RENAME HWY # 26 IN MANITOBA - CUTHBERT GRANT TRAIL

Our Ancestors are our past, we are the now and our children are the future....keep the memories and the struggles of your ancestors alive by honoring them in the deeds you do each day....be a role model for our future...our children.... we should all be proud of where and who we come from....for without them we would be not.....they live through each breath we take....

*****THANKS TO MECHTILD MORIN FOR THIS AWESOME IDEA TO GET THE BALL ROLLING *****

Here is a wee bit about about what is trying to be accomplished:

This was a WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARTICLE - JULY 11, 2010 AFTER OUR CUTHBERT GRANT DAY - JULY 10, 2010:

Sandra Horyski is off to Granttown in Scotland come Wednesday to educate Clan Grant about its Manitoba relative Cuthbert Grant -- her relative too.

"The purpose of the trip is to bring historical documents to be put in a museum," said Horyski, as she took part in the annual Cuthbert Grant Day in period dress Saturday

She's a niece of Cuthbert Grant, Manitoba's first Metis leader, said Horyski, though she's not quite sure how many great-great-greats she needs to put in front of niece. Horyski first learned she was related to Grant several years ago.

"I had my family tree done," she explained, while around her Metis of all ages made bannock, performed music, ground flour in Grant's Old Mill -- next to the Grace Hospital on Portage Avenue -- and explained their heritage to visitors.
"I'm an avid history reader. When it comes to history books, I'm like a sponge," she said.

Her upcoming trip will take her first to Edinburgh, where Grants from all over the world will meet. The history of the Grant clan is being compiled in a museum in northern Scotland, appropriately in Grantown-on-Spey.

"We've formed an official Cuthbert Grant group," said Horyski, who's a board member of the St. James Assiniboia Pioneer Association Inc., which sponsors the annual Cuthbert Grant Day.

Growing up in Selkirk and attending school there, Horyski said, she learned nothing about Cuthbert Grant, who led the Metis at the Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816 and started the mill in 1829.

"Zero -- the only thing we were taught about was Louis Riel," she said. "My son going to St. John's High School, they're not taught about Cuthbert Grant."

While the annual day has been celebrated for several years, organizers expanded events this year, borrowing period costumes and offering more cultural displays than in the past. Cuthbert Grant died July 15, 1854, so the day is marked on the second Saturday of July.
"We're trying to uncover him from the pages of Manitoba history," Horyski said. "We're trying to make it bigger and better.We're trying to re-educate people, to rewrite Manitoba history."

This is also the 35th anniversary of Metis volunteers operating Grant's Old Mill throughout the summer. "We have flapjack Sunday" each Sunday morning at the mill, she said. "It's by donation. You can have as many flapjacks as you want," from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

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I am representing a fellow group of Cuthbert Grant Descendants and we are planning a fundraiser in the next couple of months to raise needed funds to have two possible Monuments/statues made, one in Grants Old Mill and another one at a yet to be determined Manitoba location.

It seems this year our Cuthbert Grant Day has started a sort of wonderful movement where so many descendants have stepped forward and the response has been so overwhelming we have had to open another FACEBOOK group to post information on called – CUTHBERT GRANT HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE IN MANITOBA HISTORY.

We are also hoping to bridge the gap between Manitoba and Scotland and the historical documents I brought with me to Scotland this July we hope will end up in a museum as it is now in the hands of the Grant Clan in Scotland.

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FROM MECHTILD MORIN:

As I travel the roads in Manitoba a month ago, I had a thought: Why doesn't someone rename Highway #26 to honour Cuthbert Grant? After all the highway runs through the village, which he founded, plus some folks believe that his remains, who were once laid to rest in the 2nd church (which he built) along the right wall, are now resting under the highway. I am not sure if this is so or not. I guess that would require some more research. In any case, if he does not rest under the highway, he is certainly close by.

You may or may not know, that about 9/10 years ago, Highway 11 in Saskatchewan was renamed "Louis Riel Trail". Along the highway they have signs and some very interesting metal sculptures, which were created by Don Wilkins. I have attached two websites for your information:

www.louisrieltrail.ca

www.donwilkins.net

Something like this could contribute to an increase in tourism, economic development and of course it would make Cuthbert Grant more widely known here in Manitoba.