Two new permanent exhibits at the Manitoba Museum will celebrate our aboriginal history.

"We Are All Treaty People" and "The Berens Family Collection" opened Wednesday in the Parklands Mixed Woods Gallery.

While "Treaty People" started as a temporary exhibit last summer, only five of the eight Manitoba Treaty medals were presented; now the entire collection will be on display, thanks to a Manitoba collector. The exhibit uses historical photos to take viewers back to the time when the treaties were signed. One notable photo, an original print from the 1870s, is of Chief William Mann -- who signed Treaty One on behalf of the people living at Fort Alexander, now Saugeen First Nation, and kept in the Mann family until this year. And now the medals have been paired with traditional pipes and pipe bags.

"It is unusual for a museum to display sacred artefacts like these pipes and pipe bags, but without them we would have failed to represent First Nations agency and understandings," said Maureen Matthews, curator of native ethnology at the Manitoba Museum, the exhibit's co-ordinator.

"The Berens Family Collection" explores Treaty No. 5, which covers most of Manitoba. Chief Jacob Berens negotiated Treaty No. 5 in 1875 at Berens River -- and now the chief's suit, as well as the medal he received to commemorate the negotiations, is on display.

"By including the Berens family's collection as part of the 'We Are All Treaty People' exhibit, the Manitoba Museum is ensuring this family's contribution and their history in our province is not forgotten," Premier Greg Selinger said in a release.