The Fort Frances Museum and Cultural Centre has lots of upcoming programming and events for the upcoming months.
Starting next week on Feb. 8, the museum is launching Coffee, Tea and History. Sam Manty is the museum’s Program Director.
“This is a program geared towards seniors, and also history buffs,” Manty said. “We’re going to pull some treasures from our archives that we’re hoping will spark conversations and transport people through time.”
The event will take place once a month with a different theme each time. The first event will have a theme around winter recreation.
“We have a wooden hockey stick signed by the ‘52 Canadians that we’re hoping to display along with some really interesting wooden skis that were made locally,” Manty said. “Then we also have things like skates, snow shoes, a children’s snowsuit, I don’t want to give too much away but that’s a taste.”
The artifacts will be available for viewing and then patrons can sit down and have a cup of tea or coffee and a treat.
Running from 10-11:30 the drop-in event will be one day per month only with the featured artefacts only available for viewing during that time.
On March 7th the theme will be musical instruments.
Another event the museum is hosting is a capote coat making workshop.
Capote coats are wrap-around coats with hoods made out of a wool blanket. One of the more popular styles of the coats were made with the iconic striped blankets of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
The Capote workshop will take place over two days at the Memorial Sports Centre Auditorium. It will run Friday, Feb. 23 from 5:30-8 p.m. and on Saturday Feb. 24 10 a.m.- 4 pm. The cost for the event is $25, payable through Eventbrite but anyone interested will need to provide their own Queen size wool blanket and a good pair of scissors.
Manty recommended Egli’s Sheep Farm, west of Dryden or MacAusland’s Woolen Mills LTD. out of PEI. Queen size blankets on those websites will run between $150-$200 before shipping. Manty also recommends checking local thrift shops.
The museum is also planning to host some beading workshops in conjunction with the current temporary exhibit on the lower floor of the museum called “Tied Together” which features beadwork from artists across the area. Details of the beading workshops are yet to be worked out but keep an eye out for them.
The 11th annual SnOasis day is also scheduled for Saturday, March 2.
“The Friends of the Museum have started organizing already,” Manty said. “As always, it should be a day filled with free family fun that everyone is welcome to. We always offer indoor and outdoor activities. So some of our indoor activities this year will be jigging which the Northwestern Ontario Child and Family Services are going to be doing, we’ll have face painting and colouring. Outside, we’ll have our frosty toss and glacier golf and fire station and barbecue.”
There is much more being planned so keep an eye out for more information from the Fort Frances Museum and Cultural Centre.
