Peace River WINS Alberta's Cultureville contest! & Alberta Arts Days

We WON! Peace River has received recognition from Albertans through CBC's Cultureville contest! Congratulations and thank you to everyone who voted for Peace River. To hear the announcement and Mayor Lorne Mann's reaction, click on this link:
http://www.cbc.ca/edmontonam/episodes/2011/09/29/peace-river-is-the-winner-in-the-cbcs-cultureville-contest/

To celebrate our victory, we encourage everyone to take part in the various workshops and performances going on this weekend as part of Alberta Arts Days. There are many different things going on!

Sept. 30: Peace River Music Teacher's Association Recital at the St. James Anglican Church, entry is $5 per person or $20 per family with all proceeds going to support musical program and awards in Peace River.

Sept. 30: Octoberfest at the Belle Petroleum Centre. Click here for a poster of events

Sept. 30: Family Performance Evening at 6:30 (free) at the Elks Hall in Grimshaw

Sept. 30-Oct. 1: Gallery of Artists, 10am - 10 pm at the Elks Hall in Grimshaw

Sept. 30: Mini-workshops at the Legion Hall in Grimshaw, 7-9 pm
            SQUARE DANCING: Come try out something new - good fun and great exercise!   
           All experience levels & ages welcome!

Oct. 1: Mini-workshops at the Legion Hall in Grimshaw, 9am-12pm
          GLASS & MIRROR ETCHING: Try a new craft! All supplies provided. Class suitable for
          ages 14 & up.

Oct. 1: Mini-workshops at the Legion Hall in Grimshaw, 1:00 - 4:00 pm
          IMPROV THEATRE: Feeling like you might have some actor in you? Try out Improv Theatre!  
          You never know what might happen!

          KEEPSAKE BOXES: Make your own keepsake box. All supplies provided.

Oct. 1: Sketching classes at the Peace River Library (free); 10-11:30 for children and 1-3 pm for adults

Oct. 1: 3rd Annual Reach for the Arts Night, 7-10 pm at the Elks Hall in Grimshaw (tickets available at Beyond 2000 in Grimshaw)

Oct. 1: Open Stage at Belle Petroleum Centre (free), doors open at 7:30, No Limits will be present

Artist of the Peace: Layton Paul Ramer

Berwyn Catholic Church

Our artist for the month of September is talented photographer, Paul Ramer. His exhibit: "Splendour of the Seasons" highlights the beauty of the Peace Country in all seasons. We invite you to come view his work this month.

Paul's work is available for purchase and he also has small cards and matted pieces for sale.

Peace River: CBC Alberta's 2011 Cultureville?

As some of you may have heard or even been involved with, Peace River has made it into the final six for this year's CBC Cultureville contest! We are so proud to be a part of this and hope everyone will go out and vote for Peace River once per day. Here is the link:
http://www.cbc.ca/alberta/features/cultureville/

New Research Resources available online!

The Peace River Archives received a grant from the Archives Society of Alberta and the National Archival Development Program to hire a student this summer. This student handled many front end duties as well as entering the archival maps into our database to increase their accessibility.
The Archivist was then able to spend her time putting 8 new sets of records (fonds) online on the Archives Network of Alberta website, which brings our total to 16.

 

New records include:

• Alberta Historic Sites Service fonds
• This fonds covers a survey done in Peace River and surrounding areas of many of our major historic buildings and sites.
• Alexander Wallace fonds
• Alexander Wallace started the Wallace Drug Company, which later became the Hanna Drug Company.
• Hanna Family fonds
• Sam & Grace Hanna bought into the Wallace Drug Company and it became the Hanna Drug Company. Their son, Jim, was a World War II veteran.
• Dora Lloyd fonds
• Dora Lloyd was an early nurse and matron of the Irene Cottage Hospital in Peace River. This fonds focus on her time here.
• Jack O'Sullivan fonds
• Jack O'Sullivan owned, with his partner Ted Stigsen, O'Sullivan and Stigsen Company which freighted up and down the river until 1949 as well as operating trading posts in the region. This fonds includes a great deal of information on Jack's career on the river as well as his family.
• "Peace River" Jim Cornwall fonds
• "Peace River" Jim was a tireless promotor of the possibilities in thenorth, MLA for this area as well as operating boats on the river and many other activities in the north. This fonds includes, amongst other records, 3 photograph albums of trips through the Peace Region.
• Pearl MacRae fonds
• A collection of photographs of early Peace River.
• Stanley Lawrence fonds
• This fonds contains information on two generations of the Lawrence family, the Sheridan & Juey Lawrence family and their son, Stanley Lawrence and his family.

We thank the Archives Society of Alberta and the Government of Canada for their funding for this project.

Reminder: Twelve Foot Davis Gravesite GRAND RE-OPENING

The Peace River Museum would like to remind everyone to come out on Thursday, Sept. 1 between 5pm and 8:30 pm for the grand re-opening of the Twelve Foot Davis Gravesite.

Updates include the return of the refurbished original headstone, landscaping with wild plants and interpretive panels.

The program will include a live performance from local band, "No Limitz" at 6pm.

We hope everyone is able to come out to the opening!

A Wonderful Family Fun Day

This past Saturday, August 20th, the Peace River Museum had its Cabinets of Curiosities Family Fun Day. The afternoon was filled with much laughter, discovery, and fun. Our visitors treasure hunted, they dressed up in many hats, sometimes more than one at a time, vests, military jackets, RCMP red coats, ceintures fléchées, and high-heeled shoes. They curated (designed, installed, and named) their own cabinets of curiosities with our education artifacts. They coloured butterflies to make butterfly cabinets and they did word games, puzzles and mazes.

Elizabeth shows off her exhibit: "Elizabeth's Bones"

Autumn and Jack show off some historic fashions!

Sydney and Autumn are styling!

Sydney's diplays her beautiful artwork and maze skills.

Overall, a wonderful day was had by all. We at the museum certainly had a great time interacting with everyone that came in and enjoyed hearing all of the stories that our Cabinets of Curiosities evoked for them.

Twelve Foot Davis Gravesite

The Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre’s role in the revitalization of Twelve Foot Davis Gravesite in Greene Valley Provincial Park is many-fold. Primarily, it is to provide historical information, from several sources, including Museum files, for the text and photographs used on the signs gracing the Park.

The snippets of information reveal, not only the man, but also the era, environment and culture in which Henry Fuller Davis lived, worked and died.

In addition, the Museum on whose grounds Davis’ headstone rested for a number of years, was charged with the task of seeking an artist – stonemason to bring it back to as close to its original lustre as possible. Rénald Lavoie, from Northern Sunrise Country was that artist.

The Twelve Foot Davis Gravesite is the co-operative effort of Alberta Tourism, Parks and Recreation; Northern Sunrise County; Town of Peace River and GeoTourism Canada.

BE ON TOP OF IT! Come join neighbours, visitors, entertainers and dignitaries at the newly refurbished Twelve Foot Davis Gravesite in Greene Valley Provincial Park, Thursday September 1, 5-8:30 p.m. for a party. There will be a special “hilltop” Concert in the Park performance at 6 p.m. This concludes the Concert in the Park series for this year – Featuring No Limitz.

Cabinets of Curiosity Family Fun Day

The museum’s current exhibition, Cabinets of Curiosity, was our way of finding more space during our collections inventory. Right now, we have over 3,000 objects on display; usually the number of artifacts on display is only about 150. This means 2,850 more objects to discover and stories to tell!

In the time that we’ve had this exhibit open to the public, we’ve received many wonderful comments, so we thought to spend an afternoon celebrating these new cabinets.

What better way to celebrate the cabinets than with a family fun day! The cabinets are as they suggest, curious, so we invite you in to get involved in the exhibit and have some fun. We have a treasure hunt, words games, puzzles, and a dress-up station with historic hats, shoes, vests and much more. You even get the opportunity to be a museum curator; to do what we do and decide which objects to put in your cabinet, arrange them, help them tell a story and then name your curious cabinet.

There is fun for all ages, so bring the entire family and try out some of our activities.

The Museum Grounds

Although the inside of the Museum is filled to capacity with neat historical objects, the grounds of the Museum also have much to offer. The sternwheel of the D.A. Thomas steamship, the private cemetery of Felix Akernum Shaw, and the original headstone from H.A. George and family, and other historic pieces are available for viewing.

Recently, there have been two changes to our grounds:

This past Friday, the museum was lucky enough to play host to the artistic talents of the Ground Level Youth Centre. Tianah, Brittany, Savannah, Kaitlynn, Katelyn, and Riley were here to paint the picnic table on the museum grounds for us.

                                 

 This table is well used by both Museum staff and the public to enjoy a picnic lunch or a coffee while observing our beautiful river valley. However, we have had difficulties with graffiti on the table as well.

So, in an effort to deter graffiti from marking our table, we asked the Ground Level Youth Centre to come down and intentionally paint the table. Our table now has a beautifully painted river scene with such details as decorated tipis, meat drying on a rack, a black bear, canoes, fish, birds, cabins and a fire pit.

As well, we have opened up our Northwest Mounted Police replica cabin and have set up an exhibit for you to enjoy. A huge thank you to Jeremiah Gloor for building a grid door so that we can leave the cabin open during the day for all those who stroll by on the river walkway.