October 2016 - Manitoba Museum

Posted on: Friday October 21, 2016

That’s right, boos and ghouls, Hallowe’en is right around the corner! And the History collection at the Manitoba Museum does not disappoint when it comes to its Hallowe’en artifacts. Let’s journey back to a time when homemade popcorn balls and plastic masks with tiny air holes prevailed…

Three vintage Halloween masks for children of characters like a pirate, or a monster.

Costumes

Elaborate costumes and accessories of today’s youth would shock the Trick-or-Treaters of yesteryear. While we don’t have any old sheets with eyeholes cut out by someone’s mum, we do have a selection of masks favoured by kids in the 1970s. Masks were often worn with matching plastic smocks and featured small eyeholes for reduced visibility and a layer of condensation on the inside from the wearer’s laboured breathing as they ran from house to house yelling “Hallowe’en Apples!”

Image: Children’s Hallowe’en Masks (H9-12-28, H9-12-29, H9-12-30) ©Manitoba Museum

Commercial Hallowe’en costumes were being produced as early as 1910, when Massachusetts-based Dennison’s began manufacturing costumes out of paper. This Dennison’s “Gypsy” costume was sold locally at the Ukrainian Booksellers and Publishers store, formerly Ruthenian Booksellers, on Main Street. The costume consists of a skirt, shawl, kerchief, and mask; all made from crêpe paper (so don’t forget to bring your umbrella!).

Images (below): Dennison’s “Gypsy” Party Costume (H9-16-44) ; Adult Woman’s Costume (H9-16-44 2) ©Manitoba Museum

A paper product bag for an adult size "Gypsy" party costume. The front of the bag shows a series of costume types that can be purchased including a clown, king, witch, and ghost.

Tricks and Treats

Trick-or-Treaters in 2016 can expect to find toothbrushes and miniature containers of Play Doh amongst the candy in their bags or buckets at the end of the night. In the 1970s, homemade treats and apples were still offered to neighbourhood kids making their rounds on Hallowe’en. A handful of sweet treats might be placed in small paper bags like the ones below.

Instead of sugary goodies, in the early 20^th century, a person could send their best Hallowe’en wishes to their favourite trick-or-treater with a seasonal postcard from the George C. Whitney Company, replete with jack-o’-lanterns and black cats.

Hallowe’en Treat Bags (H9-33-387, H9-33-388) ©Manitoba Museum

Hallowe’en Postcards (H9-36-240, H9-36-241, H9-36-242 ) ©Manitoba Museum

Plastic or paper, card or candy, the question remains, do you go in for the classic “Trick or Treat” or kick it old school with a sing-songy “Hallowe’een Apples”?

Happy Hallowe’en!

Cortney Pachet

Collections Technician – Human History

Cortney Pachet started working at the Manitoba Museum in 2001 as a tour guide while earning her a BA (Honours) from the University of Winnipeg. She quickly realized that she wanted a career in museums…

Meet Cortney Pachet

Museum Stories: Collections & Conservation

Collections & Conservation

Tuesday May 27, 2025

Posted on: Wednesday October 19, 2016

Guest blog by Rachel Erickson, Assistant Curator

For the past four months, I’ve been working at the Manitoba Museum on a project about contemporary migration, just one part of the large capital renewal project Bringing Our Stories Forward. My project involves researching all aspects of migration to Manitoba; why do people come to Manitoba, and from where, what sort of policies have existed over the years that encourage (or discourage) migration, how have people settled in, and what sort of challenges might they face upon arrival. One of the aims of the project is to collect oral histories about modern migration to Manitoba, and potentially collect new objects that can be added to the museum’s collection, in order to paint a more inclusive picture of the diverse communities that now live in the province.

In August, I hosted a series of “pop-up museums” at three shopping centres in Winnipeg: Garden City, Polo Park, and Portage Place. I took out five museum objects (some with their own interesting migration histories), and set up a mini exhibition. We brought along an interactive activity that asked the public, “Do you have a migration story in your family?” and asked visitors to share stories about their decision to come to Manitoba, their journey here, and what it’s been like settling in.

A family tells their story at Garden City.

Story board at Portage Place.

A notecard on a bulletin board sharing an emigration story of a woman who moved with her fromily to Canada from England in 1980. She tells of how they arrived in winter, and bought skates and learned to skate. She shares their surprise at the "modern" and "populated" prairies.

Over the course of a few days, we heard stories from all over the world – Somalia, India, England, Trinidad, Philippines, Nigeria, Kosovo, you name it! Unsurprisingly, a fair number of “winter arrivals” expressed their horror at the cold weather and the copious amount of snow. One of these new arrivals found that learning to skate was the most effective Canadian initiation.

There are many reasons why people leave home – some move for a job, or the hope of better opportunity, others move for university and then decide to settle, some are uprooted by war or political strife, others find love, or move to be closer to family. No matter the reason for movement, the people we spoke with all had fascinating stories to share about settling in, finding their way in a new place, and ultimately, feeling at home in Canada. I can’t wait to hear more.

If you have a migration story that you’d like to share with the museum, please get in touch! You can contact Rachel Erickson at the museum at 204-988-0685.

Image: A story by a woman from England who moved to Manitoba in 1980.

Museum Stories: History

History

Friday February 14, 2025

The New Hurtig Furrier Exhibit

The A. and M. Hurtig Furriers shop is a new exhibit in the Winnipeg 1920 Cityscape at the Manitoba Museum, featuring authentic fur accessories and furrier tools from the early 20th century. The exhibit includes…

History

Tuesday July 30, 2024

Chinese-Canadian History at the Manitoba Museum

The Museum has a rich collection of Chinese-Canadian artifacts that have been donated over many decades.

History

Wednesday August 9, 2023

The Devin Tri-Color Camera

The Manitoba Museum is no stranger to cameras in our collection. We care for 103 of them, to be exact…

A line of capped mushrooms at progressive states of development.

Late fall is when a number of interesting Canadian fungi produce mushrooms. Some are edible, some are smelly, and some are deadly. It was with great sadness that I read of the recent death of a 3-year old Canadian boy who ate a poisonous mushroom (click here for CBC article). It appears that he ate the most deadly species in the Amanita genus: the Death Cap (Amanita phalloides), shown in the photo to the right in various stages of development (image from Wikimedia Commons). His unfortunate demise serves as a warning to anyone who is interested in foraging for wild mushrooms: be absolutely, 100% certain of the identity of any wild mushroom before you eat it. For starters, this means investing in some good mushroom field guides and books, and familiarizing yourself with the parts of mushrooms (e.g. cap, gills, veil etc.). Then you need to learn to identify not just the edible mushrooms in your area, but also the deadly ones they could be confused with. When foraging, carefully examine and cut through every mushroom, dig up the base, cut the gills to see if any latex leaks out, and make a spore print (a process that can take a few hours). The North American Mycological Association has good instructions on how to make spore prints (click here for details), and lists some good books.

The fact of the matter is there are no reliable “rules of thumb” when it comes to identifying edible mushrooms. Many people mistakenly think that poisonous mushrooms are brightly coloured like the Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) but many Amanitas are white, creamy, or brownish. A veil on the stem and scales on the cap, other characters used to identify Amanitas, are not always present. Some mushrooms are edible only when they are young and cooked. However, cooking does NOT destroy all of the toxins in Amanitas. People may assume that poisonous mushrooms will taste bad, but the last words of a man who died of Amanita poisoning were reportedly “that was the tastiest mushroom I ever ate”. And you can’t trust squirrels either; they can reportedly eat Amanitas without dying. The fact is, to the untrained, it is easy to confuse an Amanita with a number of edible species such as Button Mushrooms (Agaricus silvicola), certain Milkcaps (such as Lactarius volemus), or Puffballs (Lycoperdon) especially when they are young.

The poisonous Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) is brightly coloured but not all poisonous mushrooms are. From Wikimedia Commons.

Young Amanita mushrooms may be confused with edible puffballs (Lycoperdon). Cutting through the center can help you differentiate one from the other.

A mushroom with a ridged, brown cap and a light-coloured stem lying on green moss.

Amanitas are not the only poisonous mushrooms in North America (although none are as deadly as them). Other potentially poisonous genera include: Clitocybe, Collybia, Galerina , Gyromitra, Inocybe, and some Russula and Lactarius species to name a few (see more here). Consuming alcohol with certain normally edible mushrooms (such as Coprinus) can also cause illness. Recent immigrants to Canada should be especially cautious when foraging as species that are poisonous here may look similar to edible species in their homeland. For example, the paddy straw mushroom (Volvariella volvacea) looks very similar to death caps, but the former species has pink spores while the latter has white ones. Paddy straw mushrooms are common in southeast Asia but are NOT found in Canada. Making things more complicated, there are a number of Amanita species that grow on other continents (including Africa and Europe) that are edible and could be confused with the poisonous North American ones.

Image: The poisonous False Morel (Gyromitra esculenta) has been mistaken for edible Morels (Morchella spp.)

One of the most common edible and prized mushrooms growing right now is the Honey Mushroom (Armillaria mellae). This species is actually a parasite on trees and is often found at the base of tree stumps. However, the similar Shaggy Scalycap (Pholiota squarrosa) grows in the same habitat but is poisonous, more so when consumed with alcohol (although usually not fatally) so pickers beware!

Honey Mushrooms (Armillaria mellae) are among the most popular edible fungi in the province. But beware the impostor…

…Shaggy Scalycap (Pholiota squarrosa) which looks similar but is poisonous!

Two phallic shaped mushrooms with thick cream-coloured stems and dark hooded tips lying on a white surface.

Another interesting inedible species growing right now is the extremely smelly stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) fungus. A Museum volunteer recently brought me some specimens of this species and it really stunk up the room. Many of my colleagues thought it smelled tasty but I found the slight undercurrent of rotting flesh to be a bit overwhelming.

Mushroom hunting can be a fun and rewarding activity, not to mention tasty. Some people even make their livelihood from collecting certain wild mushrooms, like Morels (Morchella). But it is not an endeavor that should be taken lightly, as a mistake can cost you your life. The only way to safely collect mushrooms is to know how to identify them. Be smart and be safe!

Image: These stinkhorn fungi (Phallus impudicus) really stunk up my lab!

Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson

Curator of Botany

Dr. Bizecki Robson obtained a Master’s Degree in Plant Ecology at the University of Saskatchewan studying rare plants of the mixed grass prairies. After working as an environmental consultant and sessional lecturer…

Meet Dr. Bizecki Robson