town profiles
Foremost ◗ Population (2016): 541
◗ Land Area: 2.16 km2 ◗ Major Industries: Agriculture ◗ Largest Employer: Forty Mile County ◗ Mayor: Ken Kultgen ◗ Incorporated: 1950 ◗ Major Tourist Attractions: Forty Mile Park ◗ Motto: “Foremost... It starts here”
Special Areas No. 2, No. 3, No. 4
◗ Population (2016): *4,184 ◗ Land Area: *20,375.79 km2 ◗ Major Industries: Agriculture ◗ Largest Employer: ATCO Sheerness ◗ Chairman: Jordan Christianson ◗ Incorporated: 1938 ◗ Major Tourist Attractions: Blood Indian Creek Park, Dinosaur Provincial Park, Little Fish Provincial Park, Gooseberry Lake Provincial Park
◗ Motto: “Where People Make a Difference” *Culmulative from all 2016 Census data.
Towns Nearby Cereal
◗ Population (2016): 111 ◗ Land Area: 0.79 km2 ◗ Major Industries: Agriculture ◗ Largest Employer: Special Areas ◗ Mayor: Tami Olds ◗ Incorporated: 1910 ◗ Major Tourist Attractions: Cereal Prairie Pioneer Museum
Empress ◗ Population (2016): 135 28
◗ Land Area: 1.58 km2 ◗ Major Industries: Agriculture ◗ Largest Employer: Village of Empress ◗ Mayor: Chad Van Dam ◗ Incorporated: 1917 ◗ Major Tourist Attractions: That’s Empressive, Centennial Splash Park, Empress Bird Trail, The Station ◗ Motto: “Empress has Artisans”
TIM KALINOWSKI
chance they will have teepee rings, petroglyph carvings or stone monuments and other effigies on their lands dating back to this region’s First Nations past.
A
Some are kept in secret and others are public knowledge. Not all First Nations sites are considered significant, but others are priceless monuments to pre-settlement history.
The Booker family is one of several families near Empress on the Alberta/Saskatchewan border which are very much aware of the importance of their roles as stewards and protectors of many of those priceless monuments and effigies. Important sites in the area include the Roy Rivers Medicine Wheel, the Cabri Lake Stone Effigy and the Hugo Drosch Buffalo Jump.
For five generations now the Bookers have looked after the well-known Roy Rivers Medicine Wheel, (named after the original family member who owned the land the Medicine Wheel exists upon). The wheel is estimated to be 3,000-5,000 years-old, and remains a place of pilgrimage for First Nations groups to this day.
Rachel Booker and her husband Wayne are the current owners. She says she and her husband are
Protecting the past to honour First Nations history
very much aware of the responsibility they bear. s Alberta and Saskatchewan farmers
and ranchers own or lease most of the remaining natural grasslands on the prairies, there is a better than average
“We’re privileged to have these sites placed within our sphere of influence,” says Rachel. “We are stewards of this history. We want to respect the sites and maintain their integrity. We also want to be able to share the sites and protect them. Do we agree with all of the interpretations and history that supposedly belong with these sites? Not necessarily. But that doesn’t mean we cannot acknowledge the fact that we have these remarkable historic records (in stone), and honour and preserve them.”
Her family has always chosen to be open and welcoming of both archeologists and the public over the years.
“Since the 1960s when my mother-in-law Mrs. Velma Booker married into the area, she did tours for archeologists, Native groups, school groups and archeological groups. When she was contacted she would go out with them to the site and explain what she knew of it, and let those visitors an opportunity to look at it and interact the area around the site to get a feeling of the history.
“After she passed away in 2006, it passed to both Wayne and myself to not only be the stewards but also the cultural guides for that site.”
Rachel admits there have been some hassles associated with being so open.
“Over the years we have had people just kind of
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