As I near the end of my career, I would like to reflect on what I consider the most significant artifact I have treated over the past 45 years. It was a very special challenge and a great learning opportunity. The powerful spiritual presence of the artifact and the significant place it holds in its community meant that a wide range of considerations came into play in determining the most appropriate treatment.

In spring 1998, CCI received a rare, early Mi'kmaq prayer book from Conne River, Newfoundland, for treatment. The prayer book contains hymns, prayers, and other religious texts for use during divine worship according to Roman Catholic observance. Most of the text is written in a hieroglyphic script that is unique to the Mi'kmaq tradition. The script is pictographic rather than phonetic, and is an example of a writing system used at least two and a half centuries ago.

The prayer book was in an extremely vulnerable and deteriorated state when it arrived at CCI. The leather cover had completely separated from the text block and the boards were warped, misshapen, and exceptionally soft. The 150-page text was hand sewn onto four vellum thongs and had become brittle and detached in places. The handmade paper, with a watermark of 1807, was exceptionally dirty and water-stained with ground-in surface dirt particularly around the edges from frequent handling. Many of the pages had tears extending across the width of the page and some pages had many missing areas.

While examining the prayer book, I developed some reservations regarding the correct position of a number of detached pages found throughout the volume. Because of this, it was arranged through the Conne River Mi'kmaq Band for Helen Sylliboy to come to Ottawa to put the detached leaves of the prayer book in the correct order. Helen is a Mi'kmaq educator who works in Language Development with the ESKASONI School Board, in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Helen's visit was, for me, the highlight of the conservation treatment. She brought with her a number of publications that described a system of notations that had been adapted by the 17th-century Franciscan missionary Chrestien Le Clerq from the Mi'kmaq practice of marking birchbark with mnemonic symbols. This system was further refined by Father Pierre Maillard, an 18th-century French priest.

Helen often referred to a recent publication, Mi'kmaq Hieroglyphic Prayers by David Schmidt and Murdena Marshall, published in 1995. The publication shows the hieroglyphic symbols, described as glyphs, that represent a word or words in the Mi'kmaq language, along with a translation in English. Helen had contributed to the research and translation of the hieroglyphic symbols.

It was wonderful to have Helen in the Works on Paper Laboratory. She was instrumental in translating some of the hieroglyphic text and confirming the correct order of the pages. CCI staff and visitors were enthralled by her description of the hieroglyphic symbols and recitation of the prayers and hymns in her Mi'kmaq language.

It became obvious to me that Helen felt honoured to touch and handle the prayer book. Suddenly, she turned to me and remarked that in her opinion the prayer book, because of its spirituality, should not be treated. I was struck by this comment and wondered if it would be more appropriate, more respectful of the object, to leave it untouched. It was clear from Helen's response to this object that there was a very powerful spiritual element to the book to which I had not been sensitive. As a result of her insightful comments, as well as those of several colleagues at CCI, a range of treatment options including that of no treatment was developed. Although these options were presented in the treatment proposal, it was clear that a meeting of all interested parties should be arranged in Newfoundland to discuss the options before deciding on an appropriate treatment. A meeting would also allow for more in-depth discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of each treatment option in order to ensure that the long-term implications of each were understood.