George & Charlotte Gibson Day 2010

Last Saturday we celebrated the 124th anniversary of the Gibson family's arrival in Howe Sound, and it was a whopping success! Thanks to Super-Valu for the outstanding cake.


We had a great turnout - over eighty people, many of them, no doubt, attracted by the chance to meet George and Charlotte themselves.


The crowd was a mixture of longtime locals and newer arrivals. There were even a few descendants of George and Charlotte (the real ones) in attendance.


Curatorial Assistant Matt Cavers presented a slide show on the history of Gibsons. That's him pointing out the old flume at the mouth of Langdale Creek.


A good time was had by all! See you next year for the 125th anniversary!

Summer is creeping up on us!

May 11th already! - we apologize for our recent silence in the blogosphere. We're still here, in case you worried. In fact, we've been too busy to get to the computer.


What's new at the museum? Well, the first thing I should mention is that we're throwing a George and Charlotte Gibson Day open house, just like we do every year. George and Charlotte Day is an annual event commemorating the arrival of the Gibson family to West Howe Sound. It's now 124 years since they got here, over which time the town of Gibsons has grown from a small collection of houses and shacks by the forest's edge to a pretty modern place. We'll be celebrating the growth of our town with tea and cake, live music, a slide show presentation on the history of Gibsons, and - who knows - maybe an appearance by George and Charlotte themselves. The event is on Saturday, May 22, from 1:00 until 4:00. Send us an email (scm_a@dccnet.com) or give us a call (604-886-8232) if you have any questions!


As I type, museum board president and volunteer extraordinaire Jon Hird is building a display in our temporary exhibit space. The display celebrates the centennial of Canada's navy with a selection of maritime memorabilia from the SCMA's collection. It should be together by the end of this week, so come on by and have a look!

There are several big jobs ongoing right now. As I mentioned in our last post, we're working to organize and revitalize the museum's oral history program. Things are coming along with that - we're taking stock of what we have (and we have a lot) and getting ourselves organized to resume interviewing. We still need volunteers to assist with several jobs. We're looking for interviewers (must have good people skills, enjoy conversation, etc.) and transcribers (must be a quick typist and be able to spell accurately). If you're interested, please drop us a line!

That's it for now. See you in the museum!

The year is flying by...

April already! A quarter of 2010 has flown by and we here at the museum are having a hard time believing it. This sort of thing happens when you're busy, I guess, and we've been busy.

We had a very successful Antiques Roadshow on March 20th. Thanks to all of you who came out and supported the museum by having your treasures appraised. Hopefully there were lots of pleasant surprises - I did notice that there was a fellow on the front of The Local last week who'd had a painting valued in the tens of thousands. Amazing - and just think, it could be you next year!

In museum news, our Manager/Curator, Kimiko Hawkes, has just completed a course on the theory and practice of oral history, which was offered by the Archives Association of British Columbia. This is a great thing for the museum, as we have an enormous collection of oral history interviews that are in need of - well - they have various needs. Some cassette tapes need to be digitized. Some audio recordings need to be transcribed. Some transcripts need to be indexed. All of the records need to be properly catalogued. On top of that, we need to get out and interview people! There are countless people here who've lived long lives on the Sunshine Coast, and who have stories that ought to be recorded. Now that Kimiko has received training in this area, the museum is ready - almost - to get serious about the work of improving our oral history collection.

But we can't do it without volunteer support. Over the past few years, we've had a few dedicated volunteers help us with transcribing interviews and re-typing old interview transcripts that weren't preserved digitally. Hats off to them! Well, now we're looking to assemble a list of volunteers that can help out with:

-Transcription (must be able to type quickly and be able to spell competently)

-Interviewing (must enjoy talking and be willing to attend training - experience appreciated!)

-Other jobs (there will definitely be other jobs)

We'll also be looking for tips on who to interview. Do you know somebody who's been around the Sunshine Coast for a long time, and who remembers it as it used to be? Do you know anyone whose story ought to be told? Let us know. If you know anyone like this, or you're interested in joining our volunteer roster, contact Kimiko at scma_manager(at)dccnet(dot)com. (Substitute an @ sign for the (at) and a period for the (dot) - putting an email address out on the internet is an open invitation for junk mail!)

Thanks for reading! Drop by the museum sometime!

The Antiques Roadshow is coming up!

Thanks to everyone who made Heritage Play Day a success! On February 20th, we held our annual family event where kids (and those who are no longer kids but are still young at heart) get a chance to make a variety of old-fashioned toys. It was a gorgeous, sunny Saturday, and we threw the doors open wide to the street. Plenty of people came by and lots of interesting things were made.

Our next museum event will be a big one. It's the annual Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives Antiques Roadshow - the ninth annual, in fact. This year the Roadshow will take place at the Sechelt Seniors Centre (5604 Trail Avenue) on Saturday, March 20, from 10:00 until 4:00. Do you have treasured belongings that you'd like to know more about? Want to know what they're worth? Come on down! You can bring up to three items for appraisal. The fee is ten dollars for one item, fifteen dollars for two, and twenty dollars for three. The Roadshow is always popular, so we recommend coming down early. We hope to see you there!

New temporary display

Hi there everyone -

Next week is Heritage Week in BC, and this year's theme is "Heritage of Sport and Recreation: Community Pride, Active Living." We've just finished putting up a temporary display for Heritage Week that celebrates sports and recreation on the Sunshine Coast. The display features Coast sports memorabilia, including a baseball bat and jersey from Gibsons' own Ryan Dempster. There are also several fantastic photographs from the Coast's early days. Come on down and have a look! We're open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:30 to 4:30.

Also, don't forget to drop by on Heritage Play Day, which is on Saturday, February 20th from 1:00 until 4:00. It'll be great fun for kids and their families - we'll make old-fashioned crafts and toys, just like they used to in the days before Nintendo came along. Come on by and make origami cranes, whirligigs, balancing birds, totem poles, and more!