Medicine Hat police museum receives historic wood carving

The Medicine Hat Police Service Museum has received a historic wood carving depicting an Indigenous figurehead, donated by the granddaughter of former police Chief James Bruce.

Bruce served as chief from 1912 to 1916 and again from 1918 to 1919.

According to an inscription on the back of the carving, titled “A Rough Ride,” it was made by D.G. Hodgson on April 27, 1929, using hardwood from the Red Deer Valley badlands near Dorothy, Alta.

MHPS said that Hodgson presented the carving to Bruce in 1929, and it remained in the Bruce family for nearly a century.