New sign is awesome, love the simplicity of the colours against the white. Way to go girl.

Look what we've got!



Thanks to funding through the Community Initiatives Program (Town of Creston, Area A, and Area C), we have a brand-new sign encouraging people to visit the Museum!  It's just past the grain elevators, so next time you drive past with no particular destination in mind or some time to kill - take its advice!  We'd love to see you!

I found an answer in th enewspapers the other day, but unfortunately it wasn't the answer to the question I 'd been asked.

The question was, Do we have any record of a Dr. Thomas Lyon, who set up a medical practice in Creston in March 1913? I was really hoping to find something, because the only doctor we have a record of for those early days is the well-known Dr. Henderson.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything in the newspapers.  But I did find the answer to something else I'd been wondering about: when the Skimmerhorn mountains got their name.



We have anote here that says they were named afer a guy named Schimmerhorn, who operated a tie camp (making wooden ties for the railways) in the area and flumed the logs down from the mountain to the camp.  We had nothing further than that; no details about who Mr. Schimmerhorn was or where he'd come from, or when he'd had this camp.

Here's what I found in the June 13, 1913 Creston Review:

"T.C. Shermerhorn of Nelson was in town the first of the week, purchasing horses and engaging men for his tie camp which is to be opened up near McNeillie Siding.  It is reported that about fifty men will be employed."

I know, the spelling doesn't quite match up - but it's close enough, especially considering how badly the Review could spell "foreign" sounding names! And McNeillie was a little siding on the CPR line between present-day Erickson and Canyon

One of the most common queries we get, from visitors viewing our General Store exhibit, is "Why don't you have one of those brown-glass Orange Crush bottles on display?"

The short answer is, quite simply, we didn't have one to put on display.  But we do now:



Sharon Rasmussen visited the Museum a few days ago, and realised we didn't have one of these.  So she brought this one in yesterday to complete the exhibit.

Thanks, Sharon!

Two of our summer students spent the day putting together Artifact or Artifiction.  It's a chance for you to show off your ability to spot a lie!

We chose twelve objects, all on display in the Museum.  We typed up the history of each of those objects and put them on display, too.  We made up one of the stories.

That's right: of the twelve histories, eleven are fact.  One is fiction.  Can you figure out which one?

We'll be featuring one object each Wednesday, on our website and on I Love Creston's Daily Buzz (delivered right to your inbox every morning). There will be links so you can let us know whether you think each week's feature is "fact" or "fiction," but the only place to see all twelve objects at once is right here at the Museum!

It all starts in one week - June 1!

The collections at the Creston Museum are always growing and changing.  Today alone, we've had four offers of artifacts.  Some we've had to decline, either because we already have lots of that particular type of object or because it has nothing to do with local history.  Others we've accepted because they are unique to our collection, or have a documented connection to the Creston Valley, or both - which is even better.

Here's one of today's additions:



Rae Marsh brought in this bathing suit, which both she and her mother wore.  The tag says it was patented in 1927 (raising the obvious question - someone patented a bathing suit?!?), and, in case you can't tell from the photo, it's made of wool.  Could you imagine swimming in wool?  As Rae said when she dropped it off this afternoon, it took a long time to dry - imagine wanting to go swimming twice in one day!

I had a lovely time at the festival this year.  I also enjoyed the tour I had at
the Museum to see all the new exhibits.

We had a great weekend - and I hope you did, too!

There were many people coming in to take a look at the special exhibit we created to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of Blossom Festival; quite a few people checking out the model railway; and many who came to see the whole Museum.

And our parade float won first place for theme-related entries!



I do have a photo of the finished float, but my camera is down in the Museum and I've already locked everything up and set the alarms, so instead, how about a photo of the 1940s float that inspired ours?

Okay, I know the approval process for summer student funding takes time.  I know the allocations have to be forwarded to the MPs, and I know the recent election has delayed the process somewhat.  But I can't help feeling a lot of sympathy for all those students who have applied for summer work, here and at other organisations, who would very much like to be working, and aren't getting anywhere because the employers don't yet have any funding to pay them!

The announcements of Canada Summer Jobs funding is a good two weeks later this year than it has been in the past - and there has been no word yet.  The Service Canada website says that employers will be notified beginning in mid-May, so hopefully it won't be too much longer!

In the meantime, if you've applied for the one summer student position we're still waiting to hear about, don't worry - I haven't forgotten about you!  I still have your resume, and I'll be in touch as soon as I get my funding!

Check out this quilt that came in today:



It's a large, unfinished piece of crazy quilting. In true crazy-quilting fashion, it makes use of silk and velvet fabrics, some lace scraps and ribbon for embellishment, and of course intricate embroidery stitches along all of the seams. Can you make out the date that has been embroidered onto it?  Here's a closer look at that particular block:



There it is - 1903.

This quilt comes to us from Pat Linge, who received it a good 25 years ago because she is a quilter.  She says she got some black velvet to finish it with, but could not do so without detracting from the authenticity of the original crazy quilting. Pat received it from Donna Philips, who in turn received it from her Aunt Christie.  Pat is going to get some more details about the lady who made it, but there is every reason to believe that it was made in the Creston Valley.

Want a closer look at it?  This quilt will definitely be featured in our Quilt Show in Spetember!

The Creston Museum is going into the boat-building business!

Well, not really, but we're building a parade float that looks like a boat:



This year marks the 70th anniversary of Blossom Festival, and, to help celebrate that milestone, we've drawn our inspiration for this year's parade float from a float that appeared in one of the earliest Blossom Festival parades.

In its early years, a key element of Blossom Festival was to raise funds and boost morale for the Second World War, which was raging at the time.  This float, a giant ship named "HMCS V Bundles," represented one of many fundraisers going on in the community.  Victory Bundles were packages of necessities (everything from socks to cigarettes) sent to the soldiers overseas, or crates of materiel such as rubber, wool, cotton, or metal sent to factories for processing into trucks, guns, and other equipment, or uniforms and bandages.

Here are Ian and Colin working on our version of that float - somewhat scaled down, and, unlike the original, ours won't be self-propelled (we're pulling it on a trailer behind an ATV - how's that for modernisation?).

Want to see a photo of the original?  Check it out in our special "70 Years of Blossom Fest" exhibit, now until Monday!

She's listening....Oh Tammy - I am sorry I forgot all about you...I will come talk to you on Monday.  Best of luck with the local products.  Sounds great!

Guess what we have in our gift shop now?  Jams and syrups from Duck Lake Berry Orchard.  We have three flavours of jam (Saskatoon, Plum, and Blackberry) and two flavours of syrup (Saskatoon and Wild Black Cherry).  It is delicious stuff - and in short supply, because, as you may have heard, Hans and Hetty who own Duck Lake Berry Orchard are finally retiring.  So if you want some of this, come and get it soon!

Our gift shop will also have, very soon, some dried fruit from Cherrybrook Farms and some of Gary and Susan Snow's locally-produced cherry juice (and Susan, if you're reading this, can we also talk about some of your Dad's honey?).  Is there anything else we should have to complete our "Local Flavours" section?

Today is planting day!  We've had five members of the Creston Valley Garden Club down here putting in the annuals and a whole bunch of geraniums that will help make the Museum's grounds absolutely spectacular again this year.

Red geraniums and spiky grasses in the planter boxes under the sign in the parking area:



Red geraniums and trailing petunias in the hanging baskets:



A couple of red climbing heritage roses on each side of our new arbour, which was made possible through the support of the Garden Club:



There will also be a whole bed of red geraniums, bordered by yellow petunias, backed by the stone wall next to the main Museum entrance.  So, everywhere you look, you'll see our lovely park-like grounds  and unique stone work punctuated with these bright splashes of colour!

Thanks, Garden Club, for doing this for us!

You know that saying, about how you learn something new every day?  Well, that's one of the best things about working at the Museum, because there's always something new to learn.

Today, for example, I had to go through minutes of the Historical Society from years past, and, in 1984-1985, I stumbled across two little tidbits of information about the Museum that I had never known before:

First, in the annual report from March 1985, was this little tidbit: "A small fire at the Museum, due to faulty wiring, was quickly brought under control and everything was cleaned up quickly by the students.  None of the artifacts were involved."

Really? We had an electrical fire here?  Makes me doubly glad that we were able to upgrade the wiring and replace this very scary electrical panel this year!



The second tidbit was a reference from 1984 that "The loft was completed and is operated by the Arts Council." Turns out that a space we now use for our ladies parlour display was, at one time, a little gift shop full of local artwork and artisans' work.

Well, we might not use the loft as a gift shop anymore, but we do still have a gift shop, and we certainly welcome any local artists or artisans to sell their work through it.  If you're interested, just let us know!

We are on to summer hours at the Creston Museum!  Six days a week, for now, seven starting the middle of June.  I've posted the updated hours here, so check them out and come on down!

Two of our summer students started work this week, and they are just about ready to take you through the Museum.  They're actually more excited than overwhelmed by the amount of information there is to learn, which is a good thing! They spent today going through the Museum with the rather large book of information we've compiled about the various exhibits, and tomorrow morning they get to go through again, this time without the book, and see how much they remember.  I'm betting they'll remember quite a bit.

We have one more summer student who will be starting on the 16th, and she'll be working in the Archives to finish up a map-reorganisation project, as well as responding to public research requests and giving tours when necessary.

I'm still waiting to hear about funding for a possible fourth summer student position, which will be for a collections-storage-area project.  I'm hoping to hear about that one in the next week or so.

We've got a number of school tours booked for May and June, and of course our usual schedule of events.  In fact, the first special event is coming up really quickly: a special exhibit celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Blossom Festival.  We'll have everything from photos of past parades and posters of previous Festivals, to a robe and crown worn by one of the Blossom Festival queens.  Come on down, but don't wait - this exhibit will only be around from May 20 to May 23!

And I checked withone of the quilting ladies the other day, Sharon I think, and I was wrong - it's something like 800 quilts in the past three years, not counting this last batch.  Wow!

Quilts 4 Kids truly does rock. The actual group may only meet on a regular basis twice a month, but many of the quilters quilt exclusively for Quilts 4 Kids. I've never seen an group of friends rise to the occasion no matter what is asked. They are a force to be reckoned with. When Tammy says all over, there were a nice box went to New Zealand to give out some hugs after their earthquake.

The Quilts for Kids ladies who meet at the Museum twice a month are amazing! In the past three years, they have made something like seven hundred quilts for sick kids across Canada and around the world, and today, Betty F. picked up yet another stack to take to the Children's Hospital in Calgary.  I didn't have time to count them, but there are at least twenty-five quilts in this stack.

Way to go, ladies!

Okay, Bill, here's the Truscott Brothers' Cornwall Ranch. I really like the way this photo (and several others in the archives) shows the perfectly straight rows of trees and the well-maintained land - a great source of pride for the orchardists:



And here's Susan's fruit tree sprayer (also a Truscott ranch photo). I could also include one of the provincial horticulturalist checking for little cherry disease - the different blights and diseases, and the ability to prevent or control them, has of course played a huge role in agricultural history:



And one of the Wynndel Packing Shed for Eileen.  There are lots of packing shed photos to choose from, but I like the Wynndel one best - throughout its history, it really responded to the needs of the local farmers:


Huscrofts farming in Canyon-Lister?  No photos are coming to mind on that one, yet - though one of the Huscroft daughters (Effie, I think) married Bob Long so we do kind of have a connection there through the Woodbine Ranch photo?  Okay, it's a stretch, I admit.

So that's fourteen photos so far, still not bad given that we have several hundred to choose from, but it's going to make one very jam-packed panel for the display at the Chamber of Commerce!  I'll pass these suggestions on!

What about one of the packing sheds or the tomato cannerey

From my perspective a picture of Cornwall Farm  but i didnt see any of the Huscroft family representing Canyon lister farming.

Sometimes, the research requests we get are easy - the information is quick to find, and there's no doubt when we get the right answer.  Sometimes, it's a little harder to find the information.  And sometimes, finding the information is easy - but there's so much of it that it's very hard to know when we've got the right answer!

Take this one, for example: choosing ten or twelve photographs that, when put all together, tell the entire history of agriculture in the Creston Valley.  Here's what we've come up with so far - what would you add or change?





A couple of early fruit ranches: one, still showing a lot of brush around the fruit trees, from about 1899, and R.J. Long's Woodbine Ranch in Erickson which was one of the largest and best-known ones in the Valley.  This photo also shows a corn field, so it's a good example of the mixed farming so prevalent in the early days.



Loading strawberries directly onto the train at Wigen's Ranch in Wynndel, about 1912, to represent the small fruits and Wynndel's status as "Strawberry Capital of the World";





One of the bulb farms out in Wynndel, and a photo of harvesting beans on the flats, because there has been a phenomenal variety of agricultural products grown here;



A couple of Dave Learmonth's dairy cows, reflecting the livestock end of things, and the way the appearance of the community has changed as different types of agriculture wax and wane (remember Learmonth's Big Red Barn on the Rec Centre grounds?);



A view of Sunset Seed Co., to represent the processing-and-shipping industries that support the agricultural ones (and the photo conveniently shows the railway tracks, the primary mode of shipping all that produce).



We included this photo of Art Sutcliffe combining wheat on R.B. Staples' farm, to include the whole grain industry of the Valley.





And, of course, we need to remember that the Valley's pioneers quite literally carved their livelihood out of the wilderness, so here are a couple of photos showing the effort that went into establishing all that agriculture: pulling stumps out at the Phipps ranch in West Creston (I don't think the goat is helping much); and the Collis children helping harrow some freshly-cleared land.

So, what's missing?

The school year is nearly over.  I could tell, even without a calendar, because this is the time of year when we start getting lots of school groups coming in on field trips.  Today's was the first of the season: 29 Grade 4 students from Bountiful School.



Here's one of the three groups, getting a lesson in the Creston Valley's early explorers from Barb, one of our awesome tour guides. Most of the groups we get in are pretty eager and engaged, but I always look forward to the visits from Bountiful School - great bunch of kids every year.



School tours are a lot of fun.  The students usually have a pretty unique perspective on the Museum's exhibits, and lots of curiosity about how things work.  And it amazes me very often how much they know about the past - more, I'm sure, than I knew at that age!

Now, looking forward to HomeLinks and ARES visiting later this month, and by the time June rolls around, we'll have two or three classes every week.  Some of them will be here for an hour-long tour; others will take the tour, take one of our hands-on challenges (Striking Out, the Great Railway Race, and the Game of Industry are among the most popular), eat a snack or lunch, and maybe even a quick game of tag on the lawn.  I think our longest school visit ever was just over four hours.  The kids had a great time, the teacher loved it ... but I was completely exhausted!

Whew!  I've had a few days of almost nothing but administrative work, which is why I haven't had too much to say about what's happening down here.  Unless you really want to read about all the emails I've sent and phone calls I've made.

But, in between the emails and phone calls, we've been doing the last few things to get ready for the summer, which officially starts down here at the Museum in .. wow!  About a week!

I've been interviewing summer students, for the three positions we've got funded so far.  I still have a couple more interviews, so the final selections aren't made yet, but we've had some excellent applicants and I think we'll have a really good team again this summer for our guided tours, events, and archives services.  I'm still waiting to hear about funding for a fourth position, so it's not too late to get your resumes in!  You can read more about our summer student jobs here.

Dorothea and Barb came in today to wash the outside of the Museum windows, which was pretty much the last part of the annual clean-up.  Everything is clean and sparkling and ready for our usual summer visitors!

The model railway guys were in today, and a few will be in over the next few days, cleaning tracks and getting the trains ready to roll.  They'll be rolling on Saturday, and every other day during the Museum's hours.

We're looking forward to our first school tour of the season, a group of 29 grade 4s who will be arriving on Thursday morning.

We're also working on a special exhibit for Blossom Festival - 70 Years of Blossom Fest.  So while you're out and about for Blossom Festival, be sure to come down to the Museum and see how the festival has changed over the years!

See?  There is always something happening down here, even if I don't write about it quite every day!