The History Gallery looks a bit different at the MusÉe HÉritage Museum after a recent freshening up. In fact, the permanent gallery space has undergone a major overhaul just in time for a very special date.
“We wanted to do something for 2017,” said curator Joanne White, referring to Canada’s 150th anniversary.
“Given our space restrictions, we wanted a bit more flexibility in our ability to tell stories. This way, we’ve got separate subjects rather than a chronology so we can pull things out and put new things in, have more modern stories, older stories … just to mix it up and change things a little more often.”
The space had its last update in 2011 to mark the city’s sesquicentennial.
Now, visitors can get a new yet still old glimpse into some of the more unique aspects of the city’s history. There’s a large section of the famous duck mural from the Ducky Dome, a light post from Mission Hill, a pew from the chapel at the Bishop’s Palace, and a door from the Bruin Inn are among some of the numerous notable pieces.
There’s the large sculpture that was once stationed in the foyer of the city’s old Centennial Library, previously located at the foot of Seven Hills, as well as the Scott’s Magic Emporium sign from a former Riel Park business. That one is part of the museum’s new acquisitions and so this gives the public a chance to see what the museum has been collecting recently.
There are also displays of ethnic clothing courtesy of Eritrea’s Solomon Debesay who runs Saviour's Cafe and Bistro on St. Anne Street and Malaka Qaderi who operates Kabul Tailoring in Campbell Park along with her husband Nasir, both of whom left Afghanistan to find a better life here in Canada.
“We decided to do an immigration section given the current world climate. We thought that would be a good point of discussion.”
The immigrant story is also told through displays regarding the Romanko family’s escape from Poland during World War II, as well as members of the Sluimer family that emigrated from Holland after the war. The museum intends to rotate these out and bring in new displays featuring people from other parts of the world too.
“We want to actually keep doing that and having people get to know other people in the community.”
There is a section devoted to early communications and it includes some old telephones including a replica of the phone that was used on Jan. 3, 1885 between Alex Taylor in Edmonton to Narcisse St. Jean in St. Albert, wishing each other greetings and good tidings for the new year. It was the first phone call to be made in the province, some 20 years before Alberta even became a province.
White noted that miscommunications arose even as those new technologies were created to make communication easier. In the spring of 1885, there was a panicked call from St. Albert to Edmonton reporting that 1,500 First Nations warriors had attacked Fort Saskatchewan. In truth, there was no such attack as it was only a rumour that had been spread by nervous settlers.
Interestingly, St. Albert had this telephone set up even before it had telegraph service.
