County News
Museum events
Walking tours among summer museum activities
County museums are gearing up to offer a number of events in the coming months as the summer season gets underway. There is virtual tour today [Wednesday] of the Indigenous history exhibit at Macaulay Church, which will be available for viewing on the Museum’s Facebook page. The celebration of National Indigenous History Month continues on June 23. “We will be hosting a virtual demonstration of traditional methods and tools related to grinding corn, and that will be presented by Janice Brant, who is a friend of the Museum from Tyendinaga Mohawk territory,” says assistant curator Jessica Chase. “Janice is a teacher, an artist, a beekeeper, and she has done demonstrations using a set of ancient grindstones that are housed here at Macaulay Heritage Park. In addition to these, we are running a series of walking events over the course of June, July and Au- gust that are really ways of getting people engaged with museums, but doing it safely.”
Indoor visits to museums are not permitted until Stage 3 of the province’s reopening plan, but outdoor events with up to 10 people are
allowed. Upcoming events at the museums will be limited to 10 people, but will also be live-streamed and available for viewing at any time. “We are re-introducing our Graveyard and Gallows tours, which will run on alternating Friday nights starting June 18, and people can either join us in-person or virtually,” says Chase. “Over July and August we will be running tours of different corners of the County. We have one in Fifth Town at the end of June. We will be starting at Rose House Museum and venturing down to the Rose House cemetery. We’ll also be doing a tour of Consecon on July 10, and Demorestville on July 25. We are calling these our PEC Past to Present walking tours.The idea behind this is we’re showing development in different parts of the County from where they were centuries or even millennia ago right up to the present day—how history has evolved here, how settlement has impacted the area. It’s also to get people out to parts of the County they might not otherwise see.” The final walk in the summer series is a walk starting from Macaulay Heritage Park with herbalist Tamara Segal of Hawthorn Herbals. “Tamara will be taking people on a walk through the conservation area and showing them what native plant species there are and how they’ve been used by the residents of the County for generations. Participants on that tour will be able to enjoy some herbal tea at the end of it,” says Chase.
Assistant curator Jessica Chase speaks about the history of Hadovka B&B during a walking tour of Wellington last Saturday. The building was originally known as Wildman’s Hotel when it was built in 1832.
There are a number of other events being planned, including a series of outdoor concerts. The Wellington Museum’s Heritage Garden is open to visitors, and there are picnic tables as well as four heritage benches so people can sit and enjoy their lunch while taking in the garden, which will be at its peak through the next three months. Thanks to the work of summer student Codi Goodman, the museums have a more active presence on social media such as Facebook and Instagram, and Codi has also helped with ironing out some of the bugs of using technology to record the virtual events. Chase is looking forward to leading the limited in-person outdoor events. “It allows us to engage on a more personal level, and I find that exciting,” she says. Those tours are a deliberate at- tempt to get people visiting some of the lesser known but still vibrant areas of the County. “Bringing the tours into a village that tends to be a bit quieter, and yet has so much to offer, so many stories to be told there, I think will be an interesting offering for people,” she says. “It recognizes the value of your own home before we venture out and market it to a wider audience. Certainly for Consecon we’ll be talking about the Indigenous history. Being right on the lake is a large part of that village’s story. I have a personal connection to that village in that the Hayes Inn, which now resides in Waupoos, was built by a relative of mine. The most important part of putting a spotlight on somewhere like Consecon is that I really don’t think that area gets its due in terms of the history on offer and the interesting people that have made it their home over the years.”
Details on these events, including times and ticket pricing, can be found at facebook.com/museumspec, and on Instagram at @thecountymuseums.
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