Okay, according to Tom, Kootenay Lake itself is the reason why fruit grows so well along its shores. He says,

"The 500' depth of the main lake means warmenr winters, deeper snow, and since the lake often holds cloud above on cold nights, the lowest temperatures are warmer than even a mile or two away from the lake."

The tree-fruit industry was, until the 1940s, as important to the economy of the East Shore of Kootenay Lake as it was to the Creston Valley, and the pride of the Kootenay Lake industry was the cherry crop.

Ironically, those warmer temperatures also created ideal growing conditions for varieties of Japanese ornamental cherries. And it's the ornamental cherries that contributed to the spread of Little Cherry Disease in the Kootenay - and virtually wiped out the cherry industry along Kootenay Lake.

The best thing about writing articles for I Love Creston is that it often leads to people contacting me to give me more information about whatever the topic is that I've chosen for the month.



For example, in response to the apple article last month ("Where Have All the Apples Gone," September 2011), I had quite a few people point out to me that apples come in boxes, not crates (ooops!), and lots of people have shared stories of their experiences in the local tree-fruit industry. So watch for a follow-up article soon.

Tom Lymbery sent me a couple pages' worth of information about the East Shore industry, most of which I didn't know before. Which brings me to the question of the day:

Why does fruit grow so well along the East Shore of Kootenay Lake?

Answer tomorrow!

Have you ever wondered what you could do with all those wooden thread spools hainging around in great-grandma's attic?  Here's one idea:



Genevieve Clark made this corner knick-knack shelf by stringing wooden thread spools on a cable and running the cable through holes in each corner of the triangular shelves.

Even cooler is the fact that the thread on the spools was used by the local Red Cross ladies, to make things for overseas packages during the Second World War.

Gen's daughter, Edith, brought this in to us yesterday. It's a fantastic addition to the collection - on the scale of bery unique artifacts with a local history, this one definitely rates high!

We're getting a new roof! Two new roofs, actually.

First is the roof on the main museum building. The cedar shakes that you can see in this photo were on the building when we bought it in 1980, and were probably a few years old at that time - so they are well past their thirty-year life expectancy!



We haven't had any leaks yet, but we are very grateful to Columbia-Kootenay Cultural Alliance for the funding to replace it before we did have problems! You can see the original shakes being pulled off, and one of Dean McCready's crew putting new sheeting over top of the original wood - which, for the most part, is still okay.



The guys started work on Monday, put things on hold yesterday because of the weather, and are going full-steam-ahead to get the work done this week. They've got a good portion of the roof done already; you can see the new shingles here.

Here's the other roof we're getting right now:



Greg, Ray, and Tom are busy putting the finishing touches on the new section of the Outdoor Shed, which was put up earlier this summer. Soon, well be able to start moving in some of the large artifacts.

Well, the voting for the Creston & District Credit Union's 60th Anniversary Legacy Awards



was Friday and Saturday last week, and the two winning organisations were:

West Creston Fire Services for a new(er) fire truck - one that doesn't produce more smoke than the fires;

and

Creston Valley Hospice Society for a new palliative care room at the hospital.

I'd like to offer our sincere congratulations to the winners - those are two excellent projects, and definitely deserving of the $25,000 awards.

I'd also like to thank everyone who voted for the Museum's project, Making Memories Last. Your support and offers of assistance are very much appreciated - and we're definitely not abandoning this project! Although we won't be able to build another section on the Outdoor Shed - not yet, anyway - we will be tackling a reorganisation of the sections we've got, and working to create better exhibits in those sections.

So we still (as always) want to hear your stories about the local industries (or any other part of local history, for that matter), and we'll incorporate them into our exhibits at every opportunity. We're still working on acquiring some parts of the Wynndel grain elevator and the original grain cleaner from Sunset Seed, which will be going into the shed. We're also going fulll-steam-ahead on our project to collect local historic film footage and convert it to DVD, so if you've got any of that, please bring it in! And, next spring or summer, watch for some new exhibits on the agricultural industries on the flats, which will be going into the section of the shed that we've just completed.

This is one of the quilts we had on display in our quilt show on Saturday:



It is currently owned by Rita and Brian Churchill, who recently moved to Creston from Fort St. John. Brian's mother, Margaret Cotton Churchill, won the quilt in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

Apparently, a women's group in Creston created this oversize quilt for a very tall gentleman by the name of Crawford. However, Mr. Crawford passed away before he received the quilt. The group then raffled off the quilt and Margaret Churchill won it.

The quilt is made of recycled squares of wool fabric of the type used for men's coats and outdoor pants in those days, coarse but warm and durable. The squares were sewn together, probably by hand, and then the batting and backing were sewn on by hand as well.

The Crawford Quilt has given great service to the Churchill fmaily for more than fifty years and has many fond memories associated with it.

Rita and Brian are asking: does anyone know anything about the man for whom the quilt was made, or about the group that made it?

Right now, I have a couple of people in my office, researching home children. These are the children who who were sent out from Britain is indentured servants, between 1869 and 1939.



The researchers are writing a book on home children, and will be giving a presentation on the topic here at the Museum tonight, starting at 7:00.

Read more about it here, and I hope you can join us tonight, because this is going to be an interesting talk.

I'd like to draw your attention to a website that Wayne Louie of the Lower Kootenay Band phoned to tell me about the other day:

http://www.sturgeon-nose-creations.com/



Wayne is one of the local Ktunaxa people, and makes the distinctive sturgeon-nosed canoe using traditional materials and techniques.  His website outlines the history of the canoe and its importance to the Ktunaxa people. Wayne also has a series of photos on the site that show how the canoe is made.

If you haven't already heard Wayne talk about building the canoe - or even if you have - you should check out this site!

Altogether, approximately 138 people came in to enjoy the 98 quilts we had on display in the Museum today.

Squeezing that many quilts and quilted items in around teh exhibits, and still leaving enough of the Museum showing to satisfy the people who come in to see the Museum rather than the quilts (it does happen), is not easy. It leads to some rather interesting displays, like this one:



where the nurse is preparing an animal-print quilt for surgery. But sometimes we get very cool things happening, like this:



I love how the shape of the central part of this quilt echoes the shape of the Ktunaxa canoe, when viewed from above, on display behind it. I'd like to say we did that on purpose, but to be honest, it just kind of happened that way.

As always, the Quilts for Kids ladies were busy buzzing away in the Beehive (aka the Carr Building) with coffee and goodies and quilts in progress for sick and deserving children. They had a whole row of quilts on display, which will be soon sent off to one of the children's hospitals - Ronald McDonald House, I think:



I think this is my personal favourite of all the quilts we had on display this year:

As of right now (1:00 on Friday), we have 98 quilts and quilted items for our Quilt Show tomorrow. And there are some spectacular pieces.
We don't have too many big quilts this year, which means we should be able to hang most, if not all, of them out to their full size. And there are many many table toppers, wall hangings, placemats, and other smaller pieces. Many of those are for sale, so if you want to get started on your Christmas shopping a little early, I highly recommend coming down here tomorrow!
The quilt show runs from 10:00 to 5:00. See you there!

We had a great group of people in today from Sacramento, California - taking a mystery tour around the Selkirk Loop. Lots of fun to talk to, and they really enjoyed the Museum, too!

Just about to head up to the Rec Centre to set up our special exhiibit for the Creston Valley Fall Fair. It's a look at the tree fruit industry - more specifically, the apple industry - in the Creston Valley.



I'd like to invite you to stop by the exhibit in the main arena, and share any stories you may have about the apple industry, past or present. We'll be up there throughout fall fair hours (Friday 2-10 and Saturday 10-6).

That means the Museum itself will be closed on Saturday September 10, but it will be open all next week!

Now that our summer students are gone, it's up to me and some of our fantastic volunteers to keep the Museum open for regular hours six days a week (thanks to Elva, Rick, Larry, Ian, Carol, Bunny, and Betty for making that possible!).

So this is a busy time of year for me - I'm down in the Museum giving tours for six hours a day, and trying to get all the behind-the-scenes stuff done in the couple of hours that remain. Nevertheless, it is one of my favourite times of the year, because while I'm giving all those tours, I get a chance to reconnect with our visitors and refresh my understanding of what, exactly, draws people to small museums, in a way that I don't often get to do in the summer.

Today, for example, we had some people in from the deep south who wanted to learn a little more about Canada. There was a couple visiting friends in West Creston, who came in because they'd heard about our Office Evolutions display and, since they've both worked for office-equipment manufacturers, thought it would bring back a lot of memories (it did).  A local resident came in because it's been years since she visited and wanted to see what has changed (a lot), and a few people came just to see the model railway. And one person, who grew up in Canyon, got a chance to revisit some aspects of his childhood.

And I got to talk to them all.  Come in and visit yourself, because I'd love to talk to you, too.

Camp Lister was established in 1919 for returning soldiers, and until now, I'd always believed that none of the original settlers there had lived in the Creston Valley prior to the First World War. But you know what they say - you learn something new every day.

Today, I learned that there was at least one soldier at Camp Lister in 1919 who was returning to his pre-war home - close to it, anyway: Horace Melville Wright. His father, Charles Wiright, owned a store in Kuskanook, Horace grew up there, and left it only to go to Vernon when the war broke out to enilst. A few years later, when Col. Lister was looking for soldiers willing to undertake farming in a new community near Creston, Horace seems to have jumped at the chance. He's in this photo, somewhere:



Horace's granddaughter visited the Museum today, and we had quite a conversation about him.

If you're following this blog, you're probably already convinced that museums are wonderful places. Naturally, I think so, too. But every now and then I get a reminder of just why museums, and the small community museums in particular, are so special. Today was one of those days.



Remember the Homersham typewriter that was donated several months ago? I posted the story about it back in October (read it here, if you want), and a few days later the grand-daughter of Tom Homersham contacted me, thrilled beyond words to have found a part of her grandfather's life. We've talked via email several times since then, and put her in touch with Cyril Colonel, who donated the typewriter and worked with her grandfather.

Today, Akasha (Tom's grandaughter) visited the Museum. Cyril met her here, and they spent three full hours looking at everything, talking about the Museum, the community, and, of course, Tom. Along the way, she learned that the little steam locomotive we have out by the gate is the same one she used to play on when visiting her grandfather in Proctor, where the engine wound up after helping complete the tracks along the west shore of Kootenay Lake.

Akasha got to reconnect with her childhood and the life of someone very dear to her. Cyril got to relive some of his experiences in his younger days. And I'm just glad we have a museum that could help make it happen.

That's what a community museum is all about.