Hey everyone, look who's back from the dead! It's Gavin, the Museum's former summer student. Hopefully you didn't miss me too much over last two months!

I'm here on Halloween for a quick blog post on the Museum's so-called "haunted" dolls. 

So the dolls. We have multiple dolls from a range of time periods from early settler families. They "live" on exhibit to represent the toys of the time so that visitors can imagine what play looked like 100 years ago. The dolls are also used as a fun point of comparison to modern dolls. 

The rumour about them being haunted doesn't have an exact start date. There have always been claims that they are haunted but I don't believe that, and I'll prove it here today. In my two Summers working at the Museum I've seen nothing supernatur ...  Just one second, I thought I heard something upstairs. 

Anyway where was I... oh yeah the dolls. There is no evidence of them doing haunted things. *Crash* I will be right back I think a visitor knocked something over I'm going to go check it out. 

Lights, camera, action! Oh wait, wrong kind of theatre...
Anyway, in this blog we will be talking about local theatre on the Sunshine Coast. So find your seat as the curtain rises on this very theatrical blog post. 

​So where did it all begin? For early settlers, it started with local community halls that were often the cultural heart of the community. After the Women's Institute Hall was constructed in 1929,  the Hall became the hub of cultural activities. 

Below is a quick history of the Women's Institute Hall from our Youtube channel: 

Link to the Heritage playhouse website: https://heritageplayhouse.com/ 

The Women's Institute Hall offered .25 cent dances,  sporting events, and other activities in the summer. In the winter there were more theatrical performances to keep people entertained during our lovely winter weather!

Plays played (see what I did there) a large role in early settler communities at a time before movies, television, the internet, and iPhones.  They provided an important place for community engagement and interaction. People would walk all the way from Bonniebrook up to the hall and back to see performances. Theatrical performances really were (and still remain) an important part of the local community.  

They also acted as a connection to the rest of the world. While not a totally isolated place, the Sunshine Coast is functionally an island (as we all know, it's NOT an Island!). So these plays from afar helped to connect Sunshine Coast residents to diverse ideas and perspective from around the world. 

​Many plays were performed over the years, some scripts of which are held in our Museum collection. These plays were performed by many different groups, a large number being performed by the Howe Sound Dramatic Society. The Museum doesn't have the performers in the collection: kidnapping is illegal. 

Below is a slideshow of pictures and postcards of plays and descriptions from the museums collection. 

​An important thing for me to mention is that some of the plays did contain blackface and other racist caricatures. The SCMA includes black face minstrelsy materials in our collection "for the benefit of scholars seeking to better understand the role racial performance has had in shaping Western culture." (with notes from Harvard Theatre School Archives, used with permission). 

The Women's Institute eventually transferred ownership of the Hall to the School District to use as a gym, and for other pragmatic uses. The Hall would stop being used by the District after a proper facility was built for the school. Later, the Hall acted as a maintenance building for the SCRD until the late 1980s.
​
Following a restoration of the Hall in the 1990s, it was re-opened in April 2000 as the current Heritage Playhouse that we all know and love. The building was upgraded with new facilities and theatre equipment, including modern sound systems, stage, seating and other modern features and amenities. This upgrade allowed for modern and intricate productions, hosted by groups like the Driftwood Players, who have been been putting on shows for 50 years!

The Driftwood Players operate three main branches: The Driftwood Main Stage, Driftwood Theatre School and the Driftwood pop up performances. They have performed all over the Coast, including many successful theatrical runs at the Heritage playhouse. You can find out about upcoming Driftwood shows by clicking the link here. Driftwood Players have also worked with the Museum many times over the years, including our very successful Halloween Block Party.

And scene! Thanks for reading my blog, I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new. This will be my last blog for the summer as my contract is up so they are putting me back in storage until next summer. See you then! 

Special thanks to Michael Gurney from the Coast Reporter for his support of my blog! :) 

​Gavin 

P.S. The haunted dolls have been acting up I'm going to investigate. Check the blog on Halloween for some haunted history. 

Hey everyone, welcome to another JAM packed blog post on the Howe Sound Cooperative Cannery! 

The area in and around Howe Sound is really great for growing many different things especially berries. This was great until excess berries started to spoil. To solve this issue some members of the Howe Sound farmers Institute decided to start a cannery to deal with the extra fruit. 

The official start of the Cannery came on May 16, 1921 when a committee was formed to start and run it. A starting capital investment of $500 dollars was needed to begin the Cannery, that's $8,215 today. The money was raised by selling shares for $25 each and the Cannery was incorporated on December 28, 1921.

​The staff of the Howe Sound Co-operative Canning Association, on Henry (Cannery) Road, circa late 30s. The cannery used berries from local growers to make top rated strawberry, raspberry, loganberry, blackberry and plum jam. SCMA #513

For the Cannery land was originally leased from John Wiren for $1.00 a year (I wish things were still like that) before being bought out entirely for $150 in 1925, that's $2,738.33 today. Construction of the 16' by 20' one-storey Cannery began in February 1922 adjacent to Payne creek which provided it with water. The Cannery was built by 17 volunteers and was ready for berry season that same year. 

Over the Cannery's lifespan two cooking methods were used to make its jam. The first method was the Timed Cooking Method used from 1922 to 1929 with this method. The jam would be cooked in large copper pots over an open flame. Once ready, it would be placed in cooling pans, which resembled large troughs with a valve on the end and stirred for a short time to cool. After, the jam would be packaged in 4 lb. tins, sealed, and labeled, then stacked in a pyramid to finish cooling. This method did cause some consistency issues in the jam.   

The second method was the Steam Cooking Method, introduced in 1930 and used till its closure in 1952.  This method, as the name implies, used steam from a steam plant built outside to pump steam into steam jackets wrapped around very large kettles. There the jam would be cooked to a temperature of 224 degrees Fahrenheit. It would then be cooled in the troughs and processed into tins like before. Perfecting this method of cooking was credited to Jake Hintsa.

The actual making of the jam would last until growing season was over. With the workers averaging 8-10 hour days on one shift. During peak times, like in 1931, they needed to have two shifts to make the jam. This was done in a building with no electricity or plumbing so all work was done by sunlight and coal oil lamps. ​

Now that you know about how the jam was made you might wonder where the berries came from? And since I can't publish half a blog I'll tell you! Berries for the Cannery came from all around Howe Sound. The Benns, Berdahls, Kullanders, and Rhodes families were a few of the larger producers although there were numerous smaller growers. Farmers would hire locals to help pick and clean berries before sending them to the Cannery, which only accepted the best berries to maintain its high quality jam. Once at the Cannery farmers would be paid 50% upon delivery and the rest at the end of berry season. 

So they now have everything they need to make jam so how did it go? Very well! For their first year of sales they sold their jam under the patented  "Four Square" brand. With this jam they entered the London exhibition and won the British Empire Trophy. Safe to say it was good jam. Their only problem was marketing it, as they lacked marketing skills and connections to market their product. During this time the W. K. Malkins company in Vancouver was contacted and became their wholesale distributor. They had to make some concessions, the biggest being that the jam would be sold under the "Malkins Best" label. However, Gibsons Landing was added onto the tin so people would know it was their famous jam. We have some recreations of these on display in the Museum so you can come and see them with your own eyes!

On a good year the Cannery could produce 5,000 cases, about 60,000 tins, meaning they made around 240,000 pounds of jam! That is a lot of jam. Of course, this wasn't every year but it shows just how much jam the Cannery was able to produce. 
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This award winning 4 lb. tin of jam would set you back $1.25, that is over $22 today! If that blew your mind then wait till you hear the wages. Some members of staff were contracted out for the season while others were paid 0.25 cents and hour... that's only about $4.46 today. Prices and wages would change with inflation and other factors but these early numbers show just how much prices have changed in almost 100 years.   

During the depression years the Cannery was a great source of employment and pride for the community.  It created work in the fields, at the Cannery itself, and in shipping which helped the community. The Cannery would continue to operate through the Great Depression and World War II.

The post-war boom would bring many changes to the Coast, resulting in there being a shortage of low-cost labour. This increased the cost on growers to the point it was no longer profitable to continue farming, causing a shortage of berries. These factors lead to the decision to close the Cannery at the end of 1952. The liquidation of the Cannery was complete on April 15, 1955 and each member received $24.57 for each of their $25.00 shares. 

Thanks for reading I hope you learned something new and I will see you at the Museum or on the next blog post about local theatre! 

Gavin 

Last summer I got the opportunity to go on one of Dale Peterson's historical walking tours and it was a great experience! (And I'm not just saying that because I work here) The tour took me and the group through Lower Gibsons stopping along the way to hear about the area and how it has grown and changed over time. Dale has a wealth of knowledge about the settler history of Gibsons. It was incredible to hear all the little facts and details about everything. For example when he told us that J.S. Woodsworth one of the men who founded what became the NDP lived with Dr Inglis at Stonehurst here in Gibsons. I would highly recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in local history to come and check it out. Unfortunately I didn't get the opportunity to go on the other two tours but I plan to hopefully fix that this summer! 

This summer we have been generously given a grant from Domtar Howe Sound Mill that lets the Museum run these tours for completely FREE!  So Thank you again Domtar for sponsoring these FREE tours.  

There are three separate tours that rotate each saturday:
SYIYAYA DAYS TOURS

SUNDAY, JUNE 22   |   Spoken Treasures Tour with Talaysay Tours
2:00pm - 3:15pm (arrive 1:45pm)
Starting point: Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives 
Register for Talaysay Tours here
Join beloved shíshálh cultural ambassador xets’emits’a Candace Campo & friends for an Indigenous cultural history tour of Ch’kw’elhp Gibsons. Talaysay Tours are well-known as being one of the leading Indigenous tourism operators in our region; Talaysay tours are not to be missed! 

THURSDAY,  JUNE 26  |  Ch’kw’elhp Living History Walk with ḵ’atxa’mat Fran Nahanee 
10:00am - Call 604-886-8232 to register (space limited)
Starting point: Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives
 Join ḵ’atxa’mat Fran Nahanee on a walking tour that explores Sḵwx̱wú7mesh culture and the history of Ch’kw’elhp Gibsons. With her Sḵwx̱wú7mesh ancestry dating back 9 generations to the village site of Ch’kw’elhp, Fran offers a wealth of cultural knowledge in her warm-hearted and engaging tours. During the walk, Fran will speak about Sḵwx̱wú7mesh history of the region, cultural protocol, plant-knowledge, and her own family connection to Ch’kw’elhp. 

SUMMER HISTORICAL WALKING TOURS

SATURDAY, JULY 5  |  SATURDAY,  JULY 19  
Walk Through Time with Dale Peterson 
10:00am
All Welcome; No registration 
Starting point: Pioneer Park, Lower Gibsons
Ending point: Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives 
Dale Peterson is a prominent settler historian from Gibsons with a vast knowledge of local history.  Join Dale for his popular walking tour that visits historic points of interest in Lower Gibsons, including Pioneer Cemetery, Stonehurst, Molly's Reach, and more.  Marvel at his historical insights and his personal anecdotes from a lifetime spent on the Sunshine Coast.  Call 604-886-8232 for more info 
            
SATURDAY, JULY 12 | SATURDAY, JULY 26  | SATURDAY, AUGUST 2 
Spoken Treasures Tour with Talaysay Tours
2:30pm - 3:45pm (arrive 2:15pm)
Starting point: Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives 
Register for Talaysay Tours here
Join beloved shíshálh cultural ambassador xets’emits’a Candace Campo & friends for an Indigenous cultural history tour of Ch’kw’elhp Gibsons. Talaysay Tours are well-known as being one of the leading Indigenous tourism operators in our region; their tours are not to be missed! 

Thanks for reading i'll see you on the next blog post. 

Gavin 
​
P.S. After this post goes up I will start work on The Gibsons Cannery Co-op blog :)

Back again Gavins back tell a friend. I'm back as the summer Museum Assistant! I am back for the summer from UVIC where im doing my BA in humanities. Over the school year I took quite a few history classes and learned so much! I even took a class on video game history believe it or not. Some of the themes and topics from that class apply to museum work! For example visual storytelling and interactivity are big parts of both museums and video games. My time away at school has only reinforced my passion for history and I'll be bringing the passion to work everyday to make sure visitors have the best experience possible.

​I'm excited to be back and I can't wait to get back to making interesting blog posts, filling out research requests, taking care of artifacts and greeting visitors! 

Some future blog posts to look forward to are one on the Howe Sound  Cannery, Historical Walking Tours and a few more surprise ones to be revealed later (I haven't thought of them yet). I'm looking forward to the summer here at the Museum and I hope you'll stop by to say hi and have a look around!  

​Hi everyone! Now that I have worked at the museum for a few months, it would be fun to share what I do as a summer student. When I first got the job, I didn’t realize how many little jobs were a part of my position. It was fun to do something new almost every day, but for this blog post, I will show you what I do on average!

​One of my most important jobs is uploading things to the museum’s digital archive, Past Perfect. When an item is donated to the museum, it must first be approved by the Acquisition Committee; once approved and given an ID number, the item or item is given to a staff member (Me!) to be uploaded to Past Perfect. After being uploaded, the artifact is displayed or stored for safekeeping. 

​Another big job is filling out research requests. When someone has a question about the history of the Coast, they can come in and fill out a research request form or email and call with their question. After that, we take the request, search the museum’s archives for information on the request, and send a report back to the person. Research requests can range from super specific questions like where the name of Davis Bay came from to more general requests about things like the Howe Sound Cannery. 

​One of the not-so-fun jobs at the museum is the end-of-the-day cleaning, specifically the bathrooms. However, it is an important job that has to be done (plus they are paying me to do it). The bathrooms are cleaned daily, and the whole museum is vacuumed, mopped, dusted, and swept at the end of the day on Sunday so it’s ready for guests on Tuesday. 

Im being held at artifact point off camera 

My most important job at the museum is greeting guests, which is also my favourite part of the job. It is so much fun to meet with and talk to people form around the world who are visiting the museum. 

I have also written a few blog post for the museum website. 

Gavin 

​With the recent announcement of the 15 new River-class destroyers for the Royal Canadian Navy, I decided to look back on what happened to the Navy’s old ships. It turns out that a surprising amount have been turned into artificial reefs! An artificial reef is a manmade structure that may mimic some features of a natural reef. With two on the Coast and another 7 artificial reefs of varying ships and one plane spread out around BC.  

​For this blog post I will be looking at the two artificial reefs on the Coast. The former HMCS Chaudière and HMCS Annapolis. These two ships were sunk by the Artificial Reef Society of BC (ARSBC). The ARSBC started in 1989 is a non-profit society and charity, with the goal of creating artificial reefs in BC and around the world by using decommissioned ships.The ships are stripped of all potentially harmful components and sunk. The sunken hulls of the ship create a habitat for marine life and an economic boost through tourism and diving. Since 1991 the ARSBC has sunk 8 ships and one Boeing 737.

​The first destroyer escort sunk by the society was the former HMCS Chaudière, a Restigouche-class destroyer escort commissioned into the Navy in 1959. The Chaudière was the second ship of its class, and would be assigned to the fifth Canadian escort squadron. She would be part of training with the US Navy off Nova Scotia and was then sent to be part of operation magic lantern, a NATO naval exercise off Gibraltar. After that, the Chaudière was sent to Esquimalt in 1967 where she was passed on for the Improved Restigouche Escorts (IRE), an upgrade to the vessel.  Due to financial constraints, the Chaudière was used as a training ship until 1974 when she was decommissioned and used for parts for the other ships in her class. That’s the reason the front of her bow is missing, as it was used to repair HMCS Kootenay in 1989. In 1991 she was sold for $1 to the ARSBC and sunk in the Sechelt Inlet in 1992.

​The other ship on the Coast is the former HMCS Annapolis, an Annapolis-class destroyer. The two Annapolis-class ships were originally going to be ships 5 and 6 of the Makenzie-class, but were converted to the helicopter destroyer specifications like the refitted Saint Laurent-class. The Annapolis was commissioned into the Navy in 1964 and would serve in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets throughout her career. In 1970, she would participate in celebrations for Manitoba’s Centennial Anniversary. Later on, she would become flagship of Standing Naval Forces Atlantic and for the next ten years,  participating in NATO exercises in the Caribbean and European waters. The ship would then under go the DELEX refit in 1985 and would return in 1987 where she would provide escort for the Royal Yacht Her Majesty Yacht (HMY) Britannia. In 1994, she would participate in Operation Forward Action, a United Nations operation off of Haiti. The Annapolis would be put into reserve in Esquimalt until she was sold in 1998 to the ARSBC and was sunk off Gambier island in 2015. 

Although both sinkings were successful, they weren’t without controversy. There was a large debate about the environmental impact of sinking a 111.6m warship in the Sechelt inlet and off of Gambier island, as there was concern about toxic materials in ships leaking out. Even with the controversy about there sinking both would be approved by Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans, and other governmental bodies. 
 
After the Annapolis was sunk, a study was launched to study the fish and other marine life in the area. The Annapolis Biodiversity Index Study (ABIS)  ran from 2015 to 2021 and used a team of divers to consistently check on the local marine life that had made the Annapolis their home. The study found that around 179 different species lived on the sunken ship. You can read the report here and more information on the ARSBC website here.

​Gavin 

​The next long-lasting event was the Sea Cavalcade which started in 1969 and would continue without pause until 2018, its fiftieth anniversary. Sea Cavalcade would happen over the course of three days And include many different events, as observed below, such as...

The most spectacular part of Sea Cavalcade was the Boat Blow-up where a boat was blown up in the Gibsons harbour, although it did not always go smoothly. The 1979 Boat explosio created a shockwave that destroyed windows in multiple homes and injured one resident. Despite this accident,  Sea Cavalcade and the Boat Blow-up tradition continued on for years to come.  

For many, many years, Sea Cav was run by a dedicated group of community volunteers led by Gibsons' beloved Conchita Harding. 

With Sea Cavalcade ending in 2018, new ideas surfaced on what to replace it with. In 2019 there was the Lantern Festival; but plans were put on hold by the Covid-19 pandemic. Now that the pandemic is behind us, there have been talks of starting something new with Oceans Fest, which is planned for the summer of 2025. We will have to wait and see how that goes as we look to the future of Gibsons summer celebrations! 

In the meantime, you can venture further up the Coast to celebrate Creek Daze in Roberts Creek, syiyaya Days in Sechelt, the Halfmoon Bay Fair, April Tools in Pender Harbour, and if you're feeling adventurous you could head out to the Powell River logger sports. 

Gavin 

Gavin 

​What’s in a name?  
The Skwxwú7mesh village sites of Ch’kw’elhp and Schenk are located near present-day Gibsons. Squamish stone artifacts dated upwards of 10,000 years before present represent a continuous occupation in the area, the southwest portion of their traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory. Examples of these belongings are featured in our collaborative exhibit: Kwekwinmut, Pieces of the Past. You can also see a map of the Squamish Nation territory with the Skwxwú7mesh Snichim (Squamish language) place names. 

When George Gibson pre-empted the area in 1886, he was the first European settler to do so. While many settler place names are often in honour of a person, according to Frank Wyngaert, “George Gibson, Sr. had referred to his particular location as ‘Howe Sound’.” (West Howe Sound Story pg.6) and the name change to Gibson's Landing was for a more practical reason. Since George Gibson was the first Post Master and had built the wharf, where the mail was collected, correspondence was addressed to reflect that. 

“If at that time one were mailing a letter to any of the recent pre-emptors, it would be addressed thus:

Mr. John Doe,
Gibson’s Landing,
Howe Sound, B.C.
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The inclusion of the names ‘Howe Sound’ were still being used by many as late as the 1920’s.” (West Howe Sound Story pg 7)

While Gibson’s Landing, Gibson’s, and Gibsons were often used interchangeably in the early to mid 1900s, the name and spelling Gibsons was approved on July 3, 1947. The Geographic Board of Canada approved this change after a letter was written to them from the Gibsons Board of Trade. The Board of Trade had announced their intentions in the newspaper previously.

According to The Gibson's Landing Story by Les Peterson, it was "in 1947 [that] local businessmen petitioned the Postal Department, and succeeded in having the name of the Post Office address shortened from Gibson's Landing to Gibsons."

​It was thought that the name "Gibson’s Landing" did not reflect the growth of Gibsons in the time since the first Post Office. At this time, it was the landing itself that seemed unnecessary. While some of the newspaper coverage mentioned that it was a nostalgic name, there was no documentation of push back against the name change from Gibson’s Landing to Gibsons. In fact, it was suggested that other local names such as Hopkins Landing should also be shortened. Even after the change was registered with the government, the Gibson’s Landing name appeared in print for some time. Including the apostrophe is an ongoing issue we still see today!