Grandfather Canoe to Stay in Canada … for Now
29 Apr
The “Grandfather Canoe,” a birch-bark canoe built in the 1820s by Maliseet First Nation craftsmen, will remain in Canada for now, according to THIS report in the Daily Gleaner of New Brunswick.
The canoe, which is the property of the Irish National University, Galway but has been on display at the New Brunswick Museum in St. John for the past year, was scheduled to return to Ireland in June. Instead, the canoe will now move to Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Maliseet First Nation officials, as we noted HERE in an earlier story, have been lobbying to permanently keep the canoe in Canada with the Maliseet. The extension of its museum run in New Brunswick, the Daily Gleaner story suggests, signals that the ultimate repatriation of the canoe is likely.
The canoe was brought to Ireland in 1852 and had resided, largely forgotten, at the University until recently.
