Museums that won't bore the socks off my six-year-old

As published in The Guardian, 12 Feb 2008

Editor:

The IRIS Group's public meetings on heritage offer hope we Islanders may re-invent ourselves when it comes to this mother of all motherhood issues.

Expect these meetings to present a bee-hive of sorts: There'll be a queen bee of heritage, bursting with self-importance; several drones, doing what they do best, namely, drone on and on; and worker bees, who've had too much to do with too little help, the heroes of Island heritage these 30 years.

To me, there already is a Prince Edward Island Museum. The Island's 30 small community museums and Museum and Heritage P.E.I. sites are its chapters, some poorly, some elegantly written, to be sure. The Mi'kmaq Cultural Centre on Lennox Island, the Acadian Museum in Miscouche, Basin Head Fisheries Museum, the Potato Museum in O'Leary, the Irish Moss Interpretive Centre in Miminegash, Green Park Shipbuilding Centre, the shrines to Maud Montgomery, Elmira Railway Museum, the Fox Museum and P.E.I. Sports Hall of Fame in Summerside, Orwell Corner Historic Village, present elemental chapters in our unfolding Island story. Meanwhile, hands-on sites such as Wyatt Heritage Properties enable us to experience how our Loyalist, Victorian and Edwardian ancestors worked and played.

No need then to build an over-arching Island museum, costing millions, to duplicate chapters that already exist. Nor do we need another white elephant such as we see pastured at Founders' Hall.

Rather, Islanders should ponder what chapters are lacking in this book of the Island. The greatest omission is a natural history museum, pulsating with the living, breathing creatures who've lived here over the millennia. A site such as this, championed by Dr. Tom Hall, Don Groom and others, would draw thousands every year annually to see, touch and feel what makes us Islanders. Infused with Sea World smarts, it will make money, not squander it.

In short, if we must build more museums, let's build museums that won't bore the socks off my six-year-old. For an Island that's given us wondrous kitchen table inventors from Abraham Gesner and Thomas B. Hall to Lloyd Ellis and Sonny Huestis, this shouldn't pose a problem.

Wayne Wright,

Summerside