Business promotes Metis culture internationally

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It was slow to build but it is now clear that the best is yet to come for one business owned and operated by Ric and Rose Richardson.

The Metis couple has now finished their second year in business at Keewatin

Junction Station, a restaurant and museum operation that has received accolades for creativity from many people, including Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert and Metis Nation president Clem Chartier.

The business is situated in Green Lake, population 500, Saskatchewan's third oldest community located 50 km east of Meadow Lake.

Last summer was a good one for tourism-based businesses in the area, with the Saskatchewan First Nations Summer Games on Flying Dust First Nation drawing a number of visitors to the area. Tourism numbers also benefited from the large numbers of campers visiting Meadow Lake Provincial Park, drawn to a more northern destination than usual in their quest for water recreation because of extremely low water levels in Cochin and the North Battleford area.

"Our whole business is designed to promote pride and dignity in our Metis culture and that of our northern peoples and that is very apparent to anyone who goes through our museum," Ric said. "Our visit numbers were up in 2003 and we are already looking forward to 2004."

Some of the antiques found in the museum at Keewatin Junction include cream separators, old tools and muskrat presses that show the inventiveness and resourcefulness of the Metis people and others in northwest Saskatchewan in an age before electricity and gasoline were available.

The building that Keewatin Junction Station is located in is also of historical significance-it actually served as the train station in nearby Meadow Lake for many years before being moved to Green Lake 12 years ago.

For 2004, the couple is planning to broaden the focus of the business by incorporating more cultural tourism into the mix.

A group of tourists from Germany, who visited the Keewatin Junction Station briefly last summer, are planning a more extended visit next year as part of what will turn into a cultural exchange that will see Ric and Rose travelling to Europe as well.

"These people are German environmentalists and they are looking for tipi and a breakfast not bed and breakfast," Ric said. "We will be showing them our traditional uses of medicine as part of our Metis and Aboriginal heritage. It is a way of a cultural exchange in that they are coming here and we are going over there. They have requested we go over there to do some speaking engagements in Germany and Switzerland. It is our intention to go there over the Christmas break."

Both Ric and his wife have spent many years defending and preserving Metis culture and figured this operation is helping them achieve this aim. Ric said he calls this concept they are working on cultural historical eco-tourism, a blend of several different types of tourism.

"The Metis people who have come here have learned a lot and both myself and my wife have exchanged ideas with them that we would not otherwise have," he said. "By bringing European tourism here, it is low impact use of our resources while having an educational experience.

"As the concept develops, there will be the need to employ other individuals in the restaurant or in other tourism aspects of the business. The potential for tourism related enterprises here are only limited by the imagination."