International Museum's Day!

By Laura Love
On Wednesday, May 18^th 2016, the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre will be celebrating INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM’S DAY! This event is celebrated internationally to raise awareness of the importance of museums as crucial community centres, institutions of knowledge, cultural exchange and locations of enjoyable learning and has been celebrated by the ICOM (The International Council of Museums) since 1977.

We decided to celebrate with a cake!

The term ‘museum’ has held many different meanings since being translated by the classical Greek word, mouseion, meaning ‘the seat of muses.’ The first ‘museum’ of this context is thought to have been the Museum at Alexandria, the great library that held irreplaceable manuscripts of science and math, and where great scholarly debate occurred. In the early 15^th century the definition of museum would be used to describe the collection of Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence, that included fine art, sculpture and manuscript. This did however put more of an emphasis on the comprehensive of the collection itself and less about philosophical discussion and academic pursuits as the Museum at Alexandria did. Changing again, in 17^th Century Europe, museum was being used to describe what were called, ‘Cabinets of Curiosities.’ These rooms were characterised by “haphazard assemblages of
curious, wondrous, or singular things.” Souvenirs were collected usually by the master of the house from his ‘Grand Tours’ and kept in his own private museum.  If these private collections were transferred in any way to a library or university, which in many cases they were, a separate building would have been built to house and accommodate these items. Thus, the idea of an institution called a museum, an establishment to preserve and display a collection to the public was well established in the 18th century.

Today, museums have taken on an even more encompassing definition. In 2007, the International Council of Museums agreed that, ‘A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.’

This year, The ICOM has dedicated the 2016 theme of International Museum’s Day to, ‘Museums and Cultural Landscapes.’ The IOCM has released this statement for this year, “The theme Museums and Cultural Landscapes makes museums responsible for their landscapes, asking them to contribute knowledge and expertise and take an active role in their management and upkeep. The primary mission of museums is to oversee heritage, whether it be inside or outside their walls. Their natural vocation is to expand their mission and implement their own activities in the open field of cultural landscape and heritage that surrounds them and for which they can assume varying degrees of responsibility.”

The Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie recognizes and takes the role of cultural organization, in our gathering of our community’s history, traditions, oral histories and preservation of tangible items seriously. 

The Peace River Museum will be open from 10am to 7pm on Wednesday, May 18^th 2016 for a Museum Open House! Do you have ANY questions about donation or loan procedures? Or would you like to know the process that an item goes through once accepted into the museum’s permanent collection? Please, come with your questions, and have an exclusive sneak peek into the Peace River Museum, Archives, and Mackenzie Centre’s world!

---

Two new fonds for researchers to use - Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route Association and RCMP Centennial fonds

Two new fonds, or ‘collections’ are available to researchers at the Archives of the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre. Our Archivist Carson has been working very hard on processing them for several months thanks to a grant from the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation through the Archives Society of Alberta. The two fonds are F055 : Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route Association Fonds and F056 : Royal Canadian Mounted Police Centennial Fonds. Both fonds commemorate big events that happened in Peace River.

The Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route Association fonds (or AMVRA for short) is the collection of documents and photographs pertaining to the association that did a lot of planning for the 1993 Bicentennial. The Bicentennial was commemorating the completion of Alexander Mackenzie’s overland journey – the first white man to cross the North American continent, in 1793. The Association began as the Alexander Mackenzie Trail Association (AMTA) in 1985, and were advocates for the preservation of the Mackenzie Trail, an ancient trade-route used by the South Carrier Native Americans known as the Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail. Eventually as the bicentennial got closer, the association became more actively involved in planning the BC portion of the celebration. A group of university students from Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, in northern Ontario, retraced Mackenzie’s route, paddling thousands of miles of rivers across the country. This troupe arrived in Peace River in 1992, and set off from Fort Fork in 1993 to complete the final leg of Mackenzie’s 1793 journey. The Association hoped to reach a national level, with branches all across the country celebrating and commemorating Mackenzie’s milestone achievement and Canada’s furtrade history. Unfortunately, after the bicentennial was completed in 1993, the Association began to lose steam. They eventually became part of the Sir Alexander Mackenzie Historical Society here in Peace River until AMVRA’s dissolution in 2013.

The records of this Association include numerous letters and planning documents pertaining to the Bicentennial and the Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail/Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail. There are a number of photographs of the trail and the various sites along it during the Bicentennial Celebrations.

The RCMP Centennial Fonds consists largely of meeting minutes and correspondence pertaining to the organization of the centennial events held in Peace River in 1998. The Royal North West Mounted Police (RNWMP) arrived in Peace River in 1898 to help maintain peace and order. The RNWP was later reorganized into the Alberta Provincial Police in 1917. In 1932, Alberta reorganized its police force again, and joined it with the RCMP. 1998 also happened to be the 125^th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police nationally. Most of the Peace River centennial was spearheaded by Mrs. Beverly Tailleur. She spent countless hours writing letters asking for sponsorship, coordinating events in Peace River including a formal ball, and keeping in touch with what other communities were doing in the Peace region to celebrate. An interesting series in this collection is that of murals painted in McLennan. It is believed Mrs. Tailleur photographed the murals as an example for what Peace River could do. It’s very interesting to see how some of the buildings have changed!

Drop in and have a look at the material. Descriptions and finding aids should be soon available on Alberta On Record and on the museum’s website – www.peaceriver.ca/museum - have a look at what else we have while you’re there!