Back to thinking (sorry!)

We are settling in to our new home, just had a weekend of exploration .. On Saturday we explored Saskatoon by visiting a street festival on Broadway, it was interesting and relaxing. We bought a decorative plaque for our kitchen, and we brought a two year old with us, his mom and dad attended a wedding, he was great fun! Today we visited Batoche, a Metis battle site.
Here's the hmmmm... as we toured and explored this one-time settlement that is now carefully and expensively preserved with our tax dollars (I'm getting to the point and don't mean to sound cynical, keep reading!) I was really struck by the irony of the situation ... here was a vibrant and well-done retelling of a story of rebellion and uprising against the government. The site preservation and technology involved in the retelling of the story were initiated and are funded by... the government. I guess I'm supposed to make the logical jump to thinking that we're much more progressive and enlightened now.. but I'm not sure I'm convinced about that. Maybe the fact that anyone left living there had to be moved out in order to "preserve the history" left me feeling kind of hollow.
Anyway, while there, I picked up a book I know I'm going to enjoy, its a Mechif dictionary. Mechif is the language that resulted from anglicizing
French, combinining it with Cree, and basically teaching the next generation a language that hadn't been formally taught to the first. It's fascinating, funny sounding - if you know very much French ... but it's mostly tragic. I was reminded today of a culture and society that were relevant and real, and somehow their existence seemed like only a brief moment in time.