" Help restore the Hourie Homestead and protect Portage la Prairie’s heritage—preserving tangible cultural history to safeguard the stories, traditions, and spirit of the past for future generations to connect, learn, and be inspired."
Welcome to the Hourie House at the Fort la Reine Museum in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba! You’re just in time to help us restore a significant local homestead before it's too late. Restoration of the Hourie house requires that we place the house on a new foundation to ensure the home’s stability before interior improvements can be made. We feel that by intervening now, we will be able to preserve the integrity of the home’s historic feel. Help us restore this museum favourite, an essential stop on guided tours and a setting for community special events and programs.
Our Project's Impact | Les effets de notre projet
The Fort la Reine Museum is an important tourist attraction for the City and RM of Portage la Prairie. Restoration to visitor favourites like the Hourie home helps to increase annual visitation, ensure safe visitor experiences, and expand our programs and educational outreach. We are partnering with local building companies, the rural municipality, and dedicated community members to complete this project. Building restorations such as this, allow us to offer increased community gathering, rental, and event space, generating important revenue to continue to care for our collections and enhance visitor experience. As a tourism bureau for the city of Portage, we work to include diverse and comprehensive histories of Portage and the surrounding area to inspire and educate visitors to our region and future generations.
About This Place | À propos du lieu
Our chosen historical place is the Hourie House, built in 1890 in High Bluff, Manitoba. In 1859, Hudson’s Bay gifted Philip and Euphemia Hourie a land Grant in1859 for faithful service to the company. The Hourie home was built due to Euphemia falling through the second-story floor of their original log home. In 1967, they were declared Manitoba’s farm of the century; the house was moved in 1977 to the Fort la Reine Museum, where it remains. This house has significant connections to the community Metis heritage- as the home matriarch, Euphemia Halcro-Cook, was a well-known midwife for the area in the late 19th century. The Hourie home is an example of an early Canadian farm home with Victorian-era features, a step up from the typical log chinking of the time. We are at a point where the home needs intervention. Unfortunately, we cannot progress on the house's interior conservation until structural issues are addressed Fixing the home’s foundation will help protect the collection of artifacts stored within the home; ensuring its intangible history, like Euphemia's story, lives on in our community.
