WE'RE GOING TO PARTY LIKE ITS 1967!

The Highwood Museum is opening a new exhibition looking at how the Citizens of High River and area celebrated Canada's 100th birthday.

When she first started to dig for information, Irene Kerr, Director and Curator for the Museum, she was shocked to find there was no special occasions planned for July 1.

She says, "The reason we decided to celebrate 1967 is because in 1867 when Canada became a country, we were not really part of the whole thing," said Kerr.

"But the reason, as I did more research was because they did their big celebrations in May for the Little Britches weekend and on July 26th they celebrated Billy Henry Day."

The 26th of July was Henry's 100th birthday and there were a lot of little celebrations throughout the year. Even with a few centennial bingos and dances, the year started strong, but the celebrations didn't last.

"A lot of people took the train and went down to Expo including some school kids. It was an interesting year, but it kind of sizzled out towards the end."

This year, the Town of High River has also made a big deal about all the centennial babies.

"Council decided they would give every baby born in the High River Hospital in 1967 a citizenship ceremony. So they had four of those throughout the year."

The babies came with their parents and the mothers were given a handmade ceramic pin.

"There were a lot of babies born that year."

Also, in a couple of weeks the museum will also open an exhibit called Unfair Trade, when the Europeans came and started to settle in the area because High River and Fort Spitzee are an important stop along the MacLeod Trail.

There was fur trading for alcohol and things were getting out of control with the United States starting to look towards maybe moving in, that's when Prime Minister John A.  Macdonald finally started to pay attention and sent a police force west in 1874.

"It is a pretty unsavoury part of our history, but it is all part of the same story...Hopefully we will educate people a little bit about how important our area was."

The Museum is open Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sunday and Monday Noon till 4 p.m.

They also have the Heartland exhibit and the Film exhibit, if you haven't seen them this weekend, well, it might be the time to go.