Lacombe Museums will be opening two new exhibitions this week at the Lacombe Flat Iron Building Museum. The two exhibitions are called Speaking the Inuit Way and The Ones We Met. 

The Ones We Met  is an exhibit the Lacombe Museum was looking to bring to the Museum since they took over the Flat Iron Building back in 2021. It is based on the John Franklin expedition in 1845 and the shipwrecks that were relocated.  

“It explores how we found it and how we found it was through generations of Inuit oral history and actually listening to the people who live there, who had stories of their grandparents and great grandparents, having actually seen the explorers. Through those oral traditions and histories, they were able to find the two shipwrecks,” explained Executive Director of the Lacombe Museums, Melissa Blunden.  

The shipwrecks were located relatively recently with new technologies after speaking with locals who had some knowledge about where the explorers were.  

The other exhibition, ‘Speaking the Inuit Way’ delves into the Inuit language and their dialects.   

“That exhibit is very similar to the Cree exhibit we had for two weeks in the LMC (Lacombe Memorial Centre) this summer. This one will be here for almost the same amount of time as The Ones We Met. We have it from  early October to the beginning of December before we have to ship it off to the next museum,” explained Blunden.  

The exhibition comes from comes from the Canadian Language Musuem which is located in Ontario.  

Both exhibitions are displayed in English, French, Inuktitut, and Inuinnaqtun and feature interactive components.  

Along with the exhibitions, Lacombe and area residents can expect some related community programming.  

“We're bringing some artists in who will be able to sit down and do different sorts of beading workshops and fish scale workshops with participants, as well as the soapstone carving. We're looking at programming outside of our walls as well,” said Blunden.  

The exhibitions will officially open on Thursday, October 5th with a wine and cheese opening night from 6:00PM to 8:00PM.  After that, you can check out the exhibitions during the Museum's new fall hours which are10AM-4PM on Wednesday through to Saturday.