration with the Historic Resources Branch of the Manitoba Government to implement several key heritage projects including designation of Municipal Heritage Sites, recognition of local Heritage Certificate Sites, and development of the heritage website. The Committee has installed signs to commemorate abandoned settlements, former schools, local businesses, and special places such as Missouri Trail and the old Carman Swimming Hole. Other projects of note include digitalizing early local newspapers and preparing heritage tour brochures, a guide to local cemeteries and inventories of heritage resources in local communities. C/D MHAC also assists individuals with heritage research, mounts displays at community events and works closely with other community groups to identify and promote local heritage.
Since 2010, C/D MHAC has submitted Heritage Resource Management Plans outlining the committee’s objectives for the following year (s) along with proposed strategies and activities for achieving these goals. Annual interim reports outline our progress and budgetary requirements for the coming year. Projects are made possible by funding provided through the Town of Carman and RM of Dufferin Councils and by heritage grants, along with substantial volunteer service.
- Heritage Resource Management Plan 2010
- Heritage Resource Management Plan 2011
- Heritage Resource Management Plan 2012
- Heritage Resource Management Plan 2013
- Heritage Resource Management Plan 2016-18
- Heritage Resource Management Plan 2019-21
- Heritage Resource Management 2022-24
- Heritage Resource Management Plan 2022-23 Interim Report
Protecting Heritage Sites
Heritage sites are important to communities. Among other things, they link us to our history, inform us about our past, and provide visual diversity and often beauty in our surroundings.
In addition, reusing or continuing to use existing buildings is a better ecological choice than building anew. These sites are worth protecting.
The following entries, designed both for groups and individuals interested in this subject, provide information and guidance about a range of approaches to ensuring that our physical heritage continues to play a vital role in the community’s identity.
December 2018
Heritage Resource Management Plan 2019-21. It’s that time of year again – the month of reckoning when we outline for our Councils what the committee has done for the past year and what we expect to accomplish in the year to come—with their financial support.
This year is special—it marks the end of our 2016–18 Heritage Resource Management Plan (HRMP) with a look ahead to the next three years. Two years from now, our Province will be celebrating its 150th anniversary. When John A. Macdonald’s government purchased the Hudson’s Bay Company territory that became Manitoba, the sale unleashed a wave of westward migration that dramatically changed the socio-economic structure of the province. One of our objectives for 2020 is to gain a better understanding of the impact of these rapid changes in local population density, ethnic and religious make-up, patterns of land ownership and land use.
Breaking prairie sod
Click on the image for a larger view
We have two projects currently under way to ensure that early accounts of the transition are identified, preserved and made part of our efforts towards promotion of local heritage. Volunteer groups in each of the small communities that grew up across the municipalities are searching out local heritage resources, drawing up inventories to document their location, and where feasible, copying or otherwise preserving original sources.
The initial inventory from the Roseisle is now on this website.
Homewood documented much of their local history for their 2018 reunion. We’ll alert you to others as they go up over the next couple of years.
Carman/Dufferin MHAC also is collecting information and memories from owners and families of early homesteads and family farms in the area. These stories of why early settlers came to the area, how they arrived, what the country was like and how it developed over the years are fast becoming lost to memory. Few local residents still remember their homesteading grandparents or have documented their experiences.
Both of these projects focus strongly towards post-1870s settlers’ perspective on local history. An exception is the St. Daniel area where both written histories and the monuments such as the Îles-de-Bois cairn are reminders that local history didn’t begin with the arrival of predominantly Anglo-Protestant homesteaders. Elsewhere, awareness of our rich pre-1870 history is emerging through Carman/Dufferin MHAC’s project to replace the Missouri Trail sign. This project is due for completion by 2020.
For further information on our committee’s work over the past three years and our plans for 2019-21, see the full Heritage Resource Management Plan.
February 2018
C/D MHAC happenings. The bitterly cold weather of the past couple of months has provided a great opportunity for getting immersed in heritage research and planning. And finally, time to browse through more of those old newspapers that C/D MHAC invested in digitizing through the Pembina Manitou Archive.
March 2018
C/D MHAC Projects. CDMHAC’s goal for 2018 is to complete our outstanding projects before taking on anything new. As the old saying goes: We are judged by what we finish, not by what we start.
This winter’s bitterly cold weather hasn’t been conducive to holding meetings or doing outside work, but it has given us a chance to hunker down in our warm homes and catch up on background reading and online research. Two productive sources were the early digitalized newspapers and a local family history.