February is Black History Month. Local historian Allan Goddard has dedicated over three decades to keeping the memory of Keystone settlers and the history of Breton alive. We sat down with him for a question and answer session to get insight on his journey.
How long have you been involved in the Breton Historical Society?
I became involved with the Historical Society in the fall of 1987.That makes it about 35 years that I have been involved with the Historical Society. At that time Gwen Hooks was President of the Society. Over the years I held the positions of President and Treasurer on the Historical Society Board. For quite a number of years the Board served both the role of the governing body of the museum and also acted as administration to carry out the day-to-day activities of the museum. In about 2009 I resigned as a board member and took on the role of museum manager/curator. The museum was growing, which required more time to meet the administrative duties, also the level of expertise needed to meet the higher standards of the Recognized Museum Program required someone with at least a basic knowledge of museum standards. I have remained in this role since then.
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What got you involved in the society in the first place?
I think it was an ad in maybe the Breton Booster, or just a poster around Breton that the Society was in the initial stages of starting a museum in Breton and looking for volunteers to help with establishing the museum. The Society had recently entered into a lease with the then Leduc School Division for the use of the two-room school located on the Breton Elementary school site. The school division had stopped using the building prior to this for school classes, I think the playschool had occupied the building at the last but must have moved from the building as the building was vacant when the historical Society leased it. It needed a lot of upgrades over the years. From reviewing some of the records and minutes of the Society it appears that the topic of establishing a museum had been talked about at various times previous to 1987.
I had always had an interest in history from the time I had been small. Both my father and my mother’s family had been longtime residents of the Carnwood and Moose Hill area. They both had homesteaded in the early 1920’s. As a young child, I can remember asking my mom to tell me about the “olden days”. So when this opportunity came with the Breton museum I thought here is a cute little project that I can volunteer a couple hours a month to help them out. I can paint a wall, do minor carpentry, well it has taken on a life of its own in the years since then. I didn’t know anything about what it took to operate a museum… none of the people involved did. It was a steep learning curve for everyone. It has become clear over the years/decades since then that there is much more to running a museum than putting some old items out in a cabinet or on a shelf for people to look at to be a museum. It’s about having the artifacts help tell a story.
How has black history impacted the Village of Breton and the place it has in Alberta’s history?
The Board of the Society, soon after establishing the museum,received some advice from the Historic Resource’s Branch of the Alberta government about starting a museum. One of the things they talked about was to determine what themes /stories you want to tell in your museum. I believe the Board of the time did a good job in considering this question. While most small rural museums focus on the settlement history of their community and Breton was no different to some extent, the Board settled on 4 themes. They asked themselves what area of the Breton district history can we focus on that will set us apart from the museum down the road.
The first theme determined was the history of the Keystone community, established by African American settlers from Oklahoma and a few other states that migrated to Alberta from about 1909-1912. While this initially followed the settlement story of homesteading it has become a much more complex story that goes beyond just the hardships of establishing a homestead and life at the time in Alberta, and the Breton community. When the museum started documenting this story 30 some years ago the story of black history in Alberta was scarcely mentioned. What I have come to realize and appreciate, there is much more to this story than a small group of early settlers. This is a story about the immigration policy of Canada at the time, and how many segments of society pushed back against this group. It started to become clear that the story of Canada as a kind nation that welcomed all groups of immigrants with open arms has started to unravel as we start to research the topic deeper. There have also been success stories that need to be told. The story of Keystone, and the other communities in Alberta and Saskatchewan settled by this group is more than just local in scope. It is part of Alberta history, as well as Canada’s story, with connections back to Oklahoma and the reason this group was leaving the State.
We try to ask visitors to the museum what brought you to the museum today. A vast majority will say they wanted to learn about the black history of the area. This theme has definitely brought the museum, and by extension the community a higher profile beyond just the local community.
The second theme decided on, was the lumbering industry which played a significant role in the development of the area until the late 1940’s. It was the primary economic driver of the area, once rail service was established in 1926.
The third theme was Agriculture, while this was a more generic theme the Board’s focus was to tell the story of the Breton SoilPlots and the challenges of farming on gray wooded soils. This theme has yet to be fully developed by the museum.
The final theme was Community, this encompasses a lot of different elements and like all the themes is ongoing and can vary from year to year.
An all Canadian team that included a local resident was able to win the rodeo for the first time in the history of the World Famous Miles City Bucking Horse Cowboy Mardi Gras.
Wilfred Titanich was one of a team of three that attended the three-day event in Miles City, Montana from May 15-18. Titanich along with two brothers, Cory and Cody Loken, were the first all Canadian team to win at Bucking Horse since the first Miles City Bucking Horse Sale started in 1951.
Each member of the team came home with around $7,500 US, says Titanich.
“We got Championship Buckles and we got Championship Holders, too,” he says.
The team participated in the Wild Horse Racing event, which involves at least three people and an untouched horse. The horse starts out in the bucking chute and two members of the team follow the horse out, holding onto a long lead. One person is the mugger, and their job is to control the horse’s head by covering its eyes with his arm, which calms it and prevents it from rearing and hurting someone. The shanker holds onto the rope so it doesn’t run away. The rider saddles it, mounts, and holds on tight as they race to the finish line on a wild horse.
“Wild Horse Racing is one of the oldest events in rodeo,” says Titanich.
Though the event is called Wild Horse Racing, the horses used in the event are owned, but untouched.
Throughout the year, Titanich works the Canadian Wild Horse Racing Association Circuit, spending most of his time in Alberta, but also attending some events in B.C. and Saskatchewan, where he competes in both amateur and pro rodeos.
“Honestly, it’s really addicting,” says Titanich. “It looks really crazy, and it is pretty wild, but it’s super addicting. It’s an adrenaline rush in sport.”
He says he would encourage people who like competitive events to try Wild Horse Racing.
The Loken brothers have both been in the sport for about 15 years, says Titanich. Both of them were about 14-years-old when they first started out. Titanich has been in the sport for three or four years.
Normally, the Lokens race with their dad, Jason, and Titanich has his own team. But the three of them thought it would be fun to head down to Miles City for some fun.
The Bucking Horse Sale was a stand-alone event, says Titanich. His team is getting ready for the circuit this summer.
“We can rodeo every weekend from now to the end of October,” he says.
Anyone looking for information about which wild horse racing rodeos are coming up can visit www.wildhorseracing.ca. Titanich says he will be in Brooks at the Lea Park Rodeo this weekend and in Killam for the Killam Rodeo that will be held outdoors in Sedgewick this year.
From Oklahoma to Keystone: Uncovering Hidden Histories at the Breton Library
An author who has written a non-fiction book that ties the Breton area to a mysterious child in Oklahoma will be visiting the Breton Library on June 7.
Russell Cobb, author of Ghosts of Crook County: An Oil Fortune, A Phantom Child, and the Fight for Indigenous Land is a Professor of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta. He was invited to the library by the Breton Library Board and the Breton Museum.
Allan Goddard, the manager of the Breton Museum, says he met Cobb when the author was working on the manuscript for the novel.
“He came out to the museum because there is a connection to the Hooks family,” he says.
Goddard says while the book does have some history about the Keystone area, and some relatives that may still live in the area, it is mainly about what indigenous families had to deal with in the early 1900s in Oklahoma.
Claire Sather, the Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Breton Library, says she read the book after finding it on Goodreads, a social media site dedicated to book ratings and reviews.
She says when she got to the end and saw a familiar name, Brandy Fredrickson, it really registered how close some events in the book are tied to the area.
Goddard says when Jim Crow laws came into being in Oklahoma, it triggered an exodus of African Americans from Oklahoma to seek out refuge in Canada. A group of those immigrants settled around Breton in the Keystone area in the early 1900s.
The book centres around a child named Tommy Atkins, whose existence has never truly been proven, and the oilmen who were snatching up indigenous lands in Oklahoma. Goddard says one of the women rumoured to be Atkins’ mother lived in Keystone for a while before returning to Oklahoma.
Both Sather and Goddard are excited to have him visit the Library, however, the space is limited. Those who wish to attend the event on Saturday, June 7th at 1 p.m. have to pre-register to ensure they get a spot.
Those who are interested can register by calling the library at 780-696-3740 or send an email to bretonlibrary@yrl.ab.ca.
Cobb has also written The Great Oklahoma Swindle: Race, Religions, and Lies in America’s Weirdest State.
VE Day at 80: How World War II Is Fading from Living Memory
Eighty years ago this week a group of men gathered in a room in Berlin to sign a piece of paper which brought an end to six years of war in Europe.
It was one of the most significant turning points of the last 1,000 years. It’s an event which will be remembered as well as any in the history of humanity. But history is very much what it is becoming.
World War II will never be forgotten, but it is rapidly becoming little more than a memory.
Anyone involved in the actual fighting would be, at the very least, in their mid-90s. Today the median age in Canada is somewhere around 40. That means the war belongs more to our grandparents’ generation than to our parents’. We’re now approaching the point where no one alive will remember World War II .
Sad as that may seem, it’s part of the inevitable ebb and flow of human events. Things move on. No one today mourns the 65,000 who died at the Battle of Waterloo or those who lost their lives at a thousand other places from Thermopylae to Gettysburg. Instead we are more likely to dress up as them and re enact the events of the day, for reasons that, I must confess, have never been entirely clear to me.
And so it will be with World War II. Certainly the events 25 years earlier at Ypres, the Somme and Passchendaele have now taken on a sepia tinge. They have gone from being a horrendous bloodbath to a historical curiosity.
Time moves on. It’s a natural process and not something we could reverse even if we wanted to.
Years ago I worked with a copy editor who would indignantly write “which one?” in the margins of any news story that simply referred to “the war.” At the time I thought he was a bit of a dickhead. But now, well, I’m still pretty sure he was a dickhead, but he may have been a dickhead with a point.
The world has been far from peaceful since May of 1945. For one thing, the war in Asia was still raging on this day in 1945 and would not end for a few more months with the fall of Japan. But, also this week in 1954 the French were defeated by the Vietnamese in the battle of Dien Bein Phu. This week in 1960 the Soviet Union announced it was holding American U2 pilot Gary Powers. This week in 1999 NATO accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Kosovo. And if you checked the news this morning you probably saw that war continues in Ukraine. Tragedy is continuing to unfold in Gaza. And, well, you get the picture.
Still, by asking “which war” my former colleague may have been a little bit ahead of his time. When someone mentions “The War”most of us will immediately think of 1939-1945.
But time will prove my copy editor’s point. Events, even the most important events in the world, gradually fade into history.
It won’t happen overnight, but make no mistake, it will happen. The process is already under way.
Drayton Valley looks at rural wealth creation
In partnership with the University of Alberta’s Community University Partnership (CUP) town council will be looking at different ways that Drayton Valley residents can work to generate local wealth for the community.
Geraldine Cahill, the director of UpSocial Canada who works with CUP, along with Dr. Maria Mayan from the U of A, spoke to council about initiatives that other municipalities have taken on to help stimulate local economies.
CUP has been working in Drayton Valley since 2020, when they helped the Town develop the Zero Fee Tuition Program, now called the Tuition Assistance Bursary. The partnership was developed for a research project to explore whether the ZFT program could be a mechanism for an inclusive economy.
“The results so far have been very positive, both on employment and also for quality of life for participants,” said Cahill.
Cahill told council they had engaged with stakeholders during the research and found a strategy that they would like to explore with the Town. They believe that Rural Wealth Creation could be an effective initiative to help Drayton Valley navigate increased costs in a way that can benefit the entire community.
“Across the country there has been a pattern of downloading costs and responsibilities to municipalities… without much change in capital transfers,” said Cahill. “That puts a great deal of strain on municipal governments and single-resource towns have been hard hit by this.”
With RWC, the Town would work together with residents to develop ways that residents can invest in community projects as part of their retirement, thus ensuring a larger chunk of local money stays in the municipality.
Over the past few years communities across the country have achieved economic stability by using programs such as co-operatives, local procurement, employee ownership and other succession models, community bonds, community land trusts and more. Cahill also provided examples from some of the municipalities that have gone in this direction.
In 2002, the municipality of Westlock learned that their grain terminals were going to be sold. As agriculture was one of the important sectors for the community, there was concern about how the sale could affect the local economy. So, instead of letting the grain terminals go, the community worked together to raise $1.2 million to purchase the grain terminal.
Those who invested in the terminal now get yearly dividends for their investment. They also have the most profitable terminal for its size in Canada and are planning on diversifying into a transport company.
Cahill says that the size of the municipality may play a role in which type of community program would work best.
Mayor Nancy Dodds asked Cahill how the Town could move forward with the plan as they would have to play a role in whatever path residents choose to move forward with.
“As the Town, as leaders, we want to be involved, but we don’t want to be getting in the way,” said Dodds. “How do you make sure that everyone has their say when you’re picking that.”
CUP has a workshop planned for May 5 at Clean Energy Technology Centre to help brainstorm some ideas that may work in the community. Cahill says everyone is welcome to attend and they will be looking at community assets as well as asking attendees what their priorities are.
Cahill says once they get some feedback from the meeting, she can use those priorities and ideas to generate profiles of which programs could best address them and how it would affect the community.
“Then we can shop them around for several months,” says Cahill. “I don’t want to rush the process so that people have a chance to weigh in.”
60 years strong: St. Anthony School plans celebration and future growth
In January 1965, the St. Anthony School opened its doors. Now, 60 years later, the school is planning a celebration of the milestone.
Principal Janelle Molzan says they are planning to have a celebration on May 24 at the school gym. They will be using the event to also fundraise for the school.
Molzan says they will have a band performing that evening, catering from a local restaurant, a full cash bar, as well as some door prizes.
Part of the celebration will also be the fact that St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic School Division has put St. Anthony at the top of their priority list for a new school. Molzan says the division has to wait until next year to submit their request to the Province, and there is no guarantee that they will be selected for funding.
“It could be anywhere from two to ten years,” she says. “Or more.”
However, she feels that St. Anthony has a strong case for asking for a new school.
The most recent remodel of the school was in 1992, says Molzan. At that point they expanded the school, removing the gym from the centre of the school and installing classrooms instead. The new gym was then built as an addition to the school.
“We had the addition of the gym as well as a few classrooms in 1992,” says Molzan.
Since then, there have been no major remodels or renovations. Instead, the staff have been doing what they can to keep the building in shape.
“It’s a really well built school,” says Molzan.
She says over the years, the natural heaves and settling that occur with temperature fluctuations has led to some cosmetic damages to the building. “It’s just showing its age,” she says.
While the school is starting to show wear, Molzan says there are no capacity issues. About 15 years ago, the school went from being a K-12 school to a K-8 school when the Holy Trinity Academy was built.
Molzan says if they don’t get a new school they will have to pursue getting more renovations or remodeling for the current building.
New trespassing program helps businesses
Businesses will now have another option for dealing with trespassers thanks to a new program that Enforcement Services have put into place.
Cody Rossing, the manager of enforcement services and emergency management for the Town, says one of the biggest challenges for businesses in the community who were issuing trespass notices is that someone has to attend court in order for the trespassing charge to stick. With the new Trespassing Agent program which comes into place on March 20, businesses who enrol will not have to attend court.
Previously, businesses who contacted the RCMP to report a trespasser had to issue the trespass notices themselves.
For many businesses the process didn’t work well. Larger franchises, like banks, found arranging the issue of a trespass notice and attending court was not logistically feasible. Small business owners, on the other hand, could issue the notice but may have to close their business in order to attend court.
Rossing says there are two different pieces of legislation that speak to trespassing, the Petty Trespass Act and the Trespass to Premises Act.
“Under both of the legislations, the property owner or their agent are required to provide trespass notices, help get people off of their land, and stuff like that,” says Rossing.
The first offence fine under the provincial legislation is normally $600, but it could be up to $10,000. A second offence could have a fine of up to $25,000
The higher fines come into place when the individual ignores the notice and returns to the property. If the trespasser returns three times, the officers can then issue a summons to court. If they fail to attend, a warrant is issued, and at that point if they are found guilty, the higher fines can be given.
Rossing says the program is helping streamline the process for businesses. If they choose to enrol in the program, it will allow peace officers or the RCMP to act as their agent and issue the notices. It also means the business owners won’t have to attend court.
“Court is scary for a lot of people, and we understand that,” says Rossing.
The purpose of the program is to improve the process because officers are continuing to get calls to the same place over and over and business owners or their employees are uncomfortable with the court process. Until now, there hasn’t been any way to address those issues.
“It’s been a lot of work on the back end because there is no follow up process in place and there is no trespass notice being issued,” says Rossing.
He says the hope is that by having this program in place, businesses can sign up and they can begin to address the issue more efficiently.
Several different municipalities in the province have a similar program in place, says Rossing. While developing the program, Rossing did research on other initiatives and reached out to other municipalities that had something similar in place. He says he wanted to be sure that he had everything in place before he announced the program in the community.
There are also checks and balances that have been worked into the program.
“If you’re trespassed from a local business, one of our officers shows up and says you’re trespassed for six months, if you don’t agree with it, you can appeal that process,” says Rossing.
He says there is also the option for the business owners to speak with the officer and reduce the amount of time the individual is trespassed for. In some cases, if the RCMP issue a notice that’s in effect for six months, a business owner may come forward and advocate for the trespasser if the individual doesn’t normally behave in that manner
“They can say, ‘This person is normally a good customer, but there is something going on with him right now. I think maybe a month would be more appropriate,’” says Rossing.
However, it is ultimately the final discretion of the officer.
Once a business is enrolled in the program, they will receive a sticker that they can place in a conspicuous area that is easily visible for officers. If they receive a call, the officer will know that they can issue the notice themselves rather than speaking to the owner and explaining the process that has to take place.
Rossing says enrolment in the program is free, and he encourages businesses to sign up if they are having consistent issues with people loitering or being a nuisance on their property. Those who are interested in enrolling can visit www.draytonvalley.ca/enforcementservices/trespassingagent and fill out the form. They can then email it in to enforcement@draytonvalley.ca or drop it off at the Town office.
Over the years of managing the museum what is the most interesting artifact, or fact that you have stumbled across as it pertains to the black community or the area?
I had to think about this question for a while. There are two or three artifacts that piqued my interest and we can connect to the families that settled Keystone. One is a mule shoe found on the property originally settled by Rolla Ramsey. It was turned up in a field in later years, long after the Ramsey family had moved from the community. We can see from some records that some of the families owned mules which they brought from the US with them. Mules were often used in the south as they were tough, and for their size could pull more.
The second is part of a child’s toy, it is a metal horse that likely had a wagon or something more to the toy. It too was found in a field in later years, on property owned by another black family of the area. While it is only partly there, we can imagine there was a little boy who likely prized that toy.
The third is a small rubber stamp that was found in the Funnell School/Community Centre when they were cleaned up about 10 years ago. The stamp says Keystone. What purpose it was used for we don’t know, but it must have been made for a purpose.
From an archival perspective, I think the minute book from the Good Hope Baptist Mission is wonderful, especially the opening entry. “We the people of township 48 range 4– west of the 5th meridian, met together at Wm Allen’s house at 11 o’clock on September 10,1911 for the purpose of organizing a church.” The museum is very lucky to have these records, thanks to Mrs. Emma King who had a number of records pertaining to Keystone and passed them on to Mark and Gwen Hooks who donated them to the museum when it was established.
The last archival item isn’t something the museum has, but comes from the homestead records held at the Provincial Archives of Alberta. These records show who filed on a homestead, and contain a variety of information about the individual. The first form that every person who filed on a homestead filled out had the usual information you would expect: their name, the land location, if they were married and had a family, their address, their nationality and if they were a Canadian citizen. What I found interesting was that on many of the homestead records filed by the black settlers they listed their nationality as American, which they were, but down in the corner of the form a government official has written the word Black, Colored or Negro. They were being identified beyond what any white homesteader was. Now we don’t know if they were being directed to certain areas for settlement or for some other purpose.
Why do you continue to be involved?
There are days when you wonder if anyone notices or cares what the museum is doing, but then you get the days when you meet visitors and you can help them and the gratitude they have to the museum for taking the time to help. Or people commenting on how much they enjoy the articles I write for the Breton Booster, then you know what you are doing does make a difference. Isn’t there a line in an old Joni Mitchell song that says “you don’t know what you got till it’s gone”.
What keeps me coming back is what I will discover next week or next month that will add to the story. It’s like having a box of jigsaw puzzles and the box contains numerous puzzles, and each puzzle has some of the pieces but not all of them.
Anything else you feel is important to talk about?
This year will mark the 45th anniversary of the formation of the Breton and District Historical Society. While their original purpose was to publish a community history book. I think a lot of credit has to go to the people who were involved in the formation of the Historical Society to have the vision to start preserving the history of the community. If they hadn’t started the Historical Society then, would there be a Breton Museum. The majority of those individuals have now become part of the community’s history.
Canadians lead the way in Montana
Drayton Valley’s Wilfred Titanich helps make Canadian rodeo history at Montana’s Bucking Horse Sale, showcasing Alberta grit and talent.
From Oklahoma to Keystone: Uncovering Hidden Histories at the Breton Library
Author Russell Cobb visits Breton Library June 7 to discuss his book linking Oklahoma history to Keystone’s early Black settlers.
VE Day at 80: How World War II Is Fading from Living Memory
Eighty years ago this week a group of men gathered in a room in Berlin to sign a piece of paper which brought an end to six years of war in Europe.
Drayton Valley looks at rural wealth creation
In partnership with the University of Alberta’s Community University Partnership (CUP) town council will be looking at different ways that Drayton Valley residents can work to generate local wealth for the community.
I am very pleased that there is a Breton Museum, and that Allan Goddard took it upon himself to keep the legacy of African Americans, who came up from the USA, alive! My dad’s (Glen Lee Harris) sister (Margaret) was married to “Vant’s” brother, (LaVern Hayes)! They lived many years in Breton, and I remember going there, as a child! I am now 71 years old, and living in Burnaby, BC. My father’s family immigrated to Canada in 1919 from Oklahoma! I am proud of my African Heritage, and the history of my people! Thank you to Gwen Hooks, Allan Goddard and all the others who have kept our history in Alberta alive!
Sincerely,
Geraldine Rae Harris