The Royal Alberta Museum (RAM) has announced that it will be returning more than 17,000 artifacts to the Fort McKay First Nation. The decision reportedly follows a request from a student at the University of Saskatchewan to see the items, after which archaeologists determined that the artifacts were collected on First Nation land and are legally the property of the nation. The artifacts were collected by a University of Alberta student between 1975 and 1977 and sent to the university, and then to the RAM in 1981. The Fort McKay First Nation held a ceremony at Elsie Fabian School where the first 77 artifacts were unveiled. “It’s not only a connection, but it’s also an opportunity to share with the younger generations to come on who we are, how we have lived and how we have roamed around here and harvested, how we’ve had a relationship with the land,” said Chief Raymond Powder.
