Festival calls for safe return of 100 animal pelts after Fort Gibraltar heist
Festival du Voyageur's executive director, Breanne Lavalle-Heckert, told 680 CJOB someone scaled the fence at Fort Gibraltar after the site closed for the day on Monday and made off with more than 100 animal pelts — furs which make up between 50 to 75 per cent of the fort's artifacts.
'There's bears, there's coyotes, there's lynx, there's fox, there's mink, there's otter, muskrat, beavers — a huge array of animals,' she said.
'There was (even) a few wolverines … wolves. Quite a few.'
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Lavelle-Heckert said it seems like whoever committed the theft was targeting the furs specifically, as the rest of the fort and its artifacts survived the heist unscathed.
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'It was very interesting … it's the trading post, so there's a lot of other different historical items in there. There's a whole wall full of china, and there was literally nothing else damaged in the fort.
'To me, it really says that whoever was coming to do this was very, very explicitly coming to take the furs.'
All of the furs, she said, are marked with the animal's name in French, as well as the initials F-D-V, or the festival's iconic toque-and-boots logo.
Winnipeg police say they're aware of the incident and that the property crimes unit will investigate.
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