The St. Joseph Museum will officially reopen the old Union Point School this weekend during the Montcalm Heritage Festival.

The school was moved from its original location along Highway 75 near the Union Point Church and relocated to the museum grounds in St Joseph back in 1982 to be displayed as a historical building.

Museum volunteer Denise Parent says the building has undergone extensive renovations to bring it back to the way it looked in the 1940s.

"To do that, they had to lift the building, take it off its old foundation and actually turn it half way around to the way it would have been facing when it was used as a school at Union Point, which is located on Highway 75 where they still have that little church between the two highways. That's where the school was also."

The Union Point School was moved to St. Joseph in 1982.

She says the building has a rich history in connection to the fight for bilingual education in Manitoba.

"Way back, this school was an English only school, but eventually some French Canadian families moved in with their children, so they had to negotiate to have some French education there. There were court cases, and at election time they had to call the RCMP to come and keep the peace because there was a lot of animosity between the French and the English at that point. But eventually it happened and they did have bilingual education in that school. That's where it all started."

The grand reopening ceremony for the Union Point School will take place on Saturday afternoon at the St. Joseph Museum.