Duane Hicks
Artifacts at the Fort Frances Museum now are much easier to find.
Collections management intern Bethany Waite, who will return to Belleville, Ont. next week after her one-year term here wraps up, has spent the past 12 months cataloguing an entire basement full of local history.
“When I first got here, it seemed a little daunting,” she recalled.
The basement, which consists of two main storage areas and a smaller room for glass items, was a jumble of artifacts of all sizes.
“The larger of the main storage areas was not organized very well at all—there were artifacts in the aisle ways of the rolling carriages [the moving shelf units] so the carriages couldn’t even roll,” noted Waite.
“We couldn’t get to certain shelves.
“So we had to move all of that out of the aisle ways, and then we put in two additional storage units so that [artifacts which had been in the aisles] could go on to the carriages,” she explained.
“Having the rolling carriages makes it easier for people who are not as strong and can’t lift a heavy cash register,” she added.
“Now they can be easily moved and accessed easily.”
There also was an alcove in the main storage area that was piled with artifacts not on proper conservation shelves, said Waite.
Those have been moved to make that area accessible.
A very important part of the cataloguing process included entering information about the artifacts into the museum’s PastPerfect database, which is a digital means to keep track of what artifacts it has in its collection.
“Probably about 50 percent [of the artifacts] was in our PastPerfect database and now we’re up to 95 percent for artifacts, at least,” noted Waite.
She added the artifacts that already had been entered into the database have been updated to ensure all the pertinent information, such as their current location in the museum, is correct.
Waite has sorted through a wide variety artifacts—ranging from typewriters and tools to clothing, coffee tins, and cracker boxes—and found the process informative.
“It’s been interesting getting to know the history of the community through the artifacts,” she remarked.
“Last week, I catalogued a bicycle from the 1930s that used to deliver groceries for Livingston’s grocery store, so that was interesting,” she noted, referring to the business that was located on the corner of Second Street East and Armit Avenue (the current location of Maddy’s).
Waite also discovered a couple of artifacts that dated back to the fur trade era.
“Those were interesting—there pen nibs and part of a medicine bottle, and then some First Nation artifacts were found with those,” said Waite, adding these items would date back to the mid- to late-1800s.
An automated corn shucker also was an unexpected find, as were kerosene-heated clothes irons.
“You’d put oil in a little container on top,” Waite explained of the irons, which obviously pre-dated electric ones.
“We have quite a few of those, which I thought was interesting,” she noted.
“And most of them are blue. I don’t know if blue was a popular colour for irons back then but . . .,” she chuckled.
Now that the artifacts have been organized and entered into the database, museum staff can type in key words and search the database to see what is in the collection and precisely where it’s located in the building.
This will make it much easier to find what they want for exhibits, as well as field inquiries from museum patrons.
Archival materials (i.e., books, pamphlets, magazines, invitations, and even Christmas cards), as well as the museum’s photo collection, are in the process of being added to the database—something which will continue thanks to summers students and volunteers.
While much of her time was spent cataloguing artifacts, Waite also was involved in other aspects of the museum.
“It’s been nice that I’ve been able to get a well-rounded museum experience working here,” she remarked.
“I loved curating the summer exhibit [‘Rainy River Roots: Settlement of the District’].
“And then I’ve been doing the museum’s social media, the Facebook page, and I’ve been working with the volunteers, helping them come up with projects,” Waite added.
“Nell [Laur] is doing photo-digitizing right now and before that, she had been working with maps.
“And Maxine [Hayes] has been helped me with research for the exhibit.”
Waite also organized a mannequin-making workshop here earlier this month.
Museum curator Sherry George said Waite’s efforts have been invaluable over the past year.
“She’s brought the collection into good shape,” George noted. “We really didn’t know what we had down there [in the basement].
“It was really important to inventory the collection, and just find out where things are and put that into the database,” she added.
“It’s a big difference for us. Everything’s just smoother.”
Waite also will make some recommendations to George as to parts of the museum collection which are duplicated, or in very poor condition and never going to be displayed again.
“If we have duplicates, we will contact another museum and see if they will take them,” said George.
“If we’ve got 10 typewriters and we can bring it down to four, it will give us room for other things,” she reasoned.
Meanwhile, just having another staff member at the museum over the winter made it easier for George to get more work done.
“I really, really appreciated having her,” she stressed. “She [Waite] was helpful wherever she could be helpful, and she has expertise from the museum studies program.
“So she was somebody who trained and knew what to do,” George noted. “That was huge for me.”
