A photo of the St. Augustine Mission from the 1940s that shows the graveyard, church, the priests' residence, the convent and school and barn. ((photo courtesy of the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre)

By Liam Verster

Restoring and upgrading historic site

Upgrades to former Peace River residential school site comes through federal grant

Dec 2, 2020 | 2:11 PM

The Peace River Museum Archives and Mackenzie Centre have earned a federal grant which will be used to provide some landscaping and sign upgrades to the site of the St. Augustine Mission.

The $34,000 grant comes from the Commemorating the History and Legacy of Residential School component of the Celebration and Commemoration Program, which is offered through the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Laura Love, curator of the museum, says the site of the St. Augustine Mission, which was also known as Smoky Forks and Forks Mission, is located along the Shaftesbury Trail, but is a relatively unknown historic site near the Peace River Correctional Centre.

The mission was established in 1888 as a residential school, and was federally funded until 1907. The mission was then run until December of 1950 by the Catholic Church as a school for local First Nation, Metis and settler children.

While some of the buildings still stand, including the church and the barn, three buildings are no longer standing.

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The Priests’ Residence, the Convent/School and the Laundry House have long since come down, and the funding from this grant will go towards landscaping around the footprints of these buildings.

Site plan for the St. Augustine Mission site (photo courtesy of the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre)

The funds will also go to installing ten interpretive panels at the other buildings, and upgrade signs so people will know what the site actually is.

Love says the museum has partnered with the Peace Regional Aboriginal Interagency Committee, and is working with local elders on this project to ensure there are education opportunities included in the upgrades.

“These sites have a very complicated history, so with this site what we’re hoping to do is for this to be a community endeavour and an opportunity to hopefully bring land-based learning, hope ceremonies and to host more educational opportunities for not just the people that live in Peace River, but for the visitors,” says Love.

“And collectively, we’re hoping these upgrades to the former residential school site, they’re intended to increase awareness, as well as to honour the residential school survivors and their families.”

Love says they expect the work to be done by the end of March 2021, and the site will be smudged and blessed before officially re-opening.