The South Cariboo Historical Museum Society (SCHMS) held its Annual General Meeting on February 13, and board member Andy May says that they are looking forward to getting on with a number of projects at the Clinton Museum that were slated for last year but had to be postponed due to the wildfires.
“Everything got sidetracked last year,” he says. “It was a year lost, so we’re re-starting some things.”
One 2017 project that was completed—albeit later than anticipated—was the construction of a wheelchair ramp from the back door of the museum to the blacksmith shop in the back yard. New Horizons for Seniors provided grant money for the ramp, but May says they weren’t able to get to the construction stage until the end of September.
“We’re rearranging some of the exhibits that were moved for the building of the ramp, and will be doing some landscaping,” says May. “The ramp was deliberately designed to leave a spot for a feature exhibition, and the first one will be about the 2017 fires. We’re finalizing the design, and plan to have reader boards and pictures as a tribute to the first responders who saved our homes so we could come back to them.”
May says they also plan to start design work on a wagon shed to house and protect the historic freight wagon and sleigh that are currently on display in the yard but open to the elements. The wagon was built in Yale in the 1870s, and May says it’s the most historically significant artifact the museum has.
“It’s been in the yard since 1956, and it’s deteriorating. These pieces need to be protected from the elements. We’ve been doing some fundraising and have enough to get started on some preliminary work. We would have started it last year, but it got away from us. It’s a major project.”
Another project that got sidelined in 2017, but which May hopes to see start in 2018, is a partnership between the SCHMS and the Thompson-Nicola Library System, to start what’s being called a reading room at the Clinton Library.
“We began talks about this almost two years ago,” explains May. “The museum has 300 books about Clinton and Cariboo history, and we want to put them out so they’re available to researchers. We’ve talked to [TNRD Library System Chief Librarian] Judy Moore, and she’s in favour of having the library manage the books and making them available, but they’ll still belong to the society.
“The books are significant reservoirs of history, and we’d like to keep them available for researchers, but we need to have safeguards in place to keep the books secure. And it’s a way to show how valuable the library is to the community.”
The popular “Big Book” at the museum, which consists of 38 oversized (4’ wide by 2.5’ high) pages containing a collection of photographs put together in the 1960s and is housed in a wooden rack, is in very poor condition. “It contains photos of Clinton and area loosely organized by theme,” explains May. “People can leaf through them, and it gets a lot of use, especially from people with a connection to Clinton. They look through and go ‘Oh, there’s Uncle Jack.’”
The “Big Book” is going to be replaced by a huge scrapbook, which May says will be more maintainable. He also notes that many of the photographs currently in the “Big Book” are originals, and that these will need to be scanned, with the scans going in the scrapbook and the originals being stored in the vault for safekeeping. “We’ve had thousands of pictures and documents scanned over the last few years.”
Speaking of the vault, May says that a problem has arisen with water seeping into it for the first time. The vault, which has a concrete ceiling and walls, belongs to the Village of Clinton, and is located underground beside the Clinton Memorial Hall. “It’s at least 50 years old, and we think it was built shortly after Clinton was incorporated in 1963,” says May. “It’s a wonderful and secure vault, but when things warmed up a bit we noticed that we had water seeping up in one corner.
“We have a de-humidifier in there, but it’s not safe, and not a good thing. The vault is secure, fire-proof, and temperature stable; as close as possible to perfect apart from the water. We need to resolve that issue.”
The Clinton Museum will open for the season in mid-May, and closes at the end of September. For more information, go to https://www.clintonmuseumbc.org/.
editorial@accjournal.ca
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