Staff
Fort Frances Museum curator Pam Hawley is set to bring a northern voice to the Ontario Historical Society (OHS) with her recent appointment to its board of directors.
“It’s quite an honour to be asked to serve the province in this capacity,” Hawley said about sitting on the board for the province-wide heritage organization.
“The director has been up here a few times for workshops,” she noted, explaining how she was first enlisted.
“So he thought that I would be a good representative of the northwestern part of Ontario [and] the northern part of Ontario.”
Hawley said organizations like the OHS tend to get lots of people from southern Ontario serving on them.
As such, having a representative at the provincial organization means she can be reminding it of the needs of Northern Ontario.
Museums in Northern Ontario are “fairly isolated and don’t have many opportunities for networking professionally,” Hawley added, so having a voice on organizations like the OHS helps with these needs.
“The Ontario Historical Society is really involved with giving lots of assistance to small museums through workshops or being available for advice,” she noted.
“And lots of museums started as a historical society.”
As part of serving on the board, Hawley will be chairing the museums committee of the OHS.
“So it’s for the relationship of the Ontario Historical Society with museums in the province, and what do they see the roles of the historical societies and how can we assist them?” she remarked.
“I’m trying to get my committee together right now,” she said.
