Door to Door - A Collecting Trip

Door to Door – A Collecting Trip

By Kathy Nanowin, past Manager of Conservation

The Manitoba Museum recently acquired a number of objects that add to an existing collection. The Wilson family collection of bottles and crocks is an extensive one, with over 1600 artifacts. The Wilsons contacted the Museum with an offer to donate a related collection of ceramic footwarmers and various Medalta ware. Curator Roland Sawatzky recommended we accept the offered items; the subject went to our Collection Committee, which approved it on the curator’s recommendation. Follow us now through the process of preparing for and completing the acquisition.

Photo of a mini van with the side door open, and file storage boxes stacked in the back of the van.

Preparation

 

We had been provided a list of items. Knowing the number was roughly 150, with 49 of those being ceramic footwarmers, I collected 35 “Banker’s box” size boxes. An intern, Megan Narvey, cut pieces of foam for packing and placed them in every box. She also cut up some extra bubble wrap for packing.

Two ceramic footwarmers wrapped in bubble wraps in a box.

Pickup

Three people were involved in the pickup: Curator Andrea Dyck (Contemporary Cultures and Immigration), acting for Roland, who was undertaking fieldwork; Nancy Anderson, Collections Assistant, Human History; and Megan Narvey, Collections and Conservation intern. We rented a minivan, and all the boxes fit into the back. Arriving at the donor’s house, the empty boxes were brought in, and packing proceeded. Luckily, all the objects were stored on shelves in one area in the basement, which made packing faster. The boxes were then loaded into the van, and staff returned to the Museum. The Deed of Gift forms had been signed at the house, so the objects were legally ours to take.

 

Image: Footwarmers packed in box.

Unloading and Unpacking

The boxes were put onto carts and brought into the Museum, into the elevator and up to the sixth floor History Lab.

A variety of Medalta pottery items including jars, bowls, and pitchers, arranged across two tables in a museum storage room.

Here is the Medalta ware unpacked in the History lab.

A few dozen Medalta pottery footwarmers - tube-shaped containers with blunt ends and a cork like stopper in the middle.

The footwarmers in the lab.

Next Steps

With all items removed from boxes, the next step is to process them. Each must be assigned a catalogue number and entered into the collection database. They also must be physically numbered, catalogued, photographed, and condition reported, before being put into their permanent storage location.

More than meets the eye

The actual collection trip took approximately a half day. However, the preparation took about the same amount of time, and the next steps will be far more time-consuming. With cataloguing and condition reporting, many entries can be cut and pasted, and the conservators can use a checklist to speed the process; however, I still anticipate that the processing of these 150 or so objects will take person-hours adding up to weeks of work!

Unless you work in a museum, most likely you have no idea of the details involved in collections work. The steps I’ve described are required for all new acquisitions. This is a glimpse into the day to day tasks the Collections and Conservation department staff tackle, although it’s just one part of what we do.

The Mineral Exhibit

By Dr. Graham Young, past Curator of Palaeontology & Geology

 

If you visit this page occasionally and have been wondering about when the next blog post would be forthcoming, well, I had been wondering that too. I have begun new posts several times, but in each instance my focus has been pulled away by the same all-consuming activity: my time has been taken up by the completion of a mineral exhibit. This past week, we finally did the installation, so I thought I had might as well set those posts-in-progress aside yet again. Here, instead, are some photos of the exhibit.

A dramatically lit display case with multiple levels showing off various mineral specimens.

Two individuals wearing white lab coats place specimen mounts in an open display case.

Collections specialist Janis Klapecki and designer Stephanie Whitehouse work on the final location of one of the plexiglas specimen mounts.

At the Museum we had long recognized that a mineral exhibit was one of the features most lacking in the Earth History Gallery. Minerals are the basic building blocks of rocks and other geological materials, we have a great diversity of minerals in this province’s rocks, and of course minerals are often beautiful objects that are treasured by many collectors.

For the past several years we have been collaborating with the Mineral Society of Manitoba to acquire specimens suitable for exhibit, and The Manitoba Museum Foundation and the Canadian Geological Foundation had kindly provided us with funding to construct cases. This exhibit is at the front end of the Earth History Gallery, where we only had space for a couple of cases, and the number of specimens and volume of text were quite limited, so this should have been a simple little exhibit project, no?

A large pinkish amethyst in a display case.

The giant amethyst now has its own gallery case (in the next post I will tell you how we got it there!).

A selection of placed or mounted mineral specimens against white backgrounds in a display case.

Beryls from eastern Manitoba (top), along with pyrites, feldspars, and base metal ores.

No. Things are never simple when you have to develop an exhibit from scratch. And in this particular instance our design and exhibit staff were working to develop techniques that we had not tried before.  We had examined mineral exhibits in many other places (both in-person and through photographs) and had decided that we needed dark cases with the light really focused on the specimens.

 

Image: The mid part of the case features a variety of minerals, including a Tanco rubellite (donated by Cabot Corporation) and samples of beautiful Michigan copper (the tree-like specimen was acquired and donated by the Mineral Society of Manitoba, John Biczok, and Tony Smith).

Stephanie Whitehouse, our designer, wanted to try working more with metal and glass on this case, and she asked the workshop to look at ways plexiglas could be prepared to allow it to glow. Bert Valentin considered new lighting options (though he eventually settled on fibre optics similar to those in the Ancient Seas cases) and Marc Hébert had to develop new techniques to build cases using different construction materials. Lisa May and Wayne Switek constructed specimen mounts that look simple but had to hold the specimens just so. And once all the pieces were constructed, it still took the team most of last week to assemble them and make everything fit. Dealing with the giant amethyst (now informally rechristened The Mammothist) was a big piece of this process, so big that I will give it its own post in the near future!

A millerite specimen - a moss like mineral of a dark colour.

This splendid millerite is from Thompson, source of some of the best examples of this unusual nickel mineral. It was acquired for the exhibit by the Mineral Society of Manitoba and The Manitoba Museum Foundation. (catalogue number M-3596)

A view of the entrance way into the Earth History Gallery, with a exhibit of the layers of the earth along the left side wall, and a dramatically lit new display case at the far end showing a selection of mineral specimens.

If you visit the Gallery you will still see the old exhibits between the mineral cases and Ancient Seas, but the space is starting to develop quite a different feel.

Close-up on the gallery name Earth History Gallery on the wall at the entrance to the gallery.

For the first time ever, the Earth History Gallery has a title!

Harry Finnigan

Harry Finnigan, founder and principal of McKay Finnigan and Associates in Winnipeg, is recognized internationally as a leader in downtown revitalization.

Born and raised in Winnipeg’s inner city, he has extensive experience in community economic development, policy development, urban and regional planning, and project management.

Harry overcame initial adversities in Winnipeg’s inner city with his steadfast educational development, culminating in a Masters of City planning from the University of Manitoba. Harry used his knowledge to unlock the potential in the Winnipeg downtown core area for the enrichment of all its residents.

Harry’s continued legacy of community development can be seen in the oil capital of Edmonton, America’s most livable city Pittsburg PA, and even the Republic of Botswana. In the early 90’s he was instrumental in developing the Downtown Winnipeg Business Improvement Zone which we now know as the Downtown Winnipeg Biz. During his tenure as Director of the City of Winnipeg, Planning, Property and Development Department he played a pivotal role in the development of downtown’s new residential neighborhood “Waterfront Drive”.  

Harry is currently channeling his drive and experience into his own highly successful consulting firm, providing community enrichment where it’s needed most. Being a donor to The Manitoba Museum since 2004 and a Museum Tribute supporter, Harry also officially adopted the first artifact from the Museum’s Adopt an Artefact program.

Harry is continuing in the altruism that has governed his professional life by sharing a very unique and personal artifact and Heirloom from the famous Sitting Bull. This unique treasure was presented to Harry’s Grandmother Ellen Inkster as a gift by Sitting Bull himself in thanks for her kindness to him.

As seen in the June issue of Features Online:

An open mounted necklace with numerous bear claws lining it.

Sitting Bull’s Bear Claw Necklace  –  An interesting memoire of a local man’s family history and their connection to Sitting Bull and a precious artefact on permanent display within The Manitoba Museum.

Following the battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, Sitting Bull led many of his people to safety within the Hudson Bay Company’s territory to the north, Rupertsland. Protected under the authority of Queen Victoria, and specifically the Northwest Mounted Police, he spent quite some time around FortQu’Appelle, in what is now part of Saskatchewan. That’s where he met my grandmother, Ellen Arabella Inkster, and my grandfather, Henry McKay.

Yes, I did say “grandmother” and “grandfather”! In some ways I’ve jumped a few generations as my grandfather was 47 years old when my father, Reginald Harold Stanley McKay, was born in 1903, and my father was 47 years old when I was born in 1950. It seems odd to be able to note that when my grandparents got married at Ft.Ellicein August, 1881, Sir Sam Steele, an historic figure in our country’s history, and then head of the North West Mounted Police, served as best man at their wedding.

In the 1960’s, my father wrote a short paper about the McKay family and their deep roots to the history of Western Canada. In it he mentioned that his father “soon learned to converse in the Sioux tongue and Sitting Bull told him much of his life story in the Northwestern States during those turbulent days. He presented my mother with his necklace of Grizzly Bear Claws, a symbol of authority only reserved for chiefs of high rank. In turn, my mother gave this relic to her uncle Sheriff Colin Inkster and at present I believe this is seen periodically in a glass case in the Winnipeg Civic Auditorium Museum”.

There are a few stories within the McKay family which have been passed down over the years about Sitting Bull’s necklace. They all affirm that it was given as a gift by Sitting Bull himself. One story has our grandmother sitting in the general store at Ft. Ellice when Sitting Bull walked in. She noticed the poor shape that his shoes were in so she offered him a pair of moccasins which she had made. He then gave her the necklace in appreciation of her gift. Another story suggests that the necklace was given by Sitting Bull as a gift for my grandparent’s wedding.

As chance would have it, in the early 1990’s I was invited to a small luncheon the purpose of which was to brainstorm ideas on how funds could be raised in support of The Manitoba Museum (then known as The Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature). Following the luncheon I mentioned to the then Director, that while through my family I was aware of a grizzly bear claw necklace in the Museum’s collection, I never had the opportunity to actually see it. I was encouraged to make arrangements to view the necklace through the Curator of the Native Ethnology Department at the Museum.

The viewing was organized for later that summer. I was joined by my sister Roberta McGillivary, her son Clifford, my wife Elvira, our son Shaun, and our friend (and photographer) Bill Eakin. We all followed up to the 3rd floor where the necklace was being kept in storage.

The white box containing the necklace was opened and voila – there it was! Roberta exclaimed: “That’s it, that’s it. I’ve heard so much about it! Can I try it on?” I turned to her and said: “Roberta, it’s a precious artifact, and this is a museum!” However, to my surprise the curator lifted the necklace from the box and gently placed it around Roberta’s neck. I immediately had this vision, or strange sense of a special moment from long ago – of Sitting Bull placing his necklace on my grandmother, Ellen Inkster. It was a powerful feeling and hard to explain.

Displayed below is the photograph of my sister Roberta wearing the bear claw necklace. After the meeting, I provided the curator with my father’s paper on the McKay family, as well as a few old newspaper clippings and other documents connecting Henry McKay with Sitting Bull reinforcing our interesting family history and connection of Western Canada.

“Every time I visit the Manitoba Museum, I make a point of going to the Parklands/Mixed Woods exhibit, where Sitting Bull’s Bear Claw Necklace is on permanent display. I am reminded of my grandmother and her connection to the iconic Aboriginal leader, Sitting Bull; and I think fondly of my sister Roberta who passed away on January 2, 2011. I am pleased to have been able to adopt this priceless artefact in her memory.”

Harry H. McKay Finnigan