BARRHEAD - The Barrhead Centennial Museum is not your grandparents, great-grandparents, or great-great-grandparents museum.
More accurately, Henry Stel said the museum should reflect the community and region's history.
Regrettably, he said, the museum did not depict much of that history.
Stel is the treasurer of the Barrhead Historical Society, the not-for-profit organization tasked with running the museum. He also sits on the society's museum three-person curator subcommittee.
He gave the Barrhead Leader a personal tour on March 7.
Last spring, the society elected an entirely new board.
"When we took over, it was a pretty empty building in many respects, with not many items in the museum's possession actually on display," he said, adding that the new board found two rooms in the museum, chocked full of items. "We aren't sure why."
Stel said the society quickly decided more of the museum's historical items needed to be displayed.
The museum has three main exhibition halls: A, B, and C. The curator subcommittee also decided to coopt one of the former storage rooms for displays.
Stell said each of the exhibition halls will depict a different timeline.
Starting in Exhibit Hall A, the first hall patrons walk after entering the main doors, will include an Indigenous display from before contact with Europeans.
He said the curator subcommittee is working with people from the local Indigenous community, including Robin Berard, a Barrhead and Community Indigenous Committee member, which was formed about three years ago to help stage community First Nations-themed public events. Berard is a member of the Bigstone Cree Nation near Wabasca.
The main feature of the display will be a teepee set in front of a black-and-white nature silhouette mural.
Also in Exhibit Hall A is a display showcasing the journey the first European settlers took travelling the Grizzly Trail to settle the region.
"We're doing our best to ensure everything is as authentic as we can," Stel said. "We are not professionals, but some of us have or are taking courses, and we are researching using our historical knowledge and common sense."
In addition to updating the displays, Stel said, society volunteers, with the help of several businesses who donated materials, worked on spritzing up the interior of the building itself.
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"The building needs a lot of work," he said.
Stel added that the society has also created a dual-purpose board and reading room.
The room also hosts the museum's archives.
"There are lists of the people who have passed away in Barrhead for many, many years. We've had visitors come in and have been able to find their relatives because of those files," he said.
One of the more interesting finds, at least for Stel, was an antique clock.
Stel, an aficionado of antique clocks, estimated the clock to be over 100 years old, constructed between 1910 and 1920.
"This thing hadn't seen the light of day," he said, adding that after cleaning it up, he had attached the pendulum that adorns one of the museum office walls. "It runs perfectly."
In Exhibition Hall B, the society has recreated three displays or mini-facades connected by a hallway, showcasing what life was like for the early settlers. They've combined a telephone operator centre and a post office in the first room.
"Unfortunately, it is not a large building, and we only have so much room, and we have to utilize the space we have," he said.
Next door, there is a lawyer or business office and then a representation of a typical classroom.
In the classroom facade, there is a large map on the wall. Initially, the plan was to move it to another location, but then it was realized the map depicted all old Barrhead-area school districts.
"What we would really love is to have someone find us an actual blackboard," Stel said.
In an offshoot from the hallway, the society converted an old storeroom into a mercantile or general store.
"It is still a work in progress," he said. "We found these two beautiful antique display cases, put them on wheels with items an old general store would sell."
Eventually, Stel said, the hope is to find or build shelving and an antique counter to make it more like a store.
One item that they will add in due course is an old pot belly stove.
"People would often gather at the mercantile and gather around the stove and visit," he said.
Also in Exhibition Hall B is a display of items from local businesses, including several items from Barrhead Shoe, including the original store sign.
"Again, [the sign] was just sitting in storage," Stel said.
Another item in that display is a promotional picture from Jack's Retail Locker and Meats.
Located at the current Barrhead Ford site, it was a business where people could bring, for example, a side of beef or a Moose that had been butchered, and they would freeze and store it until needed.
Another item that will eventually make it into the display is an old wooden shingle made by a company in Vega.
"I don't know how many people knew there was a mill down by the river," Stel said.
In Exhibition Hall C, Stel said it was just "a large area with things seemingly randomly floating around" before updating the displays, so they turned it into a household with a parlour, bedroom, kitchen and porch.
"We wanted to give it a focus," he said.
Also in Exhibit Hall C is a mini display on the Roxy Theatre, highlighting an old cast-iron projector, a medical display and two wildlife displays, one with taxidermied animals local to the region and one from Africa.
The latter, he said, did not come without debate from the society's board, but in the end, they opted to have them remain.
"Plus, they are really beautiful," he said.
In the future, the museum will also have an antique firearms display.
Stel noted that all the work that society has done to date in updating the displays was completed with donated materials and volunteer labour.
"It is really impressive what can be done when a community comes together," he said. "I think we have created something here that will not only be of interest to the people of Barrhead but also to visitors.
Although Stel said the society has done a lot of work in a short period, there is still a lot to do if they want to be ready for the museum's grand re-opening for the community's Canada Day celebrations.
"That's our deadline."
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
