The Mistaseni Cairn (Mistusinne) is located at the edge of the Harbor Golf Course and the Marina. It was erected as a tribute to the Mistaseni (Cree for "Big Rock"), a 400-ton glacial boulder that once played an important part in traditional native religion. This huge rock was blasted in a failed attempt to move it prior to the flooding of the Qu'Appelle Valley in the 1960's. The cairn contains small chunks of the original rock. Other pieces were incorporated into a memorial to Chief Poundmaker on the Poundmaker First Nations near North Battleford.

One of the first written records of the Mistaseni rock is from the writing of Henry Youle Hind, who traveled here in 1858. Coming down the Qu'Appelle Valley he wrote, "about fourteen miles from the south branch (of the Saskatchewan River) there is a gigantic erratic of unfossiliferous rock on the south side of the valley. It is seventy-nine feet in horizontal circumference, three feet from the ground, and a tape stretched over the highest point, measured forty-six feet. The Indians place on it offerings to Manito, and at the time of our visit it contained beads, bits of tobacco, fragments of cloth, and other trifles".

The Elbow Museum is situated on Saskatchewan Street. In the early 1900's wood was so scarce on the prairies that many homesteaders built their first homes out of the sod. In 1965 the first replica of an authentic sod house was constructed as part of the celebrations for Saskatchewan's 60th anniversary as a province. In the summer of 2000 the house was rebuilt from native prairie sod, and furnished with period pieces. Operated as part of our museum, the "Sod Shack" is a symbol of the past, giving visitors a glimpse of how thousands of settlers lived when they homesteaded to the Canadian prairies in the early 1900's. ***Attractions Canada 2001 Nominee.

The Elbow Heritage Church is beginning its fifth year as a Heritage Building, but its roots go back to the beginning of the last century. When the first settlers arrived at "the elbow" of the South Saskatchewan River, they faced the daunting task of building a new community. They needed everything: roads, stores, schools, and churches. In 1906, settlers in Riverview, as it was then known, invited the Lutheran pastor at Hanley to travel 40 miles of prairie trails to have services in their homes. By 1908, a congregation had been formed. Within a few years they had begun planning a building, and in 1912 Bethel Norwegian Lutheran Church was built.

The building has been a well-known landmark in the area for the past 90 years.

In 1997, Elbow's Bethel Lutheran Congregation moved to a new church building. It looked for a while as though the old church might be abandoned to the wrecker's ball. Instead, the Village agreed to designate it a municipal heritage property. The Elbow Museum took over management in 2001, adding this neighbouring building to the schoolhouses and sod house already part of the museum.

Each spring the old church comes to life again. Its old-fashioned appeal and historical significance as well as its superb acoustics make it a perfect venue for musical programs & concerts. Such events have become popular community highlights.

The Heritage Church is also available to rent for families or groups of up to 100 for meetings, reunions or weddings. For further information please contact Louise Martens at (306) 854-4746, or Joan Soggie at (306) 854-2273.

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