monday with phyllis

phyllis invited me to join her for some frontier college workshops about working with aboriginal children. we got down to the library a bit early and went to city hall to sit in the lobby and drank coffee. the workshops were pretty interesting. larry loyie was there to talk about his stories, how he learned as a child, and his books. i bought some of his books for mum and dad. after we went to the museum for lunch. phyllis told me that the royal alberta museum used to be called the provincial museum until queen elizabeth came to visit. some albertans were upset that the name of the museum was changed to honour the queen. the name of the highway between calgary and edmonton was changed from highway 2 to the queen elizabeth 2 at the same time even though the queen flew between the cities. phyllis left me after lunch to go home to write and i wandered through the exhibits and grounds until it was time to catch the train. i went to wild alberta first. the exhibit is all about the animals and ecologies in the province. i spent quite a bit of time in the history of aboriginal peoples exhibit. it covers a lot of ground in a few rooms. as the story unfolds, there are as many examples of the inhumanity in the details as the opposite. then i went outside for a bit to get some air and have a think. i ended my time at the museum with a trip to the shop and a tour of the natural history exhibit.