I'm thrilled to be able to share some very exciting news with you -



We have received funding through the Columbia-Kootenay Cultural Alliance to convert historic film footage of the Creston Valley - you know, the stuff that's on old 8mm or 16mm rolls - into DVDs that can be played anywhere.

We don't actually have any of this film footage in our collection, but we know it's out there, and we hope you'll help us find it. The owners of the film get a copy on DVD, and we'll keep a copy for our collections and for use in our exhibits.

You can read more about this project, and if you have some rolls of film laying around that might be of interest, please let us know!

Does anyone out there have a local (anywhere in or near the Creston Valley) photo of a slip scraper in operation? We would like to put one on some signage in our exhibit of larger machinery.

We found ths one online, which gives you a bit of an idea what we're looking for:



These are also called Fresnos, or just slips, and were used for all kinds of earth-moving, from scraping roads to digging basements (that's what they're doing in the photo above, I think). Here's a better picture of the scraper, if you're not sure what I'm talking about:



If you have a local photo of one of these being used, please let us know! Thanks!

Jim Ogloff came in today with a photograph for us:



It shows Bob Maxwell's boat pulled up at the shore of the river, in about the 1950s. In high water, this boat was the only way to get from West Creston to Creston - it served as school bus, taxi, and freight wagon.

We've got one photo of Bob Maxwell's boat, showing Mr. Maxwell himself sitting on the stern, but this one is really interesting because the boat is well loaded: look at all those cream cans lined up on the roof and at the back of the cabin.  There's another large piece of freight on the roof, too.

That's in addition to the eighteen passengers and Mr. Maxwell (that's him standing up against the side of the cabin) who are evidently about to climb in.

What a great representation of just how important this boat was in the day-to-day life of West Creston.  Thanks for bringing it in, Jim!

We had a group of people from CrestView in today:



It's great that, after many years of working on it, the Museum is now almost all wheelchair accessible so these groups can really enjoy their visit.  It hasn't always been easy, making forty t- fifty-year-old stone buildings wheelchair accessible, but we're working on it!

Fortunately, the rain stopped and the sun came out - perfect timing - so they could enjoy their tour and some lemonade on the patio.

Sometimes, it can be hard to tell the difference between artifacts and perfectly good, usable tool.  Here are a couple of examples:



Summer student Jessa is nearing the end of an inventory of our storage areas, and this ladder is one of the problem objects she's come across. It doesn't have a catalogue number, which (in theory anyways) all artifacts in the collection must have. The catalogue number is marked on the object, and then we can look up that number and find all the information about the object, who donated it, and who used it, without having to have big labels attached to everything. So, since ladder this doesn't have a catalogue number, we have no idea where it came from. Is it an artifact - the sole remaining reminder of one of the local paint shops, perhaps?  Or is it simply something someone forgot to put away after getting an object down from an upper shelf in the storage areas?

Here's another:



The fire-extinguisher-tester guy was in yesterday, making sure all of our fire extinguishers are up-to-date and ready to use. He was quite surprised by this one, because it's really far too old to be used anymore (it's from the 1940s or 1950s). Needless to say, it has been replaced and now we're debating whether it should be added to the collecton as an artifact.



And then there's this piece of photographic equipment, marked as being from Ed Werre's studio here in town and therefore an artifact, even though it has no catalogue number (part of Jessa's job this summer is to find all these uncatalogued things and deal with them). It's definitely something that should be in the collection - but what exactly is it?

Let's save the best of the two Creston ones, owned by Ray Gauthier...take the best of the stuff from the Wynndel one, and do what should be done before it's too late..save a huge part of Creston's icoic past.

What do you get when you put a "trick" square (a square where you have to do a trick of some kind in order to advance) into hopscotch?  You get a game of hopscotch that resembles the tryouts for "So you think you can dance:"



We had jumps, spins, some "Thriller" moves, cartwheels and even a little hip-hop happening there for a while. Some of the grown-ups got right into it, as well:



What was the occasion?  Grizzly Bear Daycare came in for a tour this morning. The kids had a great tour of the Museum, during which we got some interesting identifications on some of our artifacts (the morning glory horn for the Edison cylinder phonograph, for example, was pointed out as a "speakerphone") and had a great time sharing stories and examining all sorts of very cool things.



And the kids ran off some energy with sack races and hula-hooping on the lawn (some of the hula-hoops even made it into the hopscotch game, which was really interesting).



I am very glad we have such a big lawn and patio to host these groups.  Could you imagine all that energy inside the Museum?

Thanks for coming, guys, and we'll see you again soon!

Today, I had an opportunity to get into the Wynndel elevator, thanks to a
local farmer (thanks, Lorne!) who has purchased some of the larger pieces of equipment
for use on his own farm.



The elevator is owned by the CPR, and I can
confirm that the CPR does want to demolish it, due to some serious
concerns about its safety and the resulting liability issues - though that won't be happening overnight, because there are some pretty big challenges in terms of how, exactly, to bring it down without damaging either nearby houses or blocking the railway or access into Wynndel Box and Lumber.

We've been
told, though not officially, that the CPR would be happy to see some of
the remaining equipment and documents go to the Museum.  We also now have the correct contact information for the people at the CPR  who are responsible for the elevator, so hopefully we will be able to preserve at least some pieces of it, even if the elevator itself is gone.

In the meantime, I've posted the photos I took today in the Wynndel Grain Elevator photo album.

I've spent the day tackling a couple of research projects that have been on my to-do list: Prohibition and rum-runners for this month's I Love Creston article (not making much progress on that - do I still ahve time to think of another topic?) ; and the history of the property where my friend Caroline has her new Cherrybrook Farms fruitstand.

Caroline knows it was owned by Mr. Huble in the 1950s, and he operated a dry-goods store there in the long building where Caroline's putting her commercial kitchen. I've found a tree-fruit survey for L. Huble from 1950. which shows he also had a few hundred fruit trees on the property - apples, cherries, pears, pliums, and peaches.

Unfortunately, 1950 is the last year we have tree fruit surveys for, so I can't even guess how long Mr. Huble had the property.  Ian thinks he was there in the late 1940s, but certainly not before 1945 because there's no tree fruit survey in the Huble name that year (the surveys were done every five years).

The 1926 Arrow Creek Irrigation District map shows Frank Celli as owner of that property in 1926.  Here's a section of the map; the Celli property is marked as Lot 14,  sublots C,D, and E, and the red line across the top of it is Highway 3. The Craigie property (later Wayside Gardens and presently Beltane Nurseries) is just next door to the left.



We have tree fruit surveys in Frank Celli's name from 1925 to 1940, but not in 1920 the earliest year we have the surveys for) or 1945. The 1925 survey shows an orchard of about 1500 trees, 1250 of which are one to five years old in 1925 and the remaining 190 or so being ten years or older.  That suggests that Mr. Celli bought an older orchard between 1920 and 1925 and considerably expanded it.

So who owned the Celli property before the Cellis?

Over the past couple of days, we've had some very special visitors at the Creston Museum.  The Therapeutic Activation Program for Seniors brought their members in two groups, yesterday and today.

They had a lunch of sandwiches and juice on the patio (it was a little cold, but fortunately the rain held off):



and then took a little trip down memory lane on a tour of the Museum (that's the best part for our staff and volunteers - listening to people's stories and memories!)



And about half of them made it up the stairs to check out the model railway:



Thanks for visiting, and we look forward to seeing you again soon!

I was going through photographs of local businesses today, looking for some of the various buildings that the Creston & District Credit Union has occupied over the years. In case you haven't heard, the Credit Union is celebrating sixty years this summer!)

In the process, I noticed this one, which I have probably seen a hundred times but never really paid attention to:



This shows Canyon Street in 1922. That's the original Bank of Commerce (now Jordan Financial Block), the big building in the right foreground, with the boardwalk running along it towards 11th Avenue. The big building at the back on the left side of the street is the Grand Theatre, where Pharmasave is now, and beyond it is ... not much, because main street was really only about a block long in those days.

But it was the other buidlings on the left side that made me look twice. Starting at the front is the  P. Burns butcher shop (now Travelling Camel), then Rose and Timmons Real Estate (where Tony Mulder's is now), a jeweller (with the clock on it), and a tiny little building that I can't identify, and, finally, what is now the Creston Valley Advance.

Look how far out in the street the Advance building is, compared to the others! I'd never noticed that before.  Compare it to this photo of the same side of the street, from 1908:



With that large gap in between the jeweller's and the Advance building, the distance that the Advance is sticking out into the street isn't so obvious, but the tiny building in between in the 1922 photo makes it pretty clear.

The other interesting thing about the 1922 photo is the sign on the side of the present-day Advance building (which you probably can't read in this low-res scan).  It's partially obscured, but it looks like it says "Economy Store."  Which is weird, because in 1922 that building was home to the Imperial Bank.

Okay, so I guess I'm digging out every photo we have of the main street, now, to find out when that building was moved back into line. And trying to find out what and/or where "the Economy Sotre" was.

Yes, I am pretty sure...I think there is a foot peddle that clamps that box in and you nail it and then take your foot off the pedal to release it.

I am almost 100% sure that the box making jig is legitimate.  I think I remember working on one just like that when I was a kid on the orchard.

We're into Week 7 of Artifact or Artifiction, and so far 241 people have voted for one of the twelve objects we've specially chosen for this challenge.



This week's featured object is the South African spear point:



If you haven't checked this out yet, here's how it works:  We chose twelve objects in the Museum, and put their histories right next to them.  Eleven of those histories are true, but the twelfth, we made up.  Your challenge is to figure out which ones are FACT and which one is FICTION.

We have a clear front-runner in the "I think it's fiction" race: the box-making jig has received forty-six votes so far! The next closest is the fainting couch, with thirty-nine votes. And there are a couple (the spear point and the cemetery stones) whose stories are obviously more believable than the others, since only seven people have thought they're fiction.

Each week we're featuring one of the objects on our website and in I Love Creston's Daily Buzz, so check it out, and decide for yourself which one is ARTIFICTION! You can check it out online, but you have to come into the Museum to vote.

John H. brought in a pretty fascinating CD full of photos today.

They come, indirectly, from Bill Constable: someone got them from Bill years ago, saw what John's doing with the history wall at the Chamber of Commerce, and dropped the CD off for John.

Most of the photos focus on the Alice Mine: office cabins, building the tramway, pack trains of supplies, even some documents from its operations. But there are also quite a few of other scenes around the Creston Valley.  I haven't had a chance to go through them all yet, but here's one of my favourites so far:



It shows the sternwheeler SS Moyie at the wharf at Kootenay Landing, which was the end of the CPR line at the south end of Kootenay Lake.  We have other photos of ships at the wharf, but this one really shows the equipment working.  You can even see the train at the right edge of the photo.

As soon as I've talked to Mr. Constable, to make sure he's okay with us adding these to our collection, I'll show you some more!

The guys were back today, sheeting the roof on the extension to the shed where we store and display large artifacts:



That's Greg and Ray up on the roof, and Ian and Paul cutting the aluminum and passing it up.  Dave came by a little while later, so there were three of them on the roof, and by 1:00 they were pretty much done:



There's just a little bit more to be done on the front and the sides of the roof, then some bracing across the bays.  We have four bays, which are going to be, eventually, new exhibits on local history. For example, we have a 1942 Massey-Harris self-propelled combine (the first one brought into the Valley) that needs to be put under cover - it'll be going right at the end of this shed.  Next to it, we'll create a display on the local grain industry.

Funding from Columbia-Kootenay Cultural Alliance helped us build this shed.  We're  working on a proposal for funds to build a similar structure down on the front edge of the property and create a whole series of new exhibits that combine artifacts with audio-video recordings of local long-time residents (more on that later). Even better, we'll finally have the space we need to actually accept some of the larger artifacts we get offered.

About two weeks ago, someone called the Museum and left a message, saying that the Wynndel grain elevator is soon going to be torn down, and if we wanted photos we'd best get them quickly. So today, I took a camera and took a drive, and met Cyril Colonel out at the old elevator:



The elevator itself is all locked up, but we were able to get into a little office building alongside, where we found some pretty interesting documents from random years throughout the elevator's history: a permit to operate from 1942; grain price list from 1954; cheque stubs from 1971; and various calendars up to ten years ago. Kind of makes you wonder why those particular items were kept, doesn't it? I've posted some photos of them in a Wynndel Grain elevator photo album.

The Wynndel elevator was built at about the same time as the ones downtown.  A photo we have of it under construction is dated 1935, but the Wynndel history book says 1937.  I haven't had time today to check other sources to find out which one is correct (I suspect the Wynndel book is, though).



Unfortunately, that caller a couple of weeks ago didn't leave his name, so we're phoning all over the place to find out who exactly is intending to tear the elevator down, and when.  We'd like to get some of those documents for the archives' collection, and take a look inside the elevator itself in case there's some machinery or signage still in there that we could use for a new exhibit on the local grain industry.

I'll keep you posted on what's happening with the elevator, and in the meantime, if you notice some activity around it, could you let me know so I can whip out there in time?

Yes please..........reservations for 4 anytime during the tea.

It's the first week of July! August is less than a month away - and that means it's time we got ready to take reservations for our very popular Old-Fashioned Tea.



The Tea is on Saturday, August 13, with the usual three seatings - at 1:00, 2:00 and 3:00.  This year, there will be an art show, featuring Laura Leeder's Teacup series (and yes, the teacups are the ones we'll be serving tea in that day) and your ticket for the Tea gets you a chance to win one of Laura's original paintings.



So what are you waiting for? Call or email today to book your reservation for the Tea.  We do recommend reservations - in past years, we've been pretty much full.

Look what Joe Snopek brought in for us:



He makes these little fruit crates with a scaled-down print of the fruit labels from the packing sheds that used to operate in the Valley.  Those fruit labels are works of art in themselves, I think.

Joe has filled each of these crates with little artificial fruit, too, and he's given them to us to sell in our gift shop.

Thanks, Joe!