Oh my! Theese people are my great grand parents! Its 2013 and i just found this for a project on them! Tbis is so exciting!!!

On Saturday, while giving a couple of tours of the Museum, I took some visitors into the model railway room here at the Museum. I noticed that the model railway guys have been hard at work on the new section of the layout, so this afternoon I popped in with the camera to take a few photos of it. Here's a sneak preview of what's in the works:



It's a long, narrow section that, unlike the original piece, is not based on the Creston Valley - in the new section, the guys are really playing and having fun. There are a whole series of trestles, canyons, and mountains - that big mountain at the end contains a helix, or spiral, to move the train from one level to another.  And of course, where you have mountains, you must have tunnels:



I'm looking forward to finding out what the guys have in mind for details and finishing. There's a lot of landscape involved, and I bet they've got lots of creative ideas!

They've also begun a small collection of G-scale track and rolling stock:



This doesn't fit in the existing layout, of course, which is all HO scale, but from what the guys have been saying, I think you can expect to see an outdoor layout of these and other pieces making a special appearance for a day or two this summer.

Thanks Tammy... great history of survivial, doing whatever it takes and it continues today.... a fine tradition esp in rural areas where food is an easier to come by commodity for trading.

I actually had two tours come in today! At this time of year, we can go days or even weeks on end with no one coming in for a tour, so two in a single day is pretty impressive. One family from Taiwan (fortunately, Mom and Dad were translating for the two little boys!) and three people learning a bit more about their new hometown.

That made for a fun change from the usual routine, and a nice break from what otherwise would have been a rather frustrating day in front of my computer. Outside of the tours I spent most of the day trying - and failing - to find a photo of Dorothy Davis, the BC suffragette leader who will be a featured guest at our old-fashioned tea in August. Google is seriously letting me down on this one! I found lots of places where she is recognised as a leader of the women's equality movement in the 1910s, but not one single photo of her.

But I did find some rather interesting arguments, supporting and opposing the suffragist movement:





I'm sure our guests at the tea on August 11 will have plenty to say about some of these arguments!

Babs Jones, who was born in Creston in 1920, came into my office this afternoon. She has lived in the Creston Valley all her life, and has a phenomenal memory, so a conversation with her is guaranteed to reveal all sorts of fun and fascinating details about local history.

Babs has heard about our research into the 1930s in the Creston Valley, in preparation for an exhibit we'll be opening in the spring, so that was the focus of today's conversation. She had quite a bit to say about the relief work that was done on the roads around the communities, and the periodic arrival of hobos looking for a meal in exchange for a bit of work. But my favourite stories revolved around her grandparents' store, the Canyon Trading Company.


Babs says, "During the Hungry Thirties, there were families who had difficulty paying their accounts (it was the custom to charge things purchased at th store, then pay the bill at the end of the month). Some brought in eggs or butter for trade and barter. Sometimes delinquent accounts were paid in part with milk for our family. And sometimes the overdue account would have reached such proportions that it was finally settled with a few cords of firewood. At least twice, a cow was accepted in payment. This method of payment did not provide cash for the wholesale dealers, and I remember it often being a real worry to the folks, paying a bit here, and a bit there to keep their creditors placated. Grandad never had the heart to say "no," and often extended credit to poor credit risks."

Babs recalls that homemade butter, when made well, was like nothing we can buy in the stores today - but, she says, the butter that was brought in on trade wasn't always made well. A lot of it wound up in Gram's house where she turned it into soap. After a rather laborious process of separating the fat from the salt.



Babs told me that running the store during the Depression years wasn't exactly a money-making proposition. The biggest advantage, though, was that Babs' family had access to groceries at wholesale prices, which certainly helped.

These photos, brought in by Babs, show the store about 1937. As Babs said, "Grandad was a mill sawyer by trade, not a store keeper." That probably explains why there's no rhyme nor reason to the organisation of products: in the lower photo, in front of the counter, there's a case of motor oil next to a keg of vinegar. Leaning against the counter in the top photo are a case of crackers, a sack of flour, a crate of Old Dutch cleanser, and a scrub board - all right underneath the candy display case.

January, February, March. The three months out of each year when it seems that pretty much all I do is write grant applications. Right now, its the Young Canada Works grants for summer students. In February, its Canada Summer Jobs, another summer student funding program. In March there's a whole slate of grants through Columbia-Kootenay Cultural Alliance, Creston-Kootenay Foundation, Columbia Basin Trust, and BC Gaming. Whew! They're a lot of work, but worth it - these are the grants that let us offer the summer programming that so many of you have come to enjoy.

If you're a student who will be looking for work this summer, please consider applying at the Museum. I'll be posting the jobs we hope to have available on this website in the next week or so. Everything depends on what we get funded for, of course, but if things go the way they usually do, we should have three or four full-time positions available starting in early or mid-May and going right through till the end of August.

We can't finalise the hiring until we get the funding confirmed, but I encourage you to get your resume to me as soon as you can.  Sometimes, the funding is announced only a few days before we need someone to start working, which means we have to choose from the applicants we have on hand.

As any of the four students who worked here last year can tell you, working at the Museum is a lot of fun! It helps that we're all slightly crazy. Here's the four of them, attempting to master the fine art of hoop-rolling:

They zre a little hard, and by all accounts they taste really awful. Best suggestion so far? Offer them as slingshot ammunition.

At least you don't have any jubejubes left over! We worked hard to get rid of them. Wouldn't they be a little hard by now? Put them in the the store display and see how many kids point it out like the other jar of candy in the window. Then this summer see if the kids can guess how many gum balls are in the jar and whatever they say you give them a prize of a bag of gum balls!

Wow! a veritable "Banquet of Bartering and friendship"

A stab in the dark here, how about "Plastic shoes"?
As for the gumballs. guess how many in the jar/bag and WIN/donate to your favorite charity.

Time for another Question of the Day. You may recall, I throw these out there occasionally, when I've come across some fascinating piece of trivia, or when I've got a little perplexing thing that's nagging at me. Today, it's both ... two questions.

First: On 22 February 1946, the Creston Review reported the arrival of a wonderful new product, now available in Creston for the first time. Here's the full text of the newspaper item:

"[Name of product here] arrived in Creston last Monday [probably 11 February] and were shown in one of Creston's leading mercantile and exclusive men's and ladies ready-to-wear stores."

What was the product? Share your guesses - I'll post the answer tomorrow.

Second: What on earth should we do with the big jar and bag full of gumballs left over from the Museum's Kids' Day last June?

I don't have an answer for that one, but I sure look forward to hearing your suggestions!

You're funny, Leah! I like the second one best!

Hey Tammy I have a couple ideas for a name. 
"The Depressing Era"
"It's Depression! Or Not"

Anne Page Hepher came in today to bring in this dress:



She has had it for years, and it might have been made over for her. It was originally a ladies' dress, but was taken in and shortened so a child could wear it. The side seams are over an inch wide - that's how much it had to be taken in - but the yoke and width of the shoulders are adult-sized. Anne brought this in for our upcoming exhibit on the Depression era in the Creston Valley, which will be opening later this spring - it's a great example of people making-do with whatever they had.

John D. was also in today, and we were working on this problem of a name for the exhibit. As I mentioned last week, we're looking for a brief title that sums up the widely-contrasting experiences of people in the region during those years: those who relocated to Creston because it was so much better than where they had left; those who were here and managed to get by with what they had; and those who were forced into relief camps.

On Facebook, Val suggested "Rising Above the Depression" which I rather like; someone else suggested "Leaving a Trail" because so many of the relief projects in the region had to do with building roads. John was playing around with the ideas of Optimism vs Despair which also has some pretty great potential. So we're getting closer, even though I'm no help at all in this one.

Once we have the title, we get to figure out how to illustrate those contrasts, using only a few photos and newspaper headlines, and the four artifacts we have that reflect the Depression: a quilt, a sign, a set of horseshoes, and the dress.

I do like exhibits that challenge our creativity!

Remember, several months ago, I posted a photo of a World War II Honour Roll monument:



asking if anyone knew what happened to it?

Well, apparently, no one knows what happened to it, but I'm determined to find out. Today, I came across this article, in the Creston Review from 2 November 1945:



Obviously, the monument was still there at the end of 1945. I know, that's not much to go on, but it's something, at least. The monument was put up late in 1944, and judging by the fact that there only seems to be one photo of it, and that no one seems to remember it, we were convinced it wasn't there for long. Now we know - it lasted at least a year.

Okay, I know - not exactly big news.

As you may have heard, we're planning an exhibit on the Depression era in the Creston Valley for the summer of 2012. John D. has been doing a lot of the research so far, and he brought in a collection of great photos from a couple of the relief camps in the area. Here's one, showing the construction of the Goatfell highway in February 1935:



This is also the time of year when we need to design ads, and send out press releases, promoting our summer events and exhibits. So I'm trying to create ads for this exhibit, but I don't have a name for it yet. "That's Depressing" might be an accurate description of my lack of creativity here, but I don't think it'll quite cut it as an exhibit title.

So, all you wordsmiths out there, what would you suggest?

We're still working on the research for this display, but what we've got so far points to some pretty fascinating contrasts:

Local residents don't recall being poor, saying they always had enough to get by (due in large part to the solid base of mixed farming) - but we know there were local Unemployed Men's Clubs and other initiatives to help the neediest members of the community. 

A significant number of families moved here from the Prairies, and we've heard many stories of hobos passing through and getting help in the form of work, food, and/or a place to sleep, because the Creston Valley was seen almost as a land of plenty - but there were no fewer than seven relief camps in the area. 

In addition to these airport- and highway-building projects, there were a number of major projects undertaken, such as the dyking of the flats and the construction of the Canyon dam - but [color=navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small] [/color]so little money circulating that the barter system became a fundamental part of the local economy.

We'd like a title that encompasses these contradictions. Something that conjures up images of relief camps in the land of plenty, or the ability to make do when there was nothing to make do with. Having enough even though you don't have much.

Piece of cake, huh? I'd love to hear your suggestions! If we use your suggestion, I'll make sure you get VIP privileges when we open the exhibit in the spring.

In the meantime, here's another Goatfell relief camp photo:



Check out the tumblebug behind the tractor! I like the contrast between mechanised highway construction and horse-drawn highway construction. And I'm really glad that road is no longer this narrow!

Among the objects that Bob Vigne brought in the other day was this:



It's a compo pack, which he received in 1943 while serving in Europe. As you can see from the writing on the lid, it contained boiled sweets and chocolate, and was usually accompanied by a separate tin of cigarettes. Retired veteran Rick T., one of our volunteers, says "Compo" means composite rations - the extra things that weren't included in regular rations, but which soldiers were very glad to get.

Today, Helen L. was in doing some cataloguing, and we got into a discussion of what the L.B.P.S.L might stand for. Bob didn't know when I asked him, and Google was unusually unhelpful. So we guessed:

"Lever Brothers Post Sunlight Ltd." This is a soap company in Britain. We couldn't find any direct connection between them and a compo pack, but it's the only thing Google suggested as a meaning for the acronym. Maybe we could create some story about how they branched out during the war years into packaging special treats for the soldiers at the front?

"Ladies Benevolent [or British] Patriotic Service League." Okay, we completely made that one up. But Rick felt that the lack of military or official markings on the tin suggests that it wasn't government-issue, but rather sent by some organisation. The Red Cross is one organisation that sent thousands of parcels to soldiers and POWs during both World Wars.

So there are our two guesses. Let's hear yours. If we get some good ones, we just might make another contest out of it.

I had a fantastic conversation with Bob Vigne the other day. He and his wife, Ethel, are both World War II veterans, and picked up a copy of the first edition of our War Stories book. I say first edition, because we knew it wasn't complete and the intention was to encourage people to give us more information to include in a future second edition.

Bob came in with a list of about 100 names of people in the Creston Valley with military service, for which we were either missing information or missing altogether. Thanks to his amazing memory, we've added a lot of new names to our list of World War II vets, and a few to the World War I, Korean, and Peacetime Service lists.

He also brought in a few artifacts which will be making their way into teh military display here at the Museum, and a few photographs, including one of a cairn in Yahk that lists everyone from Yahk-Kingsgate who served in the Second World War:



Count them - there are fifty names on that list.  That is absolutely incredible for a community the size of Yahk!

So when is the second edition going to be available? Well, it is going to be a while. We're getting lots of suggestions for new chapters to include - such as the war from the perspectives of those who fought for other countries, several of whom later relocated to the Creston Valley - and the speed with which our lists of veterans are growing suggests that we might need to write a whole second volume to the first, not simply an updated edition of it. I'd say several months, anyway, before we're done.

On the plus side, though, that will give us time - and space - to include a number of stories that we weren't able to include in the first edition. Like the Kiska Campagin, and the war in the Pacific. Or the story of a conscientious objector that I know is out there and still want very much to hear. And a section of stories from people who crossed paths during oe of the wars, and would up reunited in Creston many years, or even decades, later. Or ...

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. I spent one day at work after Christmas holidays, then wound up in the hospital getting a pacemaker. So if you've been calling or emailing or dropping by and no one's been here, that's why.

Thanks to Betty, Ian, Jim, and Janet for keeping the place open a few hours a day while I was away. If you've left a message with them, I'll be catching up on those over the next couple of days.

In the meantime, I'm back and we're back to regular hours again - Tuesday-Saturday, 9:00 - 12:00 and 1:00 - 4:00.

I was at an Arts Council meeting just before Christmas, and one of the groups represented was talking about an upcoming pottery exhibit, which they are calling "Elementals." I immediately thought about the four elements - earth, wind, fire, and water - and the thought popped into my mind that we here at the Museum could create a pretty interesting exhibit on the elements.

Here's something that would definitely have to be included: film footage of high water at Sanca Creek, in June 1955. Fifty-two seconds showing the power of Kootenay Lake.

The film footage comes to us from Marion Wilson of Kuskanook, whose family owned the resort at Sanca (the one that was later the Elks camp) for more than thirty years.