[meteorite-list] Up Close With A Stone That Hums

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:46 2004
Message-ID: <200305291805.LAA29244_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/story.asp?id=0C72B25C-ECE7-452C-8037-03AF8605D300

Up close with a stone that hums

Stroll through museum a reminder of what was, what might have been

Todd Babiak
The Edmonton Journal
May 29, 2003

The Manitou Stone fell to Earth thousands of years ago.

A crowd of ESL students surrounds the Manitou Stone on the second floor of
the Provincial Museum of Alberta. It is a thrilling object, unlike anything
we will find at the home and garden centre. A long time ago, it was in
space. A man from Hong Kong touches the 140 kilogram meteorite and tells his
classmates the smooth, textured rock makes his body hum. His fellow students
nod. A woman puts her hand up and asks what hum means.

The Manitou Stone fell to the earth thousands of years ago. It landed near
Iron Creek, 240 kilometres southeast of Edmonton. According to Salteaux
tradition, the meteorite was a gift from the great spirit, or Manitou.
Shamans foretold that removing the Manitou Stone from its resting mound
would bring great misfortune to the Cree people. Some missionaries removed
it in 1866 and, shortly thereafter, great misfortune ensued.

This week a spokesman for the Blue Quills First Nation College demanded its
return.

Is the Manitou Stone a sacred object that must be returned to its people?
People who feel their economic future is tied to its destiny? Or is the
Manitou Stone a spiritual, historical and scientific artifact that fulfills
a more important social and educational function in the Gallery of
Aboriginal Culture?

The Provincial Museum is filled with items like the Manitou Stone, ready for
study, debate and, more often than not, quiet amazement. Since the museum
sits on the best plot of land in the city, you can include a picnic, a
romantic stroll and a healthy bout of Glenora-envying into your visit. An
exhibit of last year's best wildlife photography opens June 5 and until late
September, when the new Wild Alberta exhibit opens on the main floor, museum
admission is half price.

In the Natural History Gallery, choruses of "cool!" and "sweet!" and
"wicked!" ring out as teenage boys pass the Mexican red-kneed tarantula
cage.

Similar choruses fill the dinosaur room, where several children sit before
the Columbian mammoth bones. One boy reads out the description for the
albertosaur, a small yet fierce animal that lived in Alberta and Montana. "A
swift runner that ambushed its victims along wooden stream margins," he
says. After a pause, he repeats, "ambushed."

The boys gaze at the albertosaur for a moment of speculative bloody carnage,
and home-province pride, but only for a moment. In an adjacent room, there
is a stuffed tiger for their imaginative consideration.

Near the dinosaurs is a pictorial history of the plants and animals that
once ruled and roamed North America. They are impressive creatures who
probably never thought they would go extinct. The diatryma, a two-metre-tall
bird from the Eocene period, looks smug and majestic in his photograph.
"Nothing bad happens to good diatrymas," he seems to be thinking. We could
all learn from his fate.

The mounted butterfly exhibit is inspirational, a reminder that we should
buy hybrid automobiles and preserve natural habitats so these beautiful
creatures won't choke and die en masse like that deluded bird. Across the
hall, the Manitou Stone and other artifacts and dioramas in the Gallery of
Aboriginal Culture are reminders that education and social inclusion are
important ideals.

A final stroll through the museum grounds on the raised shores of the mighty
North Saskatchewan is a reminder that you should have gone to law school.

tbabiak_at_thejournal.canwest.com
Received on Thu 29 May 2003 02:05:01 PM PDT