Fish Lake Heritage Site. (Facebook/Tina Settee)

By Ronald Quaroni

Historic Preservation

Vandals target heritage site

May 1, 2020 | 12:33 PM

The clock is ticking to save a piece northern history.

Ongoing vandalism and the passage of time is starting to take its toll on the Fish Lake Heritage Site.

Tina Settee, a member of Fish Lake Métis 108, is doing her best to monitor the area, but vandals continue to wreak havoc on buildings already in disrepair.

Settee told paNOW in the last two months she has noticed more damage to the site’s two buildings. In the last week windows have been smashed and walls were kicked in.

Settee, who is actively applying for grants and looking for community help to make some upgrades and repairs to the site, fears the vandalism may escalate and destroy the buildings.

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“What I’m afraid of is someone is going to come and torch the place,” she told paNOW.

She reported the damage to the Prince Albert RCMP.

She is in active talks with a group of women with family connections to the Fish Lake area who hope the buildings can be repaired. Settee said they feel something has to be done this year.

“I’ve been taking photographs to gather the materials for restorations,” she said. “We’ve been maintaining the grounds as well as the two existing buildings and we’ve been making applications to get the buildings restored.”

Settee noted COVID-19 is slowing the grant application process but says there is still a group of people committed to keeping the site accessible to the public with a planned clean up of the site and trails on May 18 so people can enjoy the site for 2020.

“It’s important to me because it’s history. It’s part of the Métis history and I want to preserve that and share it with the public,” she said.

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Ron.Quaroni@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @RonaldQuaroni