Hi everyone. Welcome to the second installment of the Parksville Museum and Archive's blog. I would quickly like to take some time to talk about some of the work we've been doing around the museum and share some artifacts you might not get to see unless you were working behind the scenes. First off work is continuing on the grounds of the museum to get it ready for the farmers market. Just as a disclaimer we haven't finished completing all of the required upgrades and paperwork to allow us to host a farmers market. However, we are still trying our hardest to make it a reality  for this summer. Lately we have leveled off the grounds so we can accommodate as many vendors as possible. We have also been working on a small shaded garden patch in the center of the grounds to which we will be adding a bench or two.

So enough about landscaping what I really wanted to talk about in this blog are some of the artifacts we've been working with in the museum lately. Lately we've been working on updating a lot of our database which means going through the collection taking photos of artifacts, entering them into the new system and making sure that they haven't begun to fall apart. If they are starting to show their age we do whatever we can to try stop the item from deteriorating further. This can be done generally by working to change the conditions in the storage area, be it cycling out the air and removing humidity while cleaning the artifact of any contaminants as we would do in the event that some of our collection acquired mold. Luckily we haven't had too many problems with this at the museum so we've been able to go ahead and focus more on using the artifacts and discuss how we might be able to create some new exhibits. A few days ago we were going through one of our storage rooms that we are in the process of rearranging, cataloging, coming up with exhibit ideas, etc. While doing this we moved a few boxes filled with old display props such as broken manikin heads and random bits of cloth not associated with our collection. After wading through these items that did not have any historical significance we stumbled onto a little treasure trove. The first indication we had something special on our hands was when we spotted an old hat stretcher.  

 

Now this was an absolutely amazing find. The hat stretcher was in incredible condition, it had only minor wear around the edges and where hats would have sat while being stretched. So the item is called a hat stretcher which sounds pretty self explanatory, but back in the day when you bought a hat it might sit a bit too snug on your head. So what you'd do to fix this problem is go to a hat maker who would stretch the band of your hat with this device. To do this he would turn a screw that would separate the blocks of wood to the desired size which can be seen marked on the piece of metal in the second photo. The amazing thing about this item was that on close observation we found the screw that separates the two blocks to still be well greased and fully functional! Now after this we were really excited and continued to uncover more amazing items like women's dress hats, boat hats and more. I'd quickly like to state that I love old hats, shoes, watches...pretty much old clothing in general even though they wouldn't look particularly good on me if I wore them (also motors which we have some amazing examples of. That could actually be a theme of a future blog). What is really amazing about all these old items is the detail that went into them and how unique each one is. You can honestly spend hours looking at an old watch and continue to find new incredible details that would be unlikely to be found on some newer items. Anyway, after a while we came across a leather hat box that had seen better days.

This is a photo from the side of the box and clearly shows the broken straps and some water damage along the base of the box. Despite this damage we were all getting a little excited because the style and workmanship of the box suggested it might contain something special. To be sure not to damage either the box or its possible contents we slowly went about discovering if there was anything  in the box.

This is a photo after we've taken off the lid and removed 

the first layer of the case meant to hold the hat in place.

In this photo we can see the felt top hat as soon as it

came out of the box. In the top right is the part of the

case directly under the lid mentioned in the previous

photo.

In this photo we can see just a little bit of the

damage sustained by the hat. Unfortunately 

like the box that contained it the hat was not

in the greatest of shape but still beautiful.

The reason that all these hats were such a fortunate find is that they play along to an idea for an exhibit we've been throwing about. This exhibit would focus on Parksville as a vacation destination for much of the island in the first half of the 20th century. Along with some information about the events and activities that were put on we would try and portray life during that time and depict some of that experience through the clothing people would have worn. Unfortunately we might not be able to include this beautiful top hat in such an exhibit due to its poor state (which is why I chose to post some pictures of it here for you). However, some of the other items and hats not shown in this blog will hopefully be making an appearance. Anyway I hope you enjoyed this entry and to be completely honest I'm more than a little impressed you stuck it out...really proud of you. If you liked any of this or if you have any questions, comments, suggestions of things you'd like us to explain or talk about please feel to make them known and I'll try to get to them in a future blog.

I'd like to briefly welcome any readers to this blog. My name is Alain Borgeaud and I'm a co-op student working at the Parksville Museum and Archives over the summer of 2014. This is going to be an exciting summer for us as we are upgrading much of the museum and attempting to encourage more community activities. At the moment we are in the process of setting up the property to facilitate the start of a weekly farmers market at the museum. We are hopeful that this farmers market will be up and running before the end of summer and will be keeping the community updated as often as is possible...so fingers crossed everything can work out great and we can enjoy some beautiful fresh produce in the sun. We were also pleased to announce that Panther Valley Day will be returning for another year and will be including many family favorites including live music, pony rides, prizes and much more. For any additional information about these events please feel free to look us at parksvillemuseum.ca/ or follow on twitter at ParksvillePast for instant updates on any events. 

In addition to keeping you up to date on the progress of the numerous projects around the museum this summer I will be giving you a bit of insight into what happens behind the doors labeled "Staff Only."  You see museum workers tend to be a fairly nefarious lot, we keep an incredible amount of artifacts and projects hidden from the eyes of the public. This secrecy isn't necessarily planned but rather due to the fact that we often don't have enough items to make a proper exhibit or the space for a new exhibit. One of the main goals of this blog will be to give the public, you our readers who are truly wonderful for putting up with my ramblings, an idea of the types of projects we undertake here and a look at some of the artifacts that might not make it out onto the museum floor. In addition I will be throwing some tentative ideas around for future exhibits so if there is anything that you really like and feel should be put on exhibition please let us know, we appreciate any feed back we can get from the community.